gave 2nd Annual International AI Film Festival (AIFF)which took place on May 1 in downtown Los Angeles, was a pivotal moment for the Hollywood integration of creative AI.
The showcase, which was produced by New York City-headquartered generative AI video startup Runway, also included partnerships with the well-established Tribeca Film Festival and the Geneva International Film Festival (GIFF).
More than 400 producers, animators, actors, and directors packed the invitation-only premiere at the Orpheum Theater not in protest—but in full acceptance of what their colleagues have learned from Runway’s AI models ( Gen-1 and Gen-2) and created with other AI tools. , as well as more traditional filmmaking techniques. The collective experience left the crowd awestruck at times – and it was clear that it had marked a pivotal moment in cinema.
“We got about 300 submissions last year. [for the festival]. This year we got 3,000, and it’s a sign of the times,” Cristobal Valenzuela, CEO and co-founder of Runway, said to the crowd before the screening of the ten finalist films.
It was only two months ago that I attended the premiere of a group of Hollywood filmmakers who Our T2 remake – The first feature-length film created entirely using generative AI.
While this parody practically celebrated the abundant flaws of creative AI, this year’s AIFF films showcased just how far the technology has come.
A winning AI and film formula
In a note on LinkedIn, the director and AIFF judge Paul Trello wrote that participants were asked to list all AI tools — and how they were used — with their submissions.
He notes that despite the high-fidelity visuals on display, none of them include Open AI’s highly regarded new text-to-video Sora mode.
While the exhibiting films ranged in theme and style, with some featuring more obvious AI visuals than others, the best entrants showed compelling narrative foundations with well-integrated AI assets.
The top grand prix winning short, take me out / caught mefeatured a combination of emotional, human live-action shots with smart AI visual effects.
“We used three tools to create the film. It included Luma AI to capture as well as recreate the 3D environment, Runway’s video-to-video tool as an overlay to enhance things, and ComfyUI. was used to reskin one of our actors with AI to make him look like he was made entirely of muscle,” filmmaker Daniel Entebbe said in an email.
When it came to dealing with AI’s shortcomings, Entebbe embraced repetition and succumbed to delusion. Just like improvisation happens on live sets, Entebbe admits, “We didn’t even attend for the final aesthetic, but it was one of our weird auditions.”
take me out Exemplified the sentiment expressed by the veteran LA producer. Joel Kohara, best known for his extensive post-production work on The Simpsons. During the pre-showcase panel, he said, “I don’t want the AI to take away from the character or the story… I try to see if I can blur the lines and keep it invisible.”
Hollywood’s Evolutionary AI Approach
At AIFF, many different ideas emerged about how AI will drive the future of cinema.
Trello, which recently released videos created by Sora. TED As well as the first commercial AI music video, big names in the industry will help strengthen the conversation. “Once a major filmmaker uses new technology, it makes it more palatable – and it’s going to happen.”
AI is also getting in on the action at notable festivals. Caleb Ward, who runs the most popular course on AI filmmaking, Curious Asylumrevealed at the premiere that they are anchoring a notable AI film appearance at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival (May 14-25) in France.
In an interview before the show, Anastasis Germanidis, Runway’s CTO and co-founder, said he plans to continue building devices that “give consumers more art direction control.”
By leveraging these tools, the company’s CDO and co-founder Alejandro Matala said we’ll continue to see creators elevate their skills — “writers will become animators, animators will transition to filmmakers, and very much.”
Finally, Runway CEO Cristobal Valenzuela watched an AI film with two planes. He believes that as the technology becomes commonplace, we will drop the AI qualifier. “You never see a movie because the camera was used,” he said on stage.
Additionally, he sees AI as leading to an entirely new, as-yet-unnamed medium. “Finally it is [AI’s] are going to create a new art form and a new type of media that we don’t yet have the words to describe.
Credit : venturebeat.com