AI films may be what your business needs

THE opening minute of The Frost: Part One tells you everything you need to know about the potential of films generated by artificial intelligence (AI). To be screened at Singapore’s first AI film festival, this 13-minute movie takes viewers to the sweeping landscapes of Antarctica, where a team of scientists is braving the icy terrain to investigate a mysterious signal. The snow-covered panoramas are captivating, but as soon as the camera shifts to close-up shots of the characters’ waxy faces, you can tell these are computer-generated images.

If produced as a live-action film by a major Hollywood studio, the cost of shooting at a real Antarctic location would run into the tens of millions of dollars. Even a traditional animated version might cost millions. Yet AI production platform Waymark had crafted this entire film on a “low five-figure” budget, as its co-creator Josh Rubin proudly states – a testament to the cost-efficiency of AI in film-making.

This has implications beyond the film-making industry. Just as social media has boosted the marketing strategies of millions of businesses and individuals, AI film-making will likely help just as many create promotional videos, training materials, product demonstrations and social media clips without the need for expensive film crews, equipment and location shoots.  

In fact, Rubin says it’s getting “dramatically easier to take limited assets and turn them into flashy materials”, suggesting that a brand new business with very little online presence might be able to quickly generate a credible collection of marketing material using largely AI tools. “Right now, some of the key underlying technology seems to be a year or two away from being really consumer-grade. From there, it will likely be another year or two for product companies to make that technology easily accessible to business owners.”

Rubin will speak at Singapore’s first AI film showcase called Creator RenAIssance, running from Sep 14 to 15 at the ArtScience Museum. The showcase includes 18 landmark short films and documentaries created using AI, alongside insightful discussions on the transformative impact of AI on the creative industry.

Rubin will also present the global premiere of The Frost: Part Two, the sequel to the aforementioned film, which will demonstrate “how exponentially advanced the technology has become since Part One was released in early 2023”, he says. Meanwhile, the other 16 films in the showcase are short fiction and documentaries created by international film-makers with the aid of AI tools. They include home-grown artist Niceaunties, best known for her quirky clips of Asian aunties.

The festival is organised by AI Create, a platform dedicated to helping creative practitioners work “hand in hand” with evolving AI technology. Co-founder David Webster notes: “AI is ultimately just another tool in the arsenal of film-making that will actually help more people without the previously required technical skills to bring their ideas to the screen. It will help directors visualise what’s on their minds in real time. It will help post-production teams work much faster.”

Currently, major AI companies are embroiled in controversy over the use of copyrighted material for training their models. The broader issue revolves around the legality and ethics of using publicly available data to train large language models, such as the very popular GPT-4. OpenAI, the creator of GPT-4, faces multiple lawsuits claiming that its models used copyrighted works without permission – even though OpenAI insists it adheres to fair-use principles.   

Webster believes that “all creators are inspired by other creators before them” and AI is no different in that it learns from past creations and uses them to inform future creations. “AI does not copy,” he insists.

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The current controversy, he thinks, “is nothing more than what happens when any new piece of disruptive technology hits the market. When digital cameras hit the market, there was an upheaval among the directors (who said) that shooting movies in digital wasn’t real film-making. But now, I would challenge you to find many film-makers that don’t use digital cameras to shoot feature films”.

“AI is only a tool, no different from other tools that have helped humankind create. At the end of the day, AI is merely enhancing the work; it’s humans that drive the creative process.”   

Turning to the Singapore film market, Webster thinks more film-makers should capitalise on AI to overcome the challenges of its domestic market that’s long been hampered by a limited audience size, high production costs and the competition with international films that dominate local cinemas. 

“Suddenly, a film-maker in Singapore with great talent and great ideas who just doesn’t have the opportunity to develop them because of the small market size and limited financing may be able to create something with global standards for a global audience. AI may be what they need to shine on a global stage.”

Creator RenAIssance runs from Sep 14 to 15 at the ArtScience Museum. To participate, register at aicreate.ai/artsciencemuseum