Transform Your Filmmaking: How New AI Tools Are Revolutionizing the Industry

A US stealth bomber glides through the darkened skies en route to Iran. In Tehran, a solitary woman tends to a stray cat amidst the remains of a recent Israeli airstrike.

For novice viewers, this could easily be mistaken for a cinematic representation of the geopolitical turmoil that has unfolded recently.

Yet, despite its high-quality production, the scene was not filmed in any real location, and the woman feeding the cat is not an actress—she is a fictional character.

The captivating visuals originate from “Rough Cut,” a 12-minute short film showcasing a US attack on Iranian nuclear sites last month, crafted entirely by directors Samir Malal and Bukha Kazumi using artificial intelligence.

This clip is rooted in the details gathered from news reports surrounding the US bombings. The woman seen traversing the empty streets of Tehran is the same one feeding the stray cat. Armed with pertinent information, the creators produced sequences resembling those directed by Hollywood’s finest.

The remarkable speed at which this film has emerged, along with the comfort it brings to some, does not go unnoticed by broadcasting experts.

Recently, television producer and bestselling author Richard Osman remarked that a new era is dawning in the entertainment industry, signaling the close of one chapter and the beginning of another.

“I saw this and thought, ‘This marks the conclusion of the beginning of something new,'” he stated during the rest of the entertainment podcast.

Osman continued:

For Mallal, a London-based documentary filmmaker known for creating advertisements for Samsung and Coca-Cola, AI has ushered in a novel genre of “Cinematic News.”

The Tehran-based film, titled Midnight Drop, serves as a sequel to Sky in the Sky, a recreation of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian bombers from June.

In a matter of weeks, Mallal, who also directed Spiders in the Sky, managed to create a film depicting the Ukrainian attack—a project that would typically take millions and at least two years to develop.

“It should be feasible to utilize AI to create something unprecedented,” he remarked. “I’ve never encountered a news-reel film produced in a fortnight, nor a thriller based on current events completed in two weeks.”

Spiders in the Sky primarily utilized VEO3, a video generation model developed by Google alongside various other AI tools. ChatGPT assisted Mallal in streamlining the lengthy interview with the drone operator, which became the backbone of the film’s narrative; however, the voiceover, script, and music were not AI-generated.

Google’s filmmaking tools, flow, are equipped with VEO3, enabling users to generate audio, sound effects, and background noise. Since its debut in May, the impact of these tools on YouTube and social media has been remarked upon. As Ottoman’s podcast partner Marina Hyde mentioned last week, “The expansion is astonishing.”

There is a significant amount of “nonsense” emerging. This refers to an AI-generated concept, Olympic diving dogs showcasing an appealing quality.

Mallal and Kazumi aspire to finalize a film depicting stealth bomber missions and thwarting the Iranian narrative, aiming for a runtime six times longer than Spiders in the Sky by August, leveraging models like VEO3, OpenAI’s Sora, and Midjourney.

“I seek to demonstrate a key point,” states Malal. “It shows that you can produce high-quality content rapidly, maintaining pace with cultural developments, especially since Hollywood operates at a notably slower rate.”

He adds: “The creative journey often involves generating poor ideas to eventually unearth the good ones. With AI, we can now expedite this process, allowing for a greater volume of ‘bad ideas.’

Recently, Mallal and Kazumi produced Atlas, Interrupted, a short film centered around the 3i/Atlas Comet, a recent news event featured on the BBC.

David Jones, CEO of BrandTech Group, an advertising startup utilizing generative AI (a term encompassing tools like chatbots and video generators) for marketing campaigns, remarks:

“Currently, less than 1% of branded content is generated with generative AI; however, 100% is created either fully or partially using generative AI,” he explains.

Last week, Netflix disclosed its initial use of AI on one of its television productions.

However, this surge in AI-driven creativity raises concerns about copyright. In the UK, the creative sector is outraged by the government’s proposal to train AI models on copyrighted material without the owners’ consent, unless they explicitly opt out.

Mallal advocates for “an easily accessible and user-friendly program that ensures artists are compensated for their creations.”

Beevan Kidron, a crossbench peer and prominent supporter against the government’s proposal, acknowledges AI’s filmmaking tools as “remarkable,” but questions the extent of reliance on creators’ works. She emphasizes: “Creators require fairness in this new system, or invaluable assets will be lost.”

YouTube has established terms allowing Google to utilize creators’ works for training AI models, while denying the use of the entire YouTube catalog for this purpose.

Mallal advocates using AI as a tool for “promptocraft,” a term for employing prompts to innovate AI systems. He reveals that during the production of the Ukrainian films, he was astonished by how swiftly he could adjust camera angles and lighting with a few keystrokes.

“I’ve deeply engaged with AI, learning how to collaborate with engineers, and how to translate my directorial skills into prompts. Yet, I had never produced any creative outcome until VEO3 emerged.”