Image source: Generated by Unbounded AI

While a large number of creators are still discussing AI’s subversion of production tools, its pros and cons for content creators, and its impact on industry trends, major leaders in the film industry have already started to embrace “AI”.

Director Yu Baimei used a five-minute AI short film to interpret a new imagination of Zhong Kui meeting modern people. Hundreds of ghosts walk at night, filled with evil spirits. Zhong Kui catches the ghosts and drives them away to avoid harm. At the end, there is a flashback to the modern scene. The boy is sleeping, but various messages pop up on his mobile phone. Zhong Kui protects the security of the information and protects his personal time as a mobile phone protection tool. Finally, the theme appears "During vacation, leave no ghosts alone." Fantasy and reality are connected, traditional culture and modern life are integrated.

Jia Zhangke also uses AI to continue to expand his creative themes about his hometown Fenyang. In the future world, young people working hard in the city use robots to return to their hometowns to help their parents harvest wheat. The combination of traditional film shooting techniques and AI technology presents a road short film with soft tones and delicate emotions, explaining the possibility of symbiosis between humans and AI.

Dong Runnian uses AI to tell the story from the perspective of a little girl in a parallel world in another dimension. When humans face loneliness and fear, only the call of love can make people feel at ease; Zhang Chiyu uses Chongqing as his story Background, AI was used to create the science fiction short film "The Last Line of Defense", where the fantasy and surreality of the cyber world are combined with the daily hotpot scene in Chongqing. Together, the collision created a different spark...

On December 6, Kuaishou held the premiere ceremony of the "Keling AI Director Co-Creation Project" at the China Film Museum. Li Shaohong, Jia Zhangke, Ye Jintian, Xue Xiaolu, Yu Nine directors, including Bai Mei, Dong Runnian, Zhang Chiyu, Wang Zichuan and Wang Maomao, made their first “electric shock” AI works for the first time. Within three months, they performed nine clips, told nine stories, presented nine new visual experiences, and completed an exploration of the boundaries of film and television creation and production through new technologies.

Of course, the first attempt is far from perfect. There are many challenges in action performance and camera movement, picture stability and detail processing, and new creative processes. Many great directors have also spoken out about the technical challenges in the creative process. Bottlenecks and flaws in the final work. Yu Baimei said: "I believe that these works of ours are naive, just like today's AI level. These works are destined not to be works. They are all graffiti and AI. In terms of development, Ke Ling, who is now less than one year old, made a doodle, but I cherish this doodle, just like the painting my son drew when he was very young. I will cherish it very much. p>

However, directors generally believe that the emergence of AI technology has brought some new possibilities to the film industry. "Borderless" production that transcends traditional filming techniques has also exploded imagination and attracted creators. explore.

“After the production, I was very satisfied with Keling, which basically achieved a coherent presentation of the characters. At this stage, AI technology still faces challenges, which requires creators and scientists to work together to touch the boundaries of technology application. I very much hope that I can make another film with Keling in a while,” Jia Zhangke said.

The positive attitude of the head director represents to some extent the embrace of AI tools by front-line filmmakers. As the advent of the AI ​​era becomes irreversible, a group of creators have chosen to join in, treating AI as a "tool" to update the industry landscape and seeking to get started as soon as possible.

What is more noteworthy is that with the help of these 9 short films, Entertainment Capitalism has seen the capabilities of AI large models in technological innovation, cost control, special effects presentation and content expansion, which is exactly what the current film industry has to offer. The disruption in the industry provides new ideas. As entertainment methods continue to diversify, and channels and content choices become more abundant, the war for crowds in the future film market will be long and fierce. The various possibilities provided by AI creation in terms of visual effects and imagination have the opportunity to provide filmmakers with new "ammunition" and more windows to break through against the trend.

A "destructive" film experiment

To some extent, the nine directors represent the "crab eaters" in the film industry, immersing themselves in experiencing the "destruction" brought by AI to film creation. "Sexy" effect, director Wang Zichuan said after using AI to produce the short film "Daisy": "It (AI) is destructive, destroying perceptual cognition, and also destroying resource barriers and technical barriers."

This means new opportunities for industry change. Although the Keling AI movie co-creation plan is an "experiment" and the nine works are still far from real movies in terms of content length, technical quality, and visual expression, it points out a new creative path and is expected to provide new opportunities for the film industry. Development creates new “big bang” moments.

Throughout the past, several key nodes in the development of the film industry were inseparable from the help of technological innovation. From the movie about Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty missing Mrs. Li to the discovery of the principle of persistence of vision, from revolving lantern to lantern shadow play, from black and white to color, from silent to surround sound, from the exploration and innovation of traditional filming techniques to the development and application of the latest technologies such as CG, as The crystallization of the fusion of human emotions and technology, every technological leap in the film not only brings the audience a more satisfying and shocking immersive viewing experience, but also continuously expands the boundaries of creative production and stimulates endless imagination.

James Cameron, the first director to try 3D technology, spent 12 years creating the Avatar universe, constantly refreshing the audience's viewing experience, and bringing more people into it through a visual effects revolution. to the cinema.

Similarly, Ang Lee, who has transformed into a "technical control" since "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk", appears to be experimenting with new photography technologies on a large scale, but on a deeper level, he reflects It is a comprehensive subversion of the way visual information is expressed, and it also promotes the industry's shift from narrative films to spectacle films.

In the current Chinese film market, the number of moviegoers continues to decline, and the film art industry is facing impacts and challenges. Practitioners are constantly asking: How to bring young people back to the cinema? Technology may become a new way to solve problemsideas, completely liberating filmmakers’ creative and business thinking. Use more creative visual expressions and fresh storytelling logic to create more immersive viewing opportunities for movies.

“This is a fleeting opportunity that will completely change the living conditions of our industry.” Dong Runnian called on film practitioners to learn, understand and use AI as soon as possible. Jia Zhangke also believes that the emergence of AI marks the starting point of a new round of changes in the film industry, and may even trigger major evolutions beyond the past. "Are film and digital movies just the starting process for AI movies?" He is also looking forward to the upcoming technological revolution.

Specifically for this creation, AI gave the directors enough surprises and broke many traditional creative thinking patterns.

Dong Runnian shared that after the protagonist, a little girl, in the short film "New World" encountered a meteorite and entered a parallel world, she saw people who looked like zombies, with expressionless faces and indifferent expressions. However, during the script creation stage, Dong Runnian and his team did not imagine what the specific images of these "walking dead" would look like. AI generated many choices according to instructions. Among them, the image of ceramic-like skin and mechanical walking shape hit the director immediately. "This kind of image is difficult to think of in conventional designs. It is a bit weird but very novel. AI uses it to The understanding of the world of words creates such a An image with the originality of AI."

Tim Yip also had similar feelings, "AI may create things that cannot be shot with normal movie methods." He mentioned that he understood the sadness of the protagonist alien Lily. , Ke Ling has reached a surprising level. Yu Baimei also said: "AI will constantly trigger our vision and break our stereotypes. In the face of AI, most of the stereotypes we thought of in the past are just a subset of the stereotypes created by AI."

< p>It can be seen that AI large models are creating a new "lens language" for directors and becoming an interpretation tool that can break the inherent cognition. It should not be ignored that the current AI tools are still in their "infancy". As they continue to mature in the future, the fresh pictures and creative ideas that will be fully opened are also expected to bring more revolutionary problem-solving ideas to the industry. "Tool user" or "tool person"?

At the same time, the entry of nine directors also represents, to a certain extent, the embrace of AI tools by front-line and cutting-edge filmmakers, providing countless opportunities for The creators who are entangled and confused provide a reference for mentality.

“I used to subconsciously regard AI as a tool, but during this collaboration, I deeply realized that it is actually a thinking body with independent will.” Director Dong Runnian’s thinking reflects the creator’s face. The contradictions and confusions of AI.

Various artistic creators, including film directors, are a group that pursues personal expression and has strong free will. When faced with a thinking body that also has independent will, how should an artist get along with it? Become a better user of tools, or a "tool man" dominated by tools?

This question runs through the entire thinking process of the nine directors’ short film creation.

Tim Yip talked about his process of using AI to create and collaborate with AI. "AI presents more digital dimensions than physical dimensions. We use AI to solve phased problems," such as what a certain character can look like and what state he uses to express immediate emotions, but ultimately the story logic and character relationships The synthesis still requires human intervention. "We make it into physical logic, human reaction, light reaction, and material reaction. This is a scene we are familiar with."

Jia Zhangke also believes that AI cannot Replacing creators: “The amount of knowledge and growth rate of AI is amazing, but AI will not replace humans. In the future, AI will be our partner in the film industry and a new interlocutor for directors and screenwriters. In the future, the name of a new partner—a certain AI—may appear in each department of the director’s team in the subtitles. ”

It can be seen that many creators’ previous concerns about being “controlled by technology” are not common in actual creation. More film directors are still the first creators of their works and are the screening and application tools. people. AI, like cameras and digital technology, is more like a tool for directors to realize their ideas, rather than becoming a shackle that controls creation.

After all, the delicate and vague emotions of human beings are difficult to replace by machines or even intelligence. The human nature, emotions, and story-telling logic revealed in the story still require human polishing and intervention, just like what Jia Zhangke did in practice, and some traditional film shooting techniques still have to be used in short films. Cai Guoqiang, a well-known domestic artist, also said when talking about his own AI art project: "It is my shadow and my mirror. I am a partner with it."

What is even more worth looking forward to is if it will If the observation perspective is enlarged, perhaps AI will bring more significant changes to the film and television industry, achieving a comprehensive subversion of efficiency, organization, and order.

At present, the Chinese film industry is still facing a series of practical problems, such as the excessive labor and time costs caused by the long creative process, the mismatch between supply and demand, the lack of science fiction and other genre films, and the audience’s demand for high-quality industrialized products. Dissatisfaction with insufficiency...Film, considered by Dai Jinhua to be the greatest public art of the 20th century, has reached a point of change. AI is expected to promote the film industry's "cultivation of internal skills" from multiple dimensions such as cross-border creation, inspiration, quality and efficiency improvement, and the birth of new professions.

First of all, traditional and inefficient positions will be reduced, and more new AI-related positions will emerge. Technology will promote the development of human beings into more efficient and high-quality professional roles. This also means a new round of technological equality. Even if you are not from a film and television major, as long as you are creative and have ideas, everyone will have the opportunity to create your own works.

Secondly, AI is expected to significantly improve the efficiency of film and television production. According to reports, the screenwriting assistant, script evaluation, video retrieval, AI stills and other functions independently developed by AIGC Application Research Institute have been used internally or tested internally. Data shows that a 1.2 million-word novel,Using the AI ​​screenwriting assistant, the evaluation report can be completed in 15 to 30 minutes, whereas manual evaluation used to take a week. AI can significantly save manpower, improve work efficiency, and shorten the production cycle.

The third point, which is currently more foreseeable, is that AI can directly help the film and television industry save content production and shooting costs, and promote the industry to enter a more benign creative ecology.

This has reached a consensus in industry practice at home and abroad. According to Soochow Securities Research Report, under the full AI model, the production costs of movies, long dramas, cartoons and short plays will be reduced by more than 95% compared to the traditional model. When the 2023 Oscar-winning film "The Instant Universe" was produced, there were only five people in the visual effects team. The film crew cooperated with Runway and used its AI tools to complete backgrounds, slow down videos, and create infinitely extending pictures, which greatly improved the performance. Improve the efficiency of visual effects production. According to Chen Kun, the director of "Mountain and Sea Mirror: Cutting Waves", in terms of cost investment, compared with the cost of traditional short play production, the cost of this AIGC short play is one-third to one-quarter of the former. The number of staff involved is one-tenth that of a traditional crew.

Entertainment Capital also learned exclusively that for the nine works in this Keling AI director co-creation plan, the average cost for creators to use Keling is only about 35,000. Compared with film production costs, which can easily reach hundreds of millions, the budget savings are significant.

At the current stage, whether it is for individual film and television creators or the entire industry, seizing the opportunity to enter the game early is the top priority. If you don't be an innovator, you may become a "tool man" or even a victim of the technological revolution. The sooner you embrace AI, the faster you can become familiar with and master new tools. When the technology is just showing its signs but has not yet been fully presented, you can eat. to industry dividends.

AI empowers the future of movies

Of course, although today’s AI technology has made great achievements, it is still in a period of rapid development. Primary stage. The technology industry and the film industry need to work together to optimize algorithms, improve efficiency, and reduce costs so that more creators can enjoy the convenience brought by AI.

The role played by leading technology companies is crucial. Looking at the current AIGC application fields, especially in the film and television industry, as the world's first large-scale real image-level video generation model available to users, Kuaishou Keling, which has just passed its half-year-old birthday, is at the forefront of the industry and has been practicing innovation. , iteration.

In the six months from June 2024 to now, Keling has carried out more than ten iterative upgrades at a very high frequency, with two versions updated almost every month.

Each upgrade is not only an improvement in product technical capabilities, but also a process in which the technology gradually becomes more universal. In July, Keling AI was officially launched on the Web, integrating various functions such as Vincent Picture, Vincent Video and Tush Video to provide users with one-stop video and image large model services. In September, video generation added Keling 1.5 models, with significant improvements in image quality, dynamic quality, aesthetic performance, motion rationality, and semantic understanding; in November, Kuaishou Keling AI officially launched an independent app. At the first "2024AIGC Vision Application Forum", Zhang Di, vice president of Kuaishou and head of the large model team, revealed that Keling AI will launch a new version 1.6 model in the near future. The new model will bring better and more stable video quality. There will be significant improvements in text compliance, dynamic performance, style consistency, etc.

It is reported that Keling can now achieve multiple and practical functions in film and television generation and creation. For example, it can generate large-scale reasonable movements; simulate the characteristics of the physical world; have strong conceptual combination ability and imagination; the generated video resolution is up to 1080p, up to 2 minutes long, allowing users to freely adjust the aspect ratio of the video; and Provides convenient one-click continuation and multiple consecutive continuations for generated videos (including Wensheng videos and Tusheng videos), extending the video up to about 3 minutes, etc.

Many overseas media and technology professionals have spoken highly of Keling’s application. The American “MIT Technology Review” bluntly stated in an article that China’s new “Wensheng Video” artificial intelligence model (Keling ) exciting.

For this reason, Keling has been used in many industries such as college education, short plays, movies, television, and advertising. For example, "The Strange Mirror of Mountains and Seas: Chopping Waves", previously launched by Kuaishou Xingmang Short Drama, is the first AIGC original fantasy micro-short drama in China, and Keling has provided in-depth technical support for it.

This also means that Keling’s audience is getting wider and wider. On December 12, at Kuaishou's first "2024AIGC Vision Application Forum", Zhang Di, vice president of Kuaishou and head of the large model team, said that Keling AI has more than 6 million users and has generated more than 65 million videos and more than 1.75 million videos. Billion pictures.

In the foreseeable future, this rapidly growing large model is expected to become a mature creative tool, and even a creative tool for more ordinary users, and can be truly used on a large scale in film and television-level scenes. It is reported that in the next stage, Keling will upgrade its cooperation model for the film and television industry, provide more personalized enterprise-level customized services, and better serve the industrial intelligent upgrade of the film and television industry.

As Yu Baimei said when looking into the future: In a few years, AI will produce very high-quality movies. In the future, when AI becomes a tool that unlocks human imagination, perhaps the film and television industry will usher in an explosion of genres, expressions, and interactive experiences.

Xue Xiaolu said: "The telephone was once accused of being 'the culprit of destroying family relationships.' The invention of electric lights made countless candle workers unemployed. The development of new technologies is always accompanied by human fears. But in the end, human beings and Technologies coexist peacefully and complement each other. I believe the same is true for AI. ”