The Artificial Intelligence Film Festival offers a glimpse into the possible future of filmmaking

Jackets stood out against street fashion. Miniature cameras hanging from women’s earrings. One man’s jacket read: “Given with love.”

Emissaries from two parallel planets, software and the entertainment industry, mingled at the Cary Grant Theater on Thursday evening as they waited for the show to begin. Some remember tales from the Cannes Film Festival. Others discussed the merits of different AI platforms and talked about the future of “wearable AI.”

They’ve all gathered, several hundred of them, on the Sony Pictures lot for a film festival aimed at highlighting the world of filmmaking with the help of emerging artificial intelligence. Although the mood around the venue was one of enthusiasm and curiosity, it came at a uniquely fraught moment for the two intertwined industries.

Just a few weeks ago, Hollywood screenwriters ended a lengthy strike, picketing outside Sony and other major studios to protest, among other things, the threat that artificial intelligence poses to their livelihoods. The Writers Guild eventually secured a contract that included substantive regulations on the use of technology in scripts for shows and movies, but their on-screen counterparts at the Screen Actors Guild are still on strike over concerns about automation.

However, at Emergent Properties, the Adobe-backed festival featuring six short films produced using a range of AI modules and technologies, this controversy was largely background noise.

Instead, the focus has been on the doors that AI can open for independent and amateur filmmakers.

“Tonight you’re going to hear a lot about AI,” Mike Gioia — one of the event organizers and co-founder of AI workflow startup Pickaxe — said during his opening remarks. “But really, tonight is about the people. It’s about the filmmakers. And for any filmmaker in Los Angeles, the reality that you deal with is that there are a lot of hurdles you have to jump through to get an idea out of your head and onto the screen.”

He continued: “In the best-case scenario, what AI does is it makes (it) much easier.”

Many of the filmmakers participating emphasized what AI programs mean for young creatives — people whose passion projects generally exist outside the Hollywood ecosystem subject to recent strikes.

“I wanted to create something in my room and not have to wait two or three weeks for someone to say, ‘OK, let’s do this or that,’” said Anna Apter, a director who created AI-generated images for children’s birthday parties. To a monologue about loneliness in her short film “Imagine”.

Speaking from Paris ahead of the event, which she was unable to attend in person, she added: “I know how all these jobs can be threatened by AI. But I feel like it gives people who don’t have big budgets – we no longer have excuses, you know? We can To do anything.”

“The whole idea is… how can we take this traditional model and not be afraid of these AI tools, but instead figure out a strategic way to let them work with each artist involved,” said Quinn Halleck, who used AI throughout its development. “Sigma_001” is a short film inspired by Real life story To a Google engineer who thought the company’s chatbot might have become sentient.

But not everyone is optimistic about how these two sectors will fare as AI continues to evolve. The past few months have seen Hollywood’s production line grind to a halt amid dual strikes by the WGA screenwriters guild and SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, both of which have expressed concerns that artificial intelligence could put people out of work or neutralize their creativity. .

WGA ultimate He got a contract That didn’t close the door to AI screenwriting, but he said writers couldn’t be forced to use the software and prevent studios from taking union members out of the loop entirely. Actors – who Stay on strike – Focus their fears on Digital simulation of performance. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents major Hollywood studios in labor negotiations, has confirmed that actors will retain control of their pictures.

Even the “Emergent Properties” film festival sparked some pushback.

In the lead-up to the event, Gioia, one of the organizers, posted a call for screening on a Reddit forum for Los Angeles filmmakers. The response, at least publicly, was largely negative.

The top caption says: “I’m not trying to be a bigot and I realize AI is coming whether the industry as a whole wants it or not, but it’s just bad taste and bad timing.”

Another high-profile critic added: “Especially with the strikes going on, you’re pretty much out of line.”

Gioia said people were most supportive of the event in private messages, and many of them ended up coming to the festival. However, he said he understood why so many commentators were critical.

“For people who work on movies for pay, doing skilled but uncreative work (like setting up lights), it’s very scary and has no upside,” he told The Times via text message.

(Sony, the striking company, did not sponsor the event; festival organizers merely rented the space from the studio, Gioia said.)

The artificial intelligence on display at Thursday’s event was used largely for special effects purposes, rather than replacing the actors with digital doubles as SAG-AFTRA’s concerns asserted. Some filmmakers used artificial intelligence to write or develop their scripts, according to the event brochure, and some films featured AI-generated faces or voices.

Some attendees admitted that they felt some hesitation about the AI ​​boom.

Shelby Ward, co-founder of Curious Refuge — an online community for AI storytellers who helped make one of the evening’s participants, a nature documentary about an alien planet — asked the audience during a post-screening Q&A how many people have messed with AI Artificial. Many raised their hands.

She continued: “I’m also curious: Who is nervous about these tools? Is anyone feeling anxious, or feeling a little overwhelmed?”

A few hands rose – fewer than before, but not none.

“I would say I fell for it — I did it,” Ward said. “I went through a few months, and it was like my paradigm was changing.” She added that taking the time to explore it will ultimately make people more comfortable with the program.

The participating filmmakers cautioned that the technology still has its limits. They said that keeping the characters’ appearance consistent between takes was difficult; The program continues to boggle its eyeballs.

“Right now, it’s impossible for a movie to tell a good story,” said Paul Trillo, another filmmaker. “I think it’s up to the people to do,” he continued to applause.

(Tonight’s Trello show was a music video shot at the Louvre that used AI effects to warp and distort classical works of art. The conceit, he previously told the Times, was “a little bit tongue-in-cheek.”)

However, the filmmakers emphasized that AI technology is improving rapidly. Many of them talked about having to go back and redo parts of their films during production because a newer, better tool came along midway through the process.

In the world of AI filmmaking, “‘impossible’ is a very tentative term,” Trillo said.