Filmmakers Are Worried About AI. Big Tech Wants Them to See ‘What's Possible’

“You have to learn the fundamentals,” he says. “Technology will change, but storytelling won’t.”

To make his short, “Mnemonade,” really sing, Meta Puppet says he focused on giving the story some emotional heft. “I don’t think AI films will go fully mainstream until we get emotional dialog,” he says. He played all the roles in his short, about the poignance of sense memory and an elderly woman’s loss of memory, using AI from Silicon Valley “unicorn” ElevenLabs to shift his vocal performance into each character’s range and voice.

Maddie Hong, who went head-to-head with Meta Puppet in the Culver Cup finals, says that she understands Hollywood’s trepidation when it comes to AI. “There’s more potential for legal backlash and financial loss,” she says, referring to the danger of unintended (or even flagrant) copyright infringement during generation. The studios also have a “higher standard for image continuity,” Hong says, “given that they’re thinking about distribution on all types of platforms and screens.”

That being said, Hong agrees with people like Luma cofounder Amit Jain, who says that gen AI filmmaking could give the traditional studio system some flexibility in terms of budget and diversity of product.

“If you look at Hollywood today,” Jain says, “the majority of the high-budget productions are just recycling old franchises because it’s too tough to bet on a new idea or a new franchise .” It’s just safer, he says, to reproduce something than it is to imagine something new.

In Jain’s (admittedly biased) view, making more projects, even with lower budgets, means more people will work and more money will come rolling in. “I would actually posit,” he adds, “that people will actually have far better careers that are more fulfilling and long-lasting when they’re able to produce things that people actually do want to watch.” If there’s going to be any job loss in Hollywood because of AI, he suggests, the people who are going to go will be the ones most resistant to AI.

Recent research contradicts that notion. A survey of 300 entertainment industry leaders conducted earlier this year found that 75 percent believed gen AI had led to the elimination, reduction, or consolidation of jobs within their departments. It had also led to the creation of some jobs, but it was “not clear” if new jobs would offset jobs lost.

Other studies have examined how the VFX world in particular might be affected by more AI in production, with artists typically reporting interest or excitement around tools that could streamline their sometimes tedious workflows, but concern about the ethical and financial implications of the technology. While it would be cool, as Jain suggests, to team up with 11 of your friends to “make a feature film about a Boston Terrier that has superpowers” for relatively little money, it remains to be seen what effect the impact of sweeping AI availability will have on the industry as a whole.

For Meta Puppet, it comes down to skill, and who has it. “I liken gen AI to the piano,” he says. “Everybody knows about the piano. Not everybody is Mozart. Writing real masterpieces with AI, you have to wear a lot of hats, which is a good and a bad thing because if you have experience, that’s great. If you don’t, whatever you make is probably going to be bad.”