A few hours ago, a clip came out where Matt Damon explains the real world impact of AI on Hollywood.
As someone who also works in the film / video industry – have to 90% agree.
YES:
- the notion that “AI can do everything, AI will take over everything” is totally overhype driven by tech folks driving up stock prices.
- “AI is a tool” – yes, that’s exactly how it’s being used currently. AI is used where it helps with efficiency or costs. If the AI is deemed to lower the quality of deliverables, it’s ignored.
- Tilly Norwood is a nothingburger – why would AI folks hire someone else’s character when we can make our own perfect casts from scratch? Tilly was just a piece of modern performance art… a conversation piece to provoke, and that it did!
- Matt brings up AI captures of actors’ images – which is something not talked about in GenAI circles. CAA (Creative Artists Agency – a talent agency that represents pretty much all the A-list actors) is having their talent scanned to make AI clones
NO:
- “writers aren’t using AI” – they absolutely are! Maybe not in more prestige writer’s rooms and films, but in the commercial world where I work, AI written copy is taking over. I’d say 60% of copy is AI currently, and if you can’t tell it’s AI, then that’s due to careful curation and re-writes based on an AI foundation.
MAYBE:
- The provocative description of an acting choice based on raw real life experiences – yes – I absolutely agree that real life acting will always be the most effective.
- The art and craft of acting and performance is as old as human history and will never go away. Not to mention, acting techniques reflect the times, since society is always shifting. The way that actors speak, emote, their mannerisms, all shift in ways that AI can’t keep up with. AI is always slightly behind the times.
- BUT – their example is somewhat flawed. Because an AI creative could take something from their lives just like that, and put it into their AI film.
- AI gives more people the chance to share those nuanced life moments with the world, because we now no longer have to go through the lengthy production process to put our vision on screen.
- HOWEVER – the “acting” you can get out of current AI is heavily flawed, stilted, and often full of errors. So while yes, you could iterate a scene where an actor behaved in a way that’s close to your heart – the execution of the performance might suck.
- That brings us back to point 1 – that real actors will still be the most effective when it comes to evocative, cinematic storytelling.
