Cinema is one of the modern forms of the creative arts. The cinema industry has always been at the forefront of using innovative technology to produce entertaining films that appeal to a wide range of audiences. It’s no surprise, then, that AI is now being used in the creation of some truly spectacular movies.
Here are a few examples of how AI is being used in modern cinema:
1. Deepfakes / De-aging
The visual effects (VFX) team behind the popular Star Wars series’ Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett TV show used deepfake AI and de-aging technology to bring the beloved character Luke Skywalker back to the screen in the form of a 30-year-old version of himself, despite the actor who plays him, Mark Hamill, being 71 years old.
The same technology is being used to de-age Harrison Ford in the upcoming Indiana Jones movie.
2. Creating Virtual Actors
Filmmakers are now applying AI to create various virtual characters for their movies. For example, the fictional supervillain Thanos who appears in Avengers: Infinity War was designed using machine learning. The VFX team behind the movie used a software called “Masquerade” to embed the facial features of the real-life actor (Josh Brolin) into the Thanos character model.
3. Writing Scripts
AI is now on the verge of being able to write and direct movies with a little bit of guidance. Aaron Kemmer, and AI entrepreneur demonstrated on Twitter how this could be achieved using ChatGPT (An AI chatbot created by OpenAI).
Using ChatGPT, Kemmer and his associates came up with over 100 ideas and 50 scripts for a short film in under an hour. They then used DALL.E 2 and Midjourney get example ideas for the shots in the movie.
The finished product is a short film called “The Safe Zone”, which was released on YouTube a few weeks ago.
4. Predicting the Success of a Film
Another way AI can be used, is to analyze a film’s script in order to predict its potential revenue. For instance, Warner Bros. has been utilizing Cinelytic’s AI-based platform to forecast the success of their films and estimate box office earnings.
5. Creating Personalized Movie Recommendations
AI has now made it easier for audience to find things that they actually would like to watch. Streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ employ machine learning algorithms to suggest movies and shows to users based on various parameters like their previous watch history, region, devices used to stream and time of day spent watching movies/shows.
References
- https://screenrant.com/mandalorian-luke-mark-hamill-deaged-technology-deepfake-explained/
- https://nofilmschool.com/2022/12/filmmakers-use-ai-write-and-direct-short-film-and-it- actually-makes-some-sense
- https://smartclick.ai/articles/how-artificial-intelligence-is-used-in-the-film-industry/
- https://variety.com/2019/film/awards/machine-learning-saves-avengers-vfx-artists-time-1203140163/
