Are AI productions really videos ?

[Geof Caudwell]

The question is with regard to movies produced entirely by AI. AI is a great tool for producing images that would be impossible otherwise, and these can enhance a video production.

However, with AI no camera is used to create images, so they are all artificial even though they may appear very realistic. Narration is also artificially produced. Is that any different from using archive video ? Would a video made up entirely of archive footage be acceptable ?

Can an AI production be judged on camerawork, acting, narration, photography or even the script if that has been produced by AI as well.

If AI productions are acceptable as video or AV entries, should they not be in a separate category from conventionally made entries ?

Please discuss !

[ned c]

I assume an AI production would be initiated and entered into a Festival by a human and visually would appear not very different to a CGI production. My view is that AI would be acceptable but in a specific category; I have always believed that animations should be in a separate category from traditional films. In a Festival where selection is based on comparisons then entries should be assigned to specific genre; how do we compare a run and gun documentary with a very controlled narrative film?

Given the uproar surrounding Tilly Norwood this is a debate that has just got started; I have used ChatGPT for script ideas which have then been developed but the AI help was important; should I declare this in my credits?

ned c

[Martin Evans]

(In case you missed it - my thoughts on this as they appeared in the October FVM)

Now, I have to be careful how I write this piece as I don’t want it to come across as sour grapes...
But there is now an elephant in the room, a bull in the proverbial china shop, a trump in the White House so to speak. I’m talking about the increasing prevalence and market share of AI within the production of our films.
There are plenty of inventions throughout the history of mankind that were going to change everything. And, to a large extent, they did: the Gutenberg press massively amplified the voices of early scribes; electricity itself gave us light, heat, and the Corby trouser press. Then came the personal computer – multiply that by Moore’s law of exponential development and you get the greatest game-changer ever, as neural networks, fed on the output of everything every human had ever written, composed, or drawn, started to spit it all back at us – on demand.
Just as IBM’s Deep Blue computer now never loses a game of chess to a human opponent, AI-generated films are starting to win our competitions too. “Well,” you might say, “it’s progress – just a change in methodology. What’s the fuss?” We used to shoot our films onto photo-sensitive celluloid, wait for it to come back from the development labs, moan that it didn’t come out as good as we’d hoped but edit it anyway in a splicing machine. Then it all quickly bypassed the video tape era - thank goodness - and it all became digital and we could NLE our footage. Progress all the while towards something else doing the bulk of the work. Now, though, AI has come so far that we can now type in an instruction “make me a film” and it will do the rest, And you don’t even have to type it in, you can speak your instructions (the entire process simplified for emphasis and poetic licence).
Because every mote of information that AI has fed upon during its development and learning process has been harvested from real human beings, what it regurgitates back at us is its approximation of human art. The entirety of human creative enterprise divided by the number of creators whose work it consumed:
H / C = AI
An average if you like.
AI never wet itself in front of the whole assembly at school, had it’s mum die young or got dumped on its wedding day. It can only approximate human pain and emotion. It is missing that fundamental grasp of what it is to live a life as a fragile, wet inside, biological human being.
Not only that, but any film that AI presents to you according to your instructions will probably be immaculately exposed, focus pulled, bokehed to death and unlikely to need colour grading. It will be edited perfectly and the sound levels will be just spot on and every shot will likely be perfectly framed. It’ll even sing the bloody theme song for you if you like. And in perfect pitch and in any style.
So when AI films come up against those made where somebody pointed a camera at someone else and shouted “Action” we have to realise this is not such a level playing field any more.
I have a friend, GWD - a poet of some renown - whose heart sank visibly when I showed him a poem that I got AI to write in his own style – even the killer last line could have been his.
It’s not going away any time soon. I could put my foot through my laptop screen and say enough’s enough. But it will go on without me. I’m delighted that many of the *cough* senior members of this society are embracing AI. Especially those who no longer make it along to their clubs. I have another friend who is 94 and he’s never off the damn thing. It has become his companion as all his mates (except me as we go to press) have died.
And I love some of AI’s quirkier output. Club Cranium produce stunningly surreal steampunk and Pillart AI’s output has me in thrall.
And call me clairvoyant but I foresee an excellent article by Larry Hall in the next issue of FVM about getting to grips with AI as part of your film making and about how much effort it actually requires. Larry is well known for making the most of this technology and it was his film “What If” (page 28) that deservedly won the recent Midsummer Challenge competition that prompted this train of thought in the first place.
By coincidence, My non-AI film came fourth... Pass me a grape please. One of those little sour ones.

Our letters page is poised and waiting for your right to reply on this subject.

[Geof Caudwell]

As AI video is produced from what it has learned from previous productions, then it is effectively archive video, and not the original work of the AI film maker.

It would be interesting to see the comments of judges who have reviewed films which have been made using AI alone. There would be very little to comment on, as the film maker may have had very little to do with most creative aspects of the film, except perhaps requesting the AI software to produce something !

Is it really progress ? Are we losing creative satisfaction ?
Is the object of film making just to produce something entertaining, however that is achieved ? Maybe it is for the commercial cinema, where profit making is the main objective.

I suppose there is one positive aspect in that more people may take up this hobby, because AI will make videos easier to produce.

[James Mitchell]

Until the advent of AI, Whatever technology was used to create a film merely followed the bidding of the film maker and empowered them to realise their vision.

With AI, however, the technology dictates what that vision is to be and as such wrests authorship away from the film maker.

The individual doesn't so much make a film (or anything else for that matter involved with AI) but is reduced to a spectator passively watching it being made.


James Mitchell

PS: Perhaps we could also have an AI-generated audience so we don't have to bother with people to watch the finished product?

[Geof Caudwell]

Yes, James. That sums it up very well.

[Dave Watterson]

If you shoot a landscape ... you did not craft the hills, rivers and plants.
If you film people ... you probably were not involved in all of their births.
If you create a story for your film ... was it all original, or borrowed from tales you have heard in the past.

What we do have power over is the images we choose and how we present them to the audience. The sounds and music we choose to accompany the images.

THERE IS VERY LITTLE IN THIS WORLD THAT IS TOTALLY NEW.

And as someone raised the question of archive material: there are a few film which consist purely of such material which have been accepted in festivals (including BIAFF) some of which have won awards.

[James Mitchell]

I may not have made the landscape... but I choose which landscape to shoot
I may not have made the people... but I choose who to, ahem, procreate with
I may not be 100% original when it comes to authorship... but I choose what to write

I get to make the decisions, and therefore can claim authorship over a film, or anything else I do for that matter; my creative input doesn't start and end with pushing a button and waiting for a machine to choose what I should do and how I do it.

[ned c]

As professional cinema staggers against much opposition; (actors, writers, cinematographers etc.) into a world of AI generated features and TV mandated by the money people perhaps at last amateurs will be the true keepers of honest film making.

As I watched Tilly Norwood; an early AI generated person then it became clear that this version was very convincing and given the speed of technology would only become even more convincing and this will prove irresistible to the accountants. Filling the hours of TV is a challenge and the initial emergence of AI channels will get us accustomed to the AI world before it takes over.

Compare a 2000s car manufacturing process with that of the 30s/40s where are all the people? Remember when newspapers were composed by specialist in metal typesetting? Professional film making is an expensive process and serious cost saving will win in the end. It make take a few years but it will become AI.

So; over to the amateur film makers and a bright future for live theatre!
ned c

[Martin Evans]

I love the idea that we are the true gate-keepers of ye olde filmmaking.