STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
On Friday morning, LA filmmaker Nem Perez woke up and created an animated video featuring two skiers turning the white sheets and pillows in his hotel bed into a Sun Valley snow scene.
He did it quickly and deftly using Artificial Intelligence, using it to show packed audience at Sun Valley Film Festival how AI could be employed in filmmaking.
And, by typing in the command to make the skiers look human, he was able to turn them instantly from animated characters into people who could have been skiing Baldy’s slopes at that moment.
A handful of filmmakers who have used AI spoke to a packed house at Ketchum’s Community Library during the Sun Valley Film Festival about artificial intelligence. AI is simply a tool, not something that’s coming for your jobs, they assured the filmmakers and scriptwriters in the room.
AI has been used to create such productions as “Pixar Harry Potter,” “Rock Paper Scissors,” “Melody of Solace” and “Barbenheimer,” they pointed out.
While AI popped up in the public’s imagination only about two years ago, it has been utilized since the 1990s, said Lyra Katzman, of Narrow Isle Productions. Now, a type of AI has the ability or organizes all types of data that humans can’t possible sort through without it.
Katzman showed the audience how she might use AI to create a script about two snowboarders, one of whom is caught in an avalanche and saved by an animal-like creature.
She typed in that synopsis, then asked AI to tell her about the fantastical creature that saved the one snowboarder. Unsatisfied that the creature was not fantastical enough, she asked AI to come back with another more magical creature.
Satisfied with the new character she then asked AI to tell her about each of the characters in the script. AI said the script was targeted for young adults and fantasy lovers. It told her the story was not a comedy, then it listed other stories that have similar plots.
At Katzman's request, it then generated cartoon images for the characters, changing them to more realistic depictions at her request. It then offered associated sound effects, song suggestions and possible locations for backdrops.
“I see Sun Valley isn’t on your list,” she responded at the end of the 5-minute exercise. “Would Sun Valley work as a location?”
“Yes,” it responded.
AI can also be used to give verbal speech to text, a shot list for every three seconds of the story. It can offer speech synthesis, added Shelby Ward of Curious Refugee., a space for AI storytellers.
Perez showed an AI-generated spoof he created of the “Hasta la vista, baby” scene in “Terminator 2,” and added that he and his colleagues had made a computer-generated spoof of one of the most expensive movie of the 1990s for zero dollars. It was not effortless, though, as it did take six months.
“You don’t just push a button. There’s a lot of craft involved,” he said.
Austin Worrell, CEO of Kino, said that computer science will allow filmmakers to focus on the more creative side in the future.
“It’ll create efficiency and more ease in bringing a film to life. Finding an audience will be easier too, thanks to finding target audiences through social media.”