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Questioning AI in films with filmmaker Gavin Michael Booth · Kvetch & Release

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  Pure listening to the Dan McDonald Show with guest host John Lydgy on AM eight
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  hundred. Hey, folks, we are back. It is ten thirty three.
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  I'm filling in for Dan McDonald here on AM eight hundred ckl W.
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  Every now and then I come across a social media feed where I know that
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  I just have to bring this person onto the radio to talk. It doesn't
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  always happen, you know. There's ones where I go like, Okay,
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  this could be an interesting one. But this is one where I went,
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  I got to do it. I picked up my phone and I messaged a
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  local director and filmmaker about this story right away, as I saw that the
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  Tribeca Film Festival will be featuring five films created using open AI's new program SORA.
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  This is coming after some controversial statements that we'll get into in a bit
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  with my guests by a executive, the CEO from Sony Pictures, about the
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  use of artificial intelligence, and of course, just a couple of weeks ago,
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  we saw all of that news with Scarlett Johansson's voice and likeness used by
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  open ai without her permission to launch their new product. Joining me right now
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  is a local director and filmmaker of The Scarehouse, Last Call and Bloomhouse Is
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  fifteen, which was the world's first movie broadcast live using Twitter's Periscope app.
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  Gavin Booth joins me right now, Gavin, how you doing. I'm doing
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  okay, other than this looming threads AI art. Yeah, and you know,
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  it's really concerning seeing you sent me a link earlier today about you know,
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  AI music and how it's going to be changing the industry in ways that
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  most people probably can't even begin to wrap their head around. But you know,
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  as I mentioned, you know, with the Blumhouse Is fifteen that you
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  did, that was a really innovative, technology forward way of doing film making.
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  It's not like you are, you know, a ludite who doesn't appreciate
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  the use of technology. You got really concerned when you saw this news about
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  Tribeca Film Festival using AI here. Why well, I've been sort of screaming
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  into the void about AI and arts and it's sort of what I think is
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  going to be a devastating impact over the next five to ten years. But
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  it's all happening much faster than even my you know, my pessimistic brain on
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  this topic could imagine the idea that one of the world sort of leading a
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  list film festivals is showcasing fully AI created films this year. I think it's
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  just a sign of the times. And what I'm most surprised about is there's
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  not, you know, a visceral reaction from the industry to shut this down
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  or boycott or try to convince them otherwise to keep it being human created films.
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  That's the most concerning part to me. We just came out of a
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  historic strike for SAG and the Writer's Guild asking for AI protections. But this
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  is just opening the floodgate for AI. You know, it's not directly saying,
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  you know, these actors will be turned into AI. It's just we
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  don't even need actors. We can create these AI products without any human involvement.
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  So what this new product is, Sora, which is still not used
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  public it's not out for the public yet but released by Open AI for internal
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  use and partner based use. Is It claims that it allows people to understand
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  and simulate the physical world in motion, and it generates videos up to a
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  minute long from just a text based input. As a filmmaker, here like,
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  what does this mean for you? Do you think is there any positive
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  application that you could possibly be seeing yourself using something like this in a very
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  limited scope or is this just like, don't even allow this anywhere near the
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  industry with a ten foot pole. I mean, I think we can't stop
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  it. This is the sad thing, like we cannot stop progress. I'm
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  not a fool to think that there's a full stop here and listen, in
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  the short term, would be amazing, Oh I need a drone shot over
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  a cathedral in the thirteen hundreds in Paris. Boom, I'll pump that into
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  open AI and it will come out with it, you know, because that
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  would be a very expensive CG render for me to hire a whole team of
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  people. So I can see the advantage there of like, oh, I
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  can save money, I can do things that I don't have the budget to
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  do. But all I'm doing is training this AI to then eventually replace myself
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  for the need for any of us to be involved. I you know,
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  sometimes I feel like I'm talking like I'm a Black Mirror episode. But I
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  think, you know, ten years from now twenty at most, you know,
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  we're going to sit in front of our television devices and say, make
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  me a new episode of the Office. Hey, I want a Star Wars
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  movie where he teams up with Harry Potter, and in real time, it
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  will just generate it. It'll be photorealistic, it will have developed, you
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  know, better storytelling. The problem with AI is everybody now goes like,
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  oh, well it doesn't look that good. Oh chat GBT can't really write
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  a novel. Yeah, It's like, yes, the Right Brothers first plane
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  wasn't the one that made it across the Atlantic. It's not the modern Gembo
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  jet that we have today, only with AI because it is sort of partially
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  self learning, and everybody that uses just training it and it's thinking and learning
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  faster and faster and faster. This isn't sort of the upgrades from like Photoshop
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  version one to two to the twenty twenty four version that we have where humans
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  had to create and continually improve it. It's it's partially self improving. And
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  if you look at the rapid growth of mid Journey that does photos or chat
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  GPT or even this open AI Sora, which isn't available to the public yet,
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  it's it's shocking and staggering how realistic it looks already. So I just
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  you know, there's a big there's going to be jobs lost, and I
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  think that open AI will be able to create, you know, fifty percent
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  of the content that's out there, because I think we could all argue that,
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  you know, fifty percent of movies and TV and music is art and
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  fifty percent it's just sort of content. And I think AI can do all
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  the content. And for folks like myself, between making our movies, we
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  go and work in the content world. We work on TV commercials, we
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  crew on music videos or corporate videos. And if AI can take a huge
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  portion of that away where the client can just self generate the work that they
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  need. There's just lots of implications of how AI will affect the filmmaking industry
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  that I don't think people are thinking about. I don't think they're ready for
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  how fast it's going to happen. Well, we just saw with the release
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  of the movie Civil War that they had a whole series of dystopic movie posters
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  showcasing America in descent, and they were all generated by artificial intelligence and not
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  even in the movie whatsoever. So it was a viral marketing campaign, but
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  people one were miffed about the fact that they were seeing images that weren't in
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  the movie. And then it came to the fact that we learned that,
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  you know, traditional artists that would have created those posters weren't used in it,
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  but rather someone could just you know, put a prompt in and say
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  show me the statue of liberty on the ground or whatever. But looking at
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  actual dollars and cents here, we've learned that Tyler Perry of the Medea franchise
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  wanted to expand his production studios in Atlanta, and he was going to be
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  spending eight hundred million dollars to add twelve sound stages, back lot sets,
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  and more to his three hundred and thirty acre property. But he said,
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  I was in the middle of this and planning for it for the back past
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  four years, and all that I'm seeing currently is now indefinitely on hold because
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  of Sora and what I'm seeing right now referencing AI, that's a billion dollars
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  roughly that's been removed from this industry. I mean, I don't know if
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  you've have any interactions with Tyler Perry, but I mean that is someone that
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  you presumably could have, you know, pitched a movie to at his expanded
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  facilities. But now that's on hold because of this new tech. I did
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  read his quotes and read that article, and I think, right there,
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  that's that's you know, he's speaking very realistically, like why am I going
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  to invest more money into human created film and art when I could see the
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  looming thread of what this is. You bring up a good point with the
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  Civil War posters. There was another movie recently from IFC and Shutter, Late
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  Night with the Devil, that had a few AI generated images inside the movie,
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  like they were printed out and hung on display in the movie, and
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  there was massive outrage all over social media. As we get this little window
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  of three days we're outraged about something. But with Tribeca it's not there.
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  And this is like people were mad about, you know, little pieces of
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  AI still images being used to promote a movie or as production design in a
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  movie. But now one of the world's premiere film festivals is showing fully AI
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  generated movies and there's not a blip, Like if we just already rolled over
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  and decided this is how it's going to be, we can't stop it.
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  Like it just it's shocking to me that more people in my field aren't stepping
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  up or don't have a fight in them, and maybe it's a fear out
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  of like, well, I would like my film to be at Tribeca one
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  day. I'd like to be an actor in a film at Tribeca one day.
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  I can't bite the hand that feeds. But you know, by by
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  sitting down and doing nothing, do we just allow it to Because mark my
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  words, Sun, Dance, Can, Tiff will probably all have AI programs
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  by next year at the latest, if this is successful and accepted at Tribeca.
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  I mean, it's cheap to produce, and there's a lot of the
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  content, as you said, and we're also hearing right now the chief executive
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  at Sony Pictures is embracing generative AI to cut their costs and says they're very
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  focused on AI as well. So I mean it's not just film festivals,
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  it's the studios themselves, with the CEO here saying we'll be looking at ways
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  to use AI to produce films for theaters and television in more efficient ways,
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  using AI primarily. I had a long conversation last night with some friends.
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  One of those friends an author in New York, Jennifer Bailey. She brought
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  up some excellence at AI where like what is the harm in more people being
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  creative, and especially people that may don't have access to cameras and crew and
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  budgets, the ability for them to sit at their computer and create art and
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  put it into the world and giving opportunities to people that wouldn't have had it.
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  And there's an amazing argument to be had for that with AI of course,
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  you know you mentioned it in your intro. Technology is what gave me
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  my lead into film. The fact that things went from film to digital video
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  and it became affordable for me to go make a movie. And there's probably
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  a whole generation of filmmakers being like, this isn't fair. People with camporterers
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  should be able to make movies. We had to train for years to learn
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  how to shoot on film and get to this point. And you know the
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  fact that I can do some computer animation and titling, the fact that my
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  you know, my laptop goes with me to airports and hotels and I can
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  be editing movies and music videos. That used to be a specialized thing that
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  somebody had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an edit suite and I
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  had to pay them to do it. I do get it that a part
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  of me is being you know, it's a little double sided that I can
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  love technology for where it's led my career, but also you know, when
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  it's the new thing affecting my generation that I want to speak out against it.
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  I just think AI is sort of there's a potential of an exponential threat
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  of eliminating all of our jobs. Like I don't see a world in two
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  years where voice actors are used for commercials anymore. I think you know we've
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  already We're also used to that TikTok female voice that that guides all the videos.
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  You know, that's just going to get better and better. The the
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  Scarlett Johansson example is that that sounded exactly like her, Like it's terrifying.
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  And if you're a performer, where between doing your movies or your plays you
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  pick up a voice gig here or a radio spot there, what are you
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  going to do for work? How are you going to survive as an artist?
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  And that you know, audio is always ahead of video because it usually
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  takes less processing. You know, our ears will deceive us sooner than our
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  eyes will deceive us. Like I've heard Freddie Mercury singing Mariah Carey songs on
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  YouTube, and if I do, I didn't know that he had passed away
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  before Mariah Carey wrote that song. You would not be able to convince me
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  that it's not him singing. It sounds that realistic. So I really for
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  music. I think we're in a world war in five years. You'll just
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  sit in front of your you know, your music box or your stereo and
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  say, hey, make me a new Blinkway two album. But I don't
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  want any of their ballads. Make me a new Beatles album. And to
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  the average listener, they won't be able to distinguish the difference, and people
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  will say, well, it's not the real creator. It's not authentic.
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  It doesn't have a soul. But you know, the masses, if the
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  mass is like something, that's what becomes popular. You know, Transformers five.
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  I'm sure it's a fun movie. We're not considering that high art still
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  makes a billion dollars at the box office. You know, if the mass
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  is like something, then artists are in trouble. They say water rolls downhill,
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  but money can roll uphill. If they see that there's more of it
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  there and that seems like this might be one of those cases. Gavin,
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  thank you so much for joining me and outlining some of the fears, the
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  very real ones that you have, and I hope I was able to give
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  you a bit of an outlet so you're not just screaming into the void about
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  this. No. I mean I'd love to see I'd love to see a
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  hybrid version. It just seems to be happening so fast. We don't really
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  have any rains on it, but I will say very quickly, if you
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  enjoy Human Made Art. June twenty second, two pm at the Capitol Theater
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  is part of with Local Retrospective, you can come see our film Last Call,
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  that I will wager is a film that could not be made by AI
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  Well. I would recommend people do that as well. Gavin Booth, local
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  well, not just local filmmaker, international filmmaker and producer. Thank you so
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  much for joining me. I have a great day, John,