Reply recently hosted its Mastercard-sponsored AI Film Festival, and the finalists were picked at the prestigious 81st Venice Film Festival on September 3. The films were all created by using various AI technologies, and center around the theme, “synthetic voices, human hearts”. To find the finalists, an international panel of judges viewed over 1,000 short films submitted from 59 countries.
The winner was To Dear Me, a short film in an animated style by Gisele Tong, described as a “poignant exploration of self-discovery and healing”. You can view the film below, but be aware that it contains scenes of domestic violence. Call this number if you've been experiencing domestic violence: 1.800.799.SAFE (7233) in the US, 0808 2000 247 (UK), or 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) (AU).
Second place went to One Way by Egor Kharlamov and third place was Jinx by Mansha Totla, which is a documentary on World War 2 entirely created in AI. Criteria for the awards were that the film had to be generated or enhanced by AI, and the entrants used a huge range of different AI tools to create their films. You can view the finalists and runners-up on the Reply website.
There can be no doubt now that Artificial Intelligence is going to radically change movie making in the future, so we asked Filippo Rizzante, CTO of Reply, if he saw AI as a threat to traditional movie making.
“AI is a tool. AI is not an entity”, says Filippo. “It is like when humanity invented the camera [as a rival medium to] painting, and people were convinced at that time, if you remember, that the camera was stealing people's souls? It reminds me of exactly the same thing”.
But isn’t he worried that AI will take people’s jobs in the movie industry? “No, no. It will really disrupt organizations, not people", says Filippo. "What is changing is not only the possible creative output – so, maybe a new kind of creativity will emerge – but also the quantity. So, in the 17th century, we were manually copying books. Now we can’t count the number of books that we are able to produce, and it probably will be the same with videos. That will enable much more in terms of quantity, but also quality in the future. This means that it will probably require even more people to produce videos, because there is a bit of democratization, but it will disrupt organizations.”
Maybe Game of Thrones didn't have to end that way
Filippo sees AI as augmenting film making, rather than replacing it, “We will mix the real reality together with AI, sometimes just for visual efforts, sometimes, like in the short movies that you find in our competition, maybe to create things about the story of your grandmother, of the past of your grandmother, that was not possible to create without big investments today."
But AI isn’t just about mimicking the way we make films now, it’s also about thinking about movie-making in new and different ways. “With AI you can also generate a movie on the fly, which means that maybe Game of Thrones will not end like it has”, says Filippo. On the fly movie making opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Just imagine an AI that can scan your face to judge what reaction you’re having to a movie, so it changes the plot accordingly. Or perhaps if you don’t like an ending to a series, you can change it in some other way.
Rather than seeing AI as a threat to movies and television, it could be the thing that shakes up an industry that has needed an overhaul for a while now. Nobody likes having to wait at least a year between series of their favorite show. Having AI generate the next season whenever you’re ready could be a blessing, And I’m pretty sure my reaction to the Game of Thrones ending would have been pretty easy for even a non-human to read!
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