Should filmmakers fear AI?
My first blog article for this website is long overdue, but here it is. I feel compelled to share my thoughts, opinions, predictions, and feelings about what we are referring to as AI these days, so I’ll start with this!
As a filmmaker and editor, I have embraced Large Language Models (LLMs) ever since they came into the forefront of media talking points. Content creators are constantly at odds with the demands of creating videos at a consistent and fast pace, while at the same time ensuring quality. We have to master all aspects of filmmaking: research, writing, cinematography, lighting, editing, effects, audio mixing… the list goes on! As these tools have become more available, they have enabled us to be so much more productive and create more content than we have ever had before.
As someone who browses social media on a fairly frequent basis (I know, I know, I need to cut back), the algorithm has figured out that I am a filmmaker and therefore inundates me with ads and content geared towards my interests in this field. Naturally, I frequently see these posts from creators on X (formally Twitter) partaking in engagement farming with AI-generated videos with captions that claim things along the lines of “Hollywood is so cooked!” The insulation being that these tools are getting so good that they will replace every aspect of filmmaking in the industry.
If you study social media and marketing in general, you eventually find that a powerful human emotion that drives engagement is fear. As humans, we instinctively search out threats, something ingrained in our nature from the dawn of man. It’s a natural tendency and has the ability to keep us alive. But on the flip side, it also causes us unnecessary anxiety as we consume far too much information posted on pretty much all platforms out there. This is why political commentary on platforms like X and YouTube is so popular. No matter what someone’s political affiliation is, we have all been led to believe that whatever the other side of what we believe in is doing, it is something we need to be terrified of.
These posts about AI being so good that people’s jobs will be eliminated by a computer tap into people’s fear about becoming irrelevant in industries they love to work in, filmmaking being one of them.
I love film, always have. It has taken me a long time to build a portfolio and find myself in a place where I am working in a field I am passionate about. So when I see that there are tools that could “end my career,” my lizard brain kicks in, and I just have to satisfy my curiosity.
The examples these posts show are incredibly impressive, and wherever they fall short, we are promised in the comments sections that things are only going to get better, that one day there won’t be any filmmakers, scriptwriters, or actors, just people typing prompts into an application to generate entire movies. This vision of a future where people can generate their own movies rather than watching and appreciating— or disliking— the creations of others, I find pretty sad and dystopian.
Film is art, and appreciation of art is inherently human. As much as technology is helping creators create more than they would before, I like to believe that these tools won’t go beyond assisting storytellers rather than replacing them. Right now, although there may be a time in the future when machines can create a complete movie or TV show, we are still yet to see if anyone would actually watch it. Yes, it will be viewed on a large scale to begin with due to the novelty, but will it go beyond that?
I remember when every other movie released in the theaters had to be in 3D because of the novelty of that technology at the time, but now it is rarely even talked about.
However, we are still in a period where we do not know what the future holds with regards to this technology. This uncertainty is why we have that sense of fear triggered when seeing this content right now.
The other thing that we need to be mindful of when it comes to seeing these “insane creations” is that, like many things on the internet, they are showing the very best and not the process it takes to get there. As what is starting to be referred to as an “AI Filmmaker,” I know that there are times when you have to go through dozens of generations and regenerations to get the results we are seeing these people share. Although what we are seeing is impressive, it is by no means at a stage where it is perfect in every creation.
So although these tools are amazing and at the same time a little terrifying, it is important to not allow ourselves to get carried away by what people are showing us. We should embrace these tools from a productivity standpoint, but we shouldn’t let stand-alone generations from LLMs be considered art anymore than a random piece of footage shot on a smartphone is. We should also be mindful about how we respond when seeing this technology displayed as we still don’t know what the future holds for entertainment.
