Why I'm Starting A Newsletter on AI & Film
Even though most filmmakers seem to hate AI. (Plus a favorite—very trippy—AI filmmaker. And a gif of a cute baby animal).
Oh, hi! Welcome to the inaugural Film Robots newsletter—your friendly neighborhood missive about AI & film.
So…a lot of filmmakers are hating on AI these days. The other week, I was at an event geared towards filmmakers where they screened a handful of short films. At the end, one of the hosts said, “You know what all of these films have in common? NONE OF THEM COULD HAVE BEEN MADE BY AN AI!” Cheers filled the room. Around the same time, SXSW audiences loudly booed videos touting AI.
I get it. It’s been a (really) shitty year for the industry. There’s a lot of fear about AI taking even more jobs, leading to even more contraction. So why am I writing a newsletter about film and AI?
First: quietly, a lot of filmmakers are already using AI—sometimes without realizing it. I don’t think AI is something we can boo out of the room. It’s already here. That handy auto transcription Premiere rolled out last year? AI-powered. Trint? AI-powered. DaVinci face refinement/retouching? Magic Mask selection across multiple popular imaging/video applications (Photoshop, DaVinci, etc)? They are all AI. I’d guess a lot of the filmmakers that booed AI at SXSW had probably worked on a project that used AI, whether they knew it or not. The ones that haven’t probably will in the next year, especially given this week’s news that Premiere will be integrating more AI-powered plugins that allow users to extend shots, add/remove objects, and more.
More importantly, I believe that, to quote Trei Brundrett, “Generative AI is an epochal development—less like social media and more like the advent of the internet itself.” This quote comes from a CJR article titled “AI is a big opportunity for the news media. Let’s not blow it,” much of which is very applicable to the film industry as well. Comparing the rise of the internet to the rise of generative AI isn’t a perfect parallel, but I think it’s a helpful one, in that trying to avoid using AI in our film work may—in 5 years—look a little like trying to avoid using the internet. We can try to resist—risking being left behind, and hindering our ability to shape its inevitable future in our industry. Or we can be early adopters, paving the way on how to use it most effectively, creatively, and ethically. To find the ways it can empower us.
I don’t want to minimize the challenges and dangers AI poses to the film industry and to artists and filmmakers, and I’ll dive into some of these in future newsletters. But in a world in which most filmmakers and spaces for filmmakers are talking about these (very real) challenges and fears, I particularly want to highlight spots of hope: the ways we can be empowered with these new tools, saving time or making work we wouldn’t otherwise be able to make. The companies working on ethical generative AI that pay all the artists whose work was used in their models (yes, it’s a thing). As Brundrett argues, “This isn’t only about efficiency and automation that will be valuable [...] it’s also a moment of profound empowerment in the information age.”
And on a personal level, I’m really invigorated by this space. I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve enjoyed playing with various AI tools (including Midjourney, DALL-E, Kaiber, Runway, and Stable Diffusion/ComfyUI) for creating photos and videos. And I’ve been legitimately blown away by how quickly these tools are improving.
Finally, I’ve been inspired by some of the work I’ve seen using AI in big ways, particularly the work incorporating AI-generated visuals. Right now, it seems few and far between, and hard to find—which is a big part of the inspiration of starting this newsletter: to showcase AI-powered work that will inspire you. That leads me to this week’s…
Paul Trillo is one of my very favorite filmmakers working with AI. His use of AI is creative and forward-thinking. And his films are beautiful, whimsical, and thought-provoking. This moving, animated GoFundMe commercial he made in late 2022 was one of the first video/film pieces I saw using AI that made me stop in my tracks and want to use AI more in my own filmmaking. Of the piece, he writes, "When I was younger, I always dreamed of creating an animation out of paintings but the scope and feasibility were beyond me. The hope here is to use AI not to replace the old way of doing things but to open up new creative and storytelling possibilities." Since then, Paul has also used generative AI to make trippy music videos, trippy cloud videos, and most recently, a trippy video with Sora (I guess trippy is his vibe).
Speaking of Sora (which, ICYMI, is Open AI’s new buzzy video tool—currently only available to select creators like Paul) last week, Paul was on my favorite tech podcast, NYT’s Hard Fork, talking about his experience using Sora and film & AI more generally. His interview starts around 24:30. Enjoy!
That’s all for today! Here’s your cute baby animal gif of the day (which is how I’ll end every newsletter):
See you in a week or two (I’ll aim to send this out every 1-2 weeks).
xoxo,
P.S. Obviously, this is a new newsletter! Would love any feedback. Just hit reply to this email.