AI & GPT 4 Could Allow Movie Makers to Have Even More Creativity

The next movie you see might be made using artificial intelligence (AI). 

Wonder Dynamics has released an AI-powered editing studio called Wonder Studio, which the company claims lets users easily replace real actors with convincing CGI characters. It's part of a movement toward using AI for all aspects of the movie-making process that showcases the growing power of recent advances in generative AI like GPT-4. 

"AI can really speed up the process and reduce the costs of creating movies," Jasmine Katatikarn, the founder of the Academy of Animated Art, told Lifewire in an email interview. "The people working on movies get a tool that helps them become more effective and gives an outlet to brainstorm new ideas."

AI-Generated CGI in a Snap

Wonder Studio is a web-based AI platform that lets artists create films with CGI characters with a few clicks of a button. The company says you don't need complicated 3D software or expensive production hardware—all the movie maker needs is a camera. 

Unlike previous methods,  Wonder Studio doesn't require a motion capture suit, which is usually necessary for actors to wear to drive the performance of a CG character in an industry-standard performance capture system. Instead, the AI analyzes the footage from a single camera and captures many elements, including the actors' performances, lighting, compositing, camera motion, etc. Then, it automatically animates, lights, and composes the CG character directly into the live-action scene.

"We are just filmmakers who, like many other artists in our industry, didn't have a budget for the kind of sci-fi films we wanted to make, so we set out to make AI tools that eliminate huge cost barriers," Nikola Todorovic, the CEO of Wonder Dynamics said in the news release. "The tools we developed have enhanced collaboration and broken through the black box we tend to see in generative AI that limits control of the finest details in each shot."

Wonder Studio is only one of many movie apps using AI. For example, the film editing software Descript is adding the newly released GPT-4 to its suite of tools. 

The film and television industry relies heavily on visual effects (VFX). AI technology can reduce the cost and time needed for VFX production, Hector Ferran, the vice president of marketing at BlueWillow, a company that uses AI I image generation, said in an email. AI image generation can be used to generate VFX images quickly and efficiently.

"A great example of AI currently being used in this process is the production of 'Avatar 2,'" he added. "They used real-time rendering and AI to generate the VFX they were using for the movie based on the similar technology that game studios use in their development process."

The Future of AI in Movies

Ferran predicted that in the future, AI would become more common in the movie industry. He said that increased efficiency in the production process would allow VFX artists and producers to spend more time focussing on the creativity of the final product and less time on raw production. "AI will be revolutionary in helping a wide range of professional creatives make their creative process much more effective and efficient," he said. 

Filmmaking is in the early stages of realizing the potential of generative AI, and the technology is just now starting to be powerful enough for the film, Gary Lee Koepke, the co-founder of the AI production studio Seyhan Lee said in an email. His company has released AI film software called Cuebric. He added that software for image creation like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion have "scratched the surface of what generative AI can do."

Still, the technology needs to be expanded to be useful for filmmaking. 

"For example, AI inpainting allows filmmakers to change one element of a shot—say, there's a tree in the background, and you want to remove it, you then need to make sure there's a consistent background to fill that space," Koepke said. "Cuebric lets you concept, ideate, previs, rotoscope, and edit in seconds to minutes, allowing the thoughts of the filmmaker to materialize on camera in near real-time. That process used to take a special effects artist tens of hours to accomplish, but with generative AI tools like Cuebric, creators, and filmmakers can focus on artistry rather than rote monotony."