“You have to learn the basics,” he says. “The technology will change, but the storytelling will not. »
To make his short film “Mnemonade” truly singable, Meta Puppet says he focused on giving the story some emotional weight. “I don’t think AI films will be fully released until we have emotional dialogue,” he says. He played all the roles in his short film, about the poignant emotion of sensory memory and the memory loss of an elderly woman, using AI from The “unicorn” of Silicon Valley ElevenLabs to adapt his vocal performance to the range and voice of each character.
Maddie Hong, who faced Meta Puppet in the Culver Cup final, says she understands Hollywood’s concern when it comes to AI. “There is more risk of legal backlash and financial loss,” she says, referring to the danger of unintentional (or even blatant) copyright infringement down the line. Studios also have “higher standards for picture continuity,” Hong says, “as they think about distribution across all types of platforms and screens.”
That being said, Hong agrees with people like Luma co-founder Amit Jain, who says gen AI filmmaking could give the traditional studio system some flexibility in terms of budget and product diversity.
“If you look at Hollywood today,” Jain says, “the majority of big-budget productions are just recycling old franchises because it’s too difficult to bet on a new idea or a new franchise.” It’s simply safer, he says, to reproduce something than to imagine something new.
According to Jain (admittedly biased), doing more projects, even on smaller budgets, means more people will work and more money will come in. “In fact, I would posit,” he adds, “that people will actually have much better careers that are more fulfilling and sustainable when they are able to produce things that people actually want to watch. If there are going to be job losses in Hollywood because of AI, he suggests, the people who leave will be the most resistant to AI.
Recent research contradicts this notion. A survey of 300 entertainment industry leaders conducted earlier this year found that 75% believe Generation AI has led to the elimination, reduction or consolidation of jobs within their department. It also led to the creation of some jobs, but it was “unclear” whether the new jobs would make up for the lost jobs.
