This time last year, much of Hollywood was unemployed, worried about artificial intelligence, and struggling through two strikes. This time this year, it seemed like just about everyone in Hollywood was in a production studio in downtown Los Angeles, learning how AI could be leveraged to make their next movie or TV show.
The occasion is the second annual “AI on the Lot” conference, which drew 850 registrants Thursday to Los Angeles Center Studios, where attendees can take advantage of a theater and meeting center, as well as a nearby sound stage equipped for virtual productions. We sat down and discussed the main points. Workflows, opportunities, and headaches caused by rapidly growing new tools.
“I feel like I'm way behind,” said Josie Kaye, a longtime Grandlings performer who also works as an actor, screenwriter, and cinematographer. “I started using AI in January. I know people who have been using it for a year.”
Kay said she has been using AI tools to create social media content and music videos. It also includes an impromptu rapper's lyrics about a man eating a pineapple that would have otherwise been difficult to explain on video. In the wake of the writers' and actors' strike, more and more Hollywood professionals are creating work like Kaye and exploring the potential of AI.
“There's some hesitation with optimism,” said Megan Keene, Adobe's professional video and film product marketing director and former film director. “It’s important that all creative fields are aware[of what AI can do]especially if we are to come out of the strike. But the reality is that creators are hungry to be creative. If you work really hard with experts, you can be very optimistic about how much they can produce.”
Many others at the conference demonstrated increasingly sophisticated uses of various AI tools on stage and in various conversations.
AI is already transforming many industries, from agriculture to manufacturing, healthcare to retail. But in entertainment and media, a plethora of potentially useful programs have emerged in recent months, many of which are rapidly updated and iteratively improved, said keynote speaker I2A2 Technologies, Labs and Studios. Leonard Jenkins, president and CEO of Mr. Jenkins is a former executive at Warner Bros. and PBS and is president of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, a technology standards organization.
Winner of the AI filmmaking competition at the AI on the Lot conference.
Jenkins said fashion and other types of still photography (excluding those shot at live events) are already disrupted, and so is 2D and 3D animation. Significant changes are currently occurring in other areas as well. The most well-known general tools such as Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Open AI's ChatGPT are widely used.
Adobe's
adobe
Keane said Adobe aims to “take away all the things that creatives don't want to do and empower them to be the most productive they can be. I know creatives are scared, but there's a lot that AI can do to help them get their creative time back.”
On the other hand, many startups offer specialized features such as video resolution upscaling, audio cloning, video and audio matching, and sound effect creation.
According to one attendee, the industry is currently in the third phase of the AI era and is figuring out how to make all these programs work together to create authentic programming. As Jenkins and others detail, creators have a lot of options.
“[Viggle 2.0]has been around for a few months now, and it's really changing the way we create still images,” Jenkins said. “It gives you a chance to see what the piece you're working on is going to be. This is probably one of the tools that will help you join the (AI) party.”
AI on the Lot panelists watch Mortal Kombat-themed scenes from “Our T2 Remake.”
3 out of 50 filmmakers who have created films in our T2 remake, an ironic “remake” of terminator 2 (The trailer is available on YouTube and at: t2remake.com) said they utilized a variety of video tools. The list included Leonardo.AI, Pika Labs, Runway, music creator Suno and his MusicBed, lip sync tool SyncLabs and his D-ID, sound effects Envato, voice generator Celebrities, and more .
“I learned a lot,” said Matthew Wenhardt, who calls himself an “AI generation filmmaker.” In creating a segment for the T2 project, he said, “This was my first (AI-stylized) video. It will definitely change the flow of my work. will be translated.”
Deconstructing a widely distributed Sora.ai video clip of a Dalmatian puppy climbing from window sill to window sill, Jenkins said: Animators can use the same image to make the way the dog walks look more realistic. ”
That said, Sora, owned by OpenAI, has already been updated in the months since its public release (still in beta and not widely available) and has improved its ability to create realistic movements. Jenkins said it has improved dramatically.
“When you look at how far they've come with Sola, it's mind-boggling and terrifying,” Jenkins said.
Also, not all conference attendees were optimistic about the potential impact of AI on their field of creativity.
Director David Slade made this highly influential film interactive. bandersnatch Netflix episodes
Netflix
“What I found very lonely about this process was not being able to involve the actors,” Slade said. “I've spent years and years and years (as a director) explaining to people what I want. I'm getting what I want. It's like my work. But I would love for actors to… I would like you to participate.”
The potential loss of creative collaboration with actors and others is an important issue that should not be taken lightly, especially for an industry that has relied on the ineffable alchemy that drives so many great works. No, he said.
Other participants expressed concern about the inevitable job losses as AI enters the industry in earnest.
“Those are all delusions,” said a 32-year-old TV writer who listened to a session on the potential of large-scale language models for AI. The TV business is already struggling, with traditional cable and broadcast networks cutting back on scripted programming or shutting it down entirely, while streaming services are cutting spending on new programming.
ChatGPT and other text-centric AI tools can quickly generate scenes, software code, dialog, and even prompts for text-to-video and other types of software. That could eliminate mid-career jobs in writers' rooms across Hollywood, making it difficult to train the next generation of showrunners, said the writer, who declined to give his name.
Her concerns echo those raised by many last year when the Writers Guild of America successfully pushed for a new contract guaranteeing minimum staffing levels for TV writers' rooms. Even with such protections, many in Hollywood's creative class continue to feel both elated and anxious.