While in theory you're right - AI tools can "democratize" filmmaking - what will make them unique? There was another anecdote, someone saying "this AI can generate 30.000 screenplays in a day!". Which is cool but... who is going to read them?
In theory (idk it probably exists already) you can generate a script and feed it into an AI that generates a film. Novelty aside, who is going to watch it? And what if you generate a hundred films a day? A thousand?
This probably isn't a hypothetical scenario, as low-effort / generated content is already a thing, both writing, video and music. It's an enormous long tail on e.g. youtube, amazon, etc, relying on people passively consuming content without paying too much attention to it. The background muzak of everything.
As someone smarter than me summarized, AI generated stuff is content, not art. AI generated films will be content, not art. There may be something compelling in there, but ultimately, it'll flood the market, become ubiquitous, and disappear into the background as AI generated background noise that only few people will seek out or watch intentionally.
Do you know how many dreamers and artists and great ideas wither away on the vine?
How many?
Movies are going to be like books today.
People are already creating movies with $1k cameras that look good enough to distribute. A lot of them are horror movies because of the budget and most of them are terrible with huge glaring mistakes in editing, pacing, framing, etc. but they can still make money.
And you don't have to obey some large capital distributor and mind their oversight and meddling.
How many movies have you worked on?
Most experienced executives can help guide priorities and make sure there aren't any big overlooked problems.
> People are already creating movies with $1k cameras
Nobody wants to make an iPhone movie. They want $200k glass optics and a VFX budget like Nolan's or Villeneuve's.
I'm tired of people from outside the profession telling us we should be happy with quaint little things. That's not how the ideal world works. In the ideal world, everyone can tell the exact story in their minds and not be beset by budget.
My imagination is my ideal world. I won't listen to naysayers, because you're so far behind my dreams.
If this wasn't about to be practical, I'd relent. But the technology works. It's tangible, usable, and practical.
I've been saying that on HN since Deep Dream. My friends in IATSE also called this crazy. It's not. It's not just coming, it's here.
> A lot of them are horror movies because of the budget
Tell me about it. Been there, done that. It sucks to be so creatively stifled when what I wanted to make as a youth were fantasy movies like Lord of the Rings.
I got creative. I did mocap and VFX. It still wasn't what I dreamed of.
> How many?
Film school attendance is over 100,000 students annually. Most of them were never able to land a high autonomy role or be able to follow though on their dreams. I know hundreds of people with this story.
> A lot of them are horror movies because of the budget and most of them are terrible with huge glaring mistakes in editing, pacing, framing, etc
Sound. Sound is the biggest thing people fuck up. But the rest are real failure cases too.
> Most experienced executives can help guide priorities and make sure there aren't any big overlooked problems.
They're not as important as you think. They're just there to mind the investment.
When the cost of production drops to $30k, this entire model falls apart.
Studios were only needed for two things: (1) distribution, (2) capital. The first one is already solved.
In theory (idk it probably exists already) you can generate a script and feed it into an AI that generates a film. Novelty aside, who is going to watch it? And what if you generate a hundred films a day? A thousand?
This probably isn't a hypothetical scenario, as low-effort / generated content is already a thing, both writing, video and music. It's an enormous long tail on e.g. youtube, amazon, etc, relying on people passively consuming content without paying too much attention to it. The background muzak of everything.
As someone smarter than me summarized, AI generated stuff is content, not art. AI generated films will be content, not art. There may be something compelling in there, but ultimately, it'll flood the market, become ubiquitous, and disappear into the background as AI generated background noise that only few people will seek out or watch intentionally.