“This is not your average AI panel,” Southhampton Playhouse artistic director and former longtime IndieWire editor Eric Kohn said at the top of a panel discussion at IndieWire’s Future of Filmmaking Summit at the American Pavilion in Cannes, presented by United for Business. “This is not going to be pure existential dread.”
It was a fitting way to kick off a panel titled “How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of AI.” No topic has produced more fear and anger among cinephiles and film industry professionals, many of whom worry that the technology will slash jobs and eliminate the things that make the creative process special. But the panelists, who included Fable Studios CEO Edward Saatchi, Prezense/NVIDIA’s Seth Piezas, DoubleEye Studios founder Kiira Benzing, Asteria Film Co. partner Paul Trillo, and Venice Immersive programmer Liz Rosenthal, offered a more nuanced take on the emerging technology. While nobody hid from the reality that AI is disrupting filmmaking as we know it, they stressed that it’s possible for filmmakers to adapt to a changing marketplace and find ways to make AI work for their own careers without sacrificing their priorities.
“I would say this: the entire world is on the AI train. So to some degree there is no choice from a commercial aspect. People at the top are making choices to go AI,” Piezas said. “What’s very interesting and maybe why it’s very empowering for let’s say an independent audience, is that you have a technology that possibly can make your much more limited budget into a much bigger dog in the room.”
A common theme on the panel was the fact that generative AI is not the cause of most of Hollywood’s problems. If anything, they argued that its widespread adaptation is a result of larger problems in the business, and that AI could provide some of the solutions to ensuring filmmaking remains a viable industry.
“We’re at a point where everything kind of sucks in the industry already,” Trillo said. “It kind of aligns with AI, which is being used as a scapegoat for why things suck. But there’s other forces that have caused the problems today. And so there’s an interesting alignment where maybe we won’t have budgets of even $35, $40 (million) anymore. We might have to keep budgets $15 and under, so we might not have a choice.”
While nobody shied away from the economic realities of AI, the panelists stressed that it’s more than just a cost-cutting tool. Benzig explained that AI is allowing for films to be shot virtually inside of 3D digital worlds — and the people making them are often humans who cut their teeth on traditional sets that now have a new set of toys to play with.
“What I’ve been enjoying doing is taking traditional 2D cinematographers and bringing them over into virtual worlds and teaching them virtual cinematography and finding out ways for them to translate their skills,” Benzig said. “We can do some really interesting things and really try out some of our greatest fantasies.”
A common concern about AI is the issue of compensation. When the industry reaches a point where fans are constantly able to remix films they’ve already seen and amuse themselves by putting their own spin on existing IP, traditional models of paying artists go out the window. Saatchi did not deny that fact, but added that the industry has always had to adapt its business model to fit new technologies, and expects that a fair process for AI compensation will soon emerge.
“It was complicated to figure out video cassettes, it was complicated to figure out streaming. It’s going to be mildly complicated to figure out,” he said. “You go to a website, you’ve seen this film that you’ve fallen in love with and you want to interact with it, you want to engage with it, you want to put yourself in it, you pay to do that. The money goes to the creators. It’s a windowed experience. Just like a film goes from the cinema to the streamer and to DVD, now it goes to a more interactive window so that yes, ‘John Wick 5’ is out in the cinema. The canonical version will exist forever, but let’s subvert things a little bit in a way that should be, should feel totally appropriate to young people.”
Watch the complete panel, presented by United for Business, in the video above.
About United for Business:
United’s shared purpose is “Connecting People. Uniting the World.” United offers the most diversified international route network among US airlines based on the number of international destinations served and is proud to offer a specialized travel product designed for the entertainment industry. United for Business comes with everything that will keep your production moving forward – reduced airfare, special rates for equipment, custom booking options, airport escort services and a dedicated entertainment support desk. For more information about United visit www.united.com and to learn more about United for Business visit https://www.united.business.
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