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- AI: A World of Pure Imagination
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AI: A World of Pure Imagination
I wasn’t going to double dip on AI-posting, but this recent Hollywood Reporter article titled “Rise of the Machines: Inside Hollywood’s AI Civil War” was too good to pass up!
“Too good” is used pejoratively here, as it marks yet another item in my ongoing AI+Industry series I call “Any Details???” Once again, AI boosters are allowed to breathlessly wishcast things they predict their AI products will do, which the reporter in turn studiously writes down without asking any followups.
Here’s a great example, the stance of the article in brief:
The filmmakers poring over AI see in this fresh tech a kind of efficiency transformation that gives the whole enterprise new utility, the way the cellphone didn’t just improve what Alexander Graham Bell had devised but changed the nature of communication itself. “We can do things faster and cooler than ever,” Patterson says. “And the best part is we don’t even know yet what it can do.”
Two things: first, I would argue it was the smartphone specifically that “changed the nature of communication itself,” not simply the cellphone. The cellphone just meant I could get berated by my Aunt Joan in a Blockbuster Video because they didn’t have any copies of Titanic available (because the movie was still in theaters and hadn’t been released on video yet).
The smartphone wasn’t just a super-powered phone, it was the combination of previously-disparate tools of communication in one portable package. Your camera, computer, phone, and Internet access were all bundled together, and you didn’t have to imagine what uses it could have, they were clear from the start!
Secondly, “And the best part is we don’t even know yet what it can do.” Huh? If you don’t know what it can do, why are you bragging about it? This is where the smartphone comparison really breaks down. When Steve Jobs presented the iPhone, you knew exactly what it could do! Can you imagine a Jobs keynote done in that style? He says “One more thing,” the iPhone gets wheeled out, Jobs spreads his arms and intones “We have no idea what this thing does. Something cool, we predict! But who knows? Not me!”
Instead, what the AI insurgency could yield is a different kind of creation. There’s a radical thought that AI cinema will help the film world conjure not just scenes but people — “digital humans” that will look and move like real actors without any of the pesky concerns of a bad day, or residuals. If that were to happen, our films would change in unthinkable ways. Humphrey Bogart could be acting opposite Selena Gomez. New actors we’ve never heard of because they’re not people at all could win Academy Awards.
I feel like I’m having a stroke, and not just because of the suspicious ChatGPT em dash in there. This is not reporting! You’re making shit up and saying “Imagine if this thing happened, wouldn’t that be amazing?” Well sure, but does the current AI technology available do these things? Like, can it currently create digital humans? All actual reporting I’ve seen seems to indicate it struggles mightily with consistency.
So what is the point of this breathless speculation? “If that were to happen” is doing a ton of work. I could say this about many things in my life, it doesn’t make it likely, or even possible. Conceivably I could go to law school. “If that were to happen,” I might become a very rich and successful lawyer. But… is it going to happen? Most likely not!
Let me demonstrate how insane this type of writing is when it’s not applied to tech:
“There’s a radical thought that buying a leather jacket will help Steve the Hollywood Tech Nerd conjure not just looks but a vibe — “a cool, dangerous stud” that will look and move like he rides a motorcycle without any of the pesky concerns of owning a motorcycle, or learning how to ride one. If that were to happen, Steve’s life would change in unthinkable ways. Selena Gomez could be attracted to Steve. Steve could be invited to awesome parties and spoken of in hushed, respectful tones.”
Do you see how stupid and useless this is? Anyone can write down imaginary scenarios! What does the AI actually do at this very moment???
I asked [Runway AI co-founder Cristóbal] Valenzuela why he didn’t feel all these models were impinging on what makes movies human. “They said the same about Industrial Light & Magic — ‘It’s too much technology, it’s not art,’” he said, then added with a friendly but pointed edge, “Imagine if we’d listened.”
Who said that about ILM? “Imagine if we’d listened.” Are you joking? Nobody would have listened to that because ILM immediately won an Academy Award (you know, from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences) for its work on Star Wars, the very film for which it was established to create visual effects! ILM didn’t spend years yapping to the press about how something it could hypothetically make at some point in the future would be cool and awesome, it actually did make something cool and awesome! You didn’t need credulous reporters writing fanfiction, ILM put out a movie that became one of the most popular films of all time.
Again, why doesn’t anyone ask these guys follow up questions? “What do you mean they said the same thing about ILM? They actually made a movie!” Any level of skepticism towards these hucksters would be great!
The article even mentions Air Head, a film familiar to readers of this newsletter:
Air Head tells a story of a man with a balloon for a head who keeps a positive attitude as he goes (well, floats) through life. The voiceover piece leans into the dreamlike power of Sora, first by the mere fact of its whimsical story and then, as the head floats around the world, building in all the big global set pieces that a text-to-video tool so easily can whip up.
But as the original reporting on Air Head noted, the idea that this was all exclusively generated by OpenAI’s Sora is not accurate:
…on the shot that pans up from Sonny’s jeans to his balloon head [,] [u]nfortunately, SORA would not render such a move natively, always wanting the main focus of the shot—the balloon head—to be in the shot. So the team rendered the shot in portrait mode and then manually, via cropping, created the pan-up in post…
While all the imagery was generated in SORA, the balloon still required a lot of post-work. In addition to isolating the balloon so it could be re-colored, it would sometimes have a face on Sonny, as if his face was drawn on with a marker, and this would be removed in AfterEffects. Similar other artifacts were often removed.
Might be good to include these caveats in stories like these. They are relevant to whether the promises and predictions being made by the tech guys about their tools are actually true. How many bad business decisions have already been made in the business based on this relentless, empty hype?
Superman Was Shot With a Photography Lens
I went way long on rant #1 today so I won’t write a ton here. I did get out to see James Gunn’s Superman this weekend and was super-interested (no pun intended) in the film’s unique look. This January article from YM Cinema gives a very cool breakdown on the somewhat-obscure lens cinematographer Henry Braham used for the film, in conjunction with the RED V-Raptor.
The choice to use the Leica Tri-Elmar—a fairly obscure photography lens—is a bold move. This wide-angle lens, coupled with the large-format RED V-Raptor camera, creates a look that is expansive yet intimate, capturing both the grandeur of Superman’s world and the subtleties of character-driven moments.
Check out the full article for the spec breakdown. Pretty cool!
Kernels (3 links worth making popcorn for)
Here’s a round-up of cool and interesting links about Hollywood and technology:
The newest film jobs in LA? Vertical dramas. (link)
It’s a Wonderful Life’s lasting impact on cinematography. (link)
IMAX screenings of The Odyssey are selling out a year in advance! (link)