Artificial intelligence will soon become part of all our realities. I think it is important to understand what is happening in certain sectors of the international market. How are the filmmakers of the future organising their work? I had two chats with Zaesar, Founder of AI FILMS.
I asked him to introduce himself before answering to my questions.
It’s a pleasure Fabiana to meet you. First of all I’m introducing myself. Many know me as Zaesar, I’m the Founder behind AI FILMS.
I believe in the decentralisation of Storytelling. Being an actor in the past and a musician, I love the power of creativity and expression. Also as an anarchist, I’ve seen what avant-garde is.
What happens when cinema uses artificial intelligence?
I think there are two movements that will fuse in one by some aspects. There are some AI tools that help the “old” way to create films to get faster and cheaper results. But on the other hand other AI tools are bringing people interested into storytelling but with no background into film making.
In any case both situations will bring an explosion of expression and new formats of Storytelling.
Adopting AI tools into Storytelling will make us be the avant-garde of a new movement with its own styles. For example, the distortion pedal brought Heavy-Metal and Grunge.
That said, I don’t believe the Cinema Industry will collide, I just think there will be more points of views that people can follow.
Is the importance of good storytelling still central even if technology and algorithms are a fundamental part?
The good stories are always the ones that the creator knows well. Of course you can use AI tools to write a story. But in the long run the background and the consistency that the creator has will be crucial to grow his/her community.
We are a species that grows around stories. We created stories looking at the stars, created religions, we believe in the story behind a piece of paper that we call money. So yes, a good storyteller can move mountains.
Is the public ready for a new type of filming?
Society is changing rapidly and we don’t really fit on the standards set by the Cinema Industry. We are a multicultural global village. So, we are different but at the same time all connected. We know we are different and somehow unique. But the stories that we get are still telling us what is good or what is bad. There is a study made by Google where they used a dataset of movies and series and they analysed the actors with face recognition based on time on the screen, their gender, age and race.
What they discovered is that the main character by far was a white man between 35 and 50 years old and second a young white woman. The exposure of other races and ages were much lower. If I think about it, this point of view doesn’t fit with what humankind is. The beauty is that democratising the power of storytelling, will make it healthier to choose the story that better fits our beliefs. With that said, I’m not saying what type of story is better than others. Just saying diversity is more healthy.
How long will it be before this becomes standard practice?
Well, some artists and people around the film industry are not happy with the new AI tools that are being released weekly. To me, it isn’t so much to be afraid about a new Industry that is coming. Like a violin player in an Orchestra is not afraid about some punks playing on a squat. And Sex Pistols were huge. The problem here is the “old” Industry replacing jobs with AI tools.
So, basically AI is going to bring something completely new but for example, this will not be the end of acting. I think it will even increase the demand for real experiences like going to the theatre. So I don’t expect it to be a standard practice. I think it will bring the opposite.
