#501 – Is the Future of Cinema in the hands of AI?
It's been quite the week for cinema.
- Everyone's raving about Obsession and Backrooms costing so little, making so much* and being helmed by young YouTubers of all people!**
- Cinema is saved!
- Everyone's also mad about Scorsese using AI.
- Marty how could you!?
We'll explore all this and more in the first Issue of the new centenary of Cut/daily.
But I'm happy (some) people are (mostly?) happy about the future of cinema again.
*I'm old enough to remember the hoopla around The Blair Witch Project which actually cost less and made more (so far) than either of these two films. So I'm not sure how ‘new’ this all really is.
But putting bums on cinema seats is good for everyone.
Sidenote: If you work on a film that explodes like this – this is probably good advice?
**Why is it surprising people who make a lot of videos online might be good at making films?
Granted, the history of cinema proves it's not a given that just because you do it a lot you'll be any good at it, but you know how you get to Carnagie Hall?
Practice. Practice. Practice.
And talent. Gotta have talent.
And luck. Gotta have some luck.
Practice, talent and luck. Gotta have 'em.
Scorsese used AI
Martin Scorsese. If anyone is the grandfather of modern cinema it's everyone's favourite cuddly curmudgeon, Marty.
So the internet was understandably outraged by his ‘embrace of AI’ by signing on as an advisor to gen-AI company Black Forest Labs, and using AI to... generate storyboards for a scene.
The most helpful industry analysis I read on this came from editor Lawrence Jordan who runs the Aiography newsletter:
Here is what actually happened, because the accurate version matters more than the headline. Scorsese partnered with Black Forest Labs, the company behind an image-generation tool called Flux, which is software that creates still images from a written description.
He used it during pre-production on a new film, and he tested it on one specific job: storyboarding a single scene.
His own words, from the interview: "During the pre-production process, time costs money, and this allowed us to move faster without sacrificing quality or craft."
That is the entire claim.
Not "AI made my movie." Not "I replaced my crew."
He used an image generator to help him show people the pictures already in his head.
Variety explores all of this commotion but concludes with a nice quote from the other granddaddy of modern cinema, Steven Spielberg.
“I don’t believe there is any substitute for the soul. I don’t think that is an algorithm that’s inventible,” Spielberg said. “A computer that thinks it feels more than we feel is anathema to the way I was raised and how I’ll practice my own trade of producing and directing in the future.”