Jim Gianopulos, former CEO and chairman at 20th Century Fox, said artificial intelligence (AI) should be seen as a tool for good rather than a threat to the global film industry.
Hollywood studio veteran Gianopulos was taking part in a one-to-one conversation with Saudi actor and presenter Yasir Alsaggaf during the second edition of the Saudi Film Confex, which ran October 9-10 in Riyadh.
Gianopulos noted AI is often labelled as a disruptor, and formed a sizeable part of the discussions during last year’s strikes by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA. But he said that on balance, he believed its application could be a force for good. “While it’s a concern of the industry, certainly for those people affected, the potential of these tools is truly enormous in every aspect of the creation of content,” he said.
He cited AI platforms that allow a development executive to take a 400-page book and summarise it in minutes. “That may not be the best way to read a book, but it’s a way to accelerate the process of making choices,” he said. “There are technologies now developing that allow production executives, studios, filmmakers to analyse a film from the point of pre-visualisation, virtually see the film you’re making before you make it.”
And, said Gianopulos, there are similar technologies that have the potential to change the established film production path.
“Traditionally you have pre-production, you have production and then you have post-production [where] you do all the special effects and the sound. Well, technology now exists to allow a filmmaker to do all of that in pre-production, to know exactly what special effects will look like, to visualise them in advance, to plan production days of shooting, to take a script and break it down to how many locations, how many people, what crews?”
According to Gianopulos, such tools empower a more efficient production process, and may even enable Hollywood studios and legacy media companies to back more interesting projects.
“If you look forward and you say the long-term potential effect of AI technologies is to make that $250m film for a lot less, or that $20m or $30m film for a lot less, then whoever is financing and developing that film is more likely to take creative choices that are more original and more daring, and may result in much more interesting cinema over time,” he said.
Gianopulos was also upbeat about other technological advances. “Digital and internet distribution to me is one of the greatest opportunities for global cinema and global filmmakers because the barriers to entry are far lower,” he noted.
Universal language
When Gianopulos was at 20th Century Fox, the studio set up Fox International Productions to create films in local markets, including India, Korea, China and various European countries. The label produced My Name Is Khan in India. “We were very proud of that film but the millions of dollars that it would have cost to release that film in the States was challenging,” he sighed. “Today, that film would be on a streamer and would be accessible to people not only in the US, but all over the world.”
With AI dubbing and other technologies, it is now possible to take a film in any language and make it accessible to viewers in other languages, and on other platforms. “I can be an actor in French and actually be speaking French, it’s now just dubbed perfectly,” said Yasir Alsaggaf.
The pair also discussed the opportunities presented by virtual production technologies. “Virtual sets [and] all of these technologies now allow filmmakers with relatively modest budgets to [make what looks like] a very different movie than what you could make with physical sets, and physical production,” Gianopulos observed.
The executive also noted that, no matter the possibilities offered by emerging technologies, it is as important as ever to keep audience in mind. “If you’re going to make a film primarily for your local market, be authentic,” he said. “Knowledge of the culture and the social considerations, the language, the unique nature of your market, and don’t try and be all things to all people.
“Do I intend [my film] to be something truly real and have enormous potential in my home country, or something that takes advantage of many different elements and is less local but may find its way around the world?” Gianopulos mused. “It’s not a completely separate binary choice, but it is a choice.”
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