Wowee, my last post on the topic of AI really took a serious turn. I promise to be way sillier in this post. I mean, I had this whole plan where I’d talk about some of the issues facing artists and AI, then I would go into my incredibly silly attempt to make one of my books into a movie using AI and then I went off the deep end with long haul truckers, and the Great Depression. If I could have only woven a murderous fish into that one… but no regrets, right?
So, if you haven’t guessed it. I’m here to chronicle my filmmaking experience with AI. I understand the concerns about AI. Machine learning is an existential threat to anyone who wants to make creative works for a living. I’m not talking about Stephen King, I’m sure if AI wrote a hit book tomorrow, and suddenly the market is flooded with AI books, he’ll be doing okay. Established writers just need to release a book because they already have an audience who likes and reads their stuff.
I’m talking about the unknown writers like me, who literally have to work hard for every book sale, and sustain themselves with jobs that don’t involve writing books, and have to compete for reader attention with the 400 other books published that month. AI will crush us like a bug when it can write a hit novel. While AI is not there yet in the novel writing department, it’s there with cool spaceships.
I bring that up because despite AI existentially threatening my passion to write stories that people enjoy reading, I am very excited about a form of generative AI that thankfully for people in that profession is not quite there yet, and sad for me because I so want it to be. That is AI of generative filmmaking.
Yes, I know it’s a contradiction for me to have concerns about the AI who can write a novel, but welcome the movie making bot. Humans are full of contradictions, part of being in the flesh suit. One of the reasons why I’m excited about AI filmmaking is when an unartistic person like myself is brimming with stories to tell and can generate a Pixar quality movie from my basement, I’ll be first in line to start making them.
I know that’s the same threat for filmmakers that writers face, but I need to face the reality that I don’t think my books will ever make it to the big screen or even Netflix or Pluto TV for that matter. For a book to become a movie or television show, it requires luck with better odds than winning the lottery several times in a row.
I think it’s a little too simplistic to believe that if I write a good story that’s popular enough, movie and television deals follow. Think about all the really good books you’ve read. Then think of the ones you like with outta control review count on Amazon. We can use reviews as a measure of popularity. Then think about all those books that have movie or TV deals. There’s probably more that you’ve read without the TV show or movie than you’ve read with a show.
Now think about all the books that you’ve read where if you found out there was a TV show coming, you’d say, “Yeah, I’d watch that.” AI filmmaking will make that possible, and I believe that it will do for filmmakers what the internet did for self-publishing for better or worse.
Don’t get me wrong, there are industries that will suffer when people can make Pixar level movies in their basement (Pixar being one of them), but they are the established name brands, and people will see their movies because they made them, have the big stars attached to it, etc. Self-publishing hadn’t destroyed the major publishers, just like generative AI won’t be displacing Disney anytime soon.
However, it will help storytellers like myself craft in a medium that traditionally takes a lot of people to make it go right. Think of any movie that you really like, in order for that movie to be so good, you need a good script (because to be frank, you can’t make a good movie out of bad writing, MST3k’s long standing popularity is proof of that). Even if you have the best script ever, you need good actors. Once again, watch some MST3k for some truly horrific performances.
You also need good animators or set decorators. A person who knows how to frame a shot, lighting, and all sorts of people to make even just an episode of television. If any one of those people isn’t doing their job well, we are taken out of the story. It’s amazing anyone’s book is made into a movie or TV show at all. In order for a studio to make a project they really need to believe in that story, not just have some good reviews on Amazon.
Thus why there are so many good books that were never made into film. Now, imagine the world where you can watch any book you’ve read, or better yet share that story with that friend who doesn’t read much at all. It can get pretty lonely as a Wheel of Time fanatic when it took 21 years for that TV show to come out when you can finally start showing people what you loved about that series (or shake your fists about why they cut what you love about the series from the show).
The point I’m trying to make is that filmmaking with generative AI could at the very least put filmmaking in the hands of the story tellers and fans, and not purely in control of the handful of film companies out there like self-publishing did for novels. I’m sure you don’t have to think too hard to recall movies or TV shows that took a beloved series that seemed to disregard the story for the sake of profit, or big budget movies who didn’t seem to have a storyteller among the crew.
But yes, I do recognize that I can’t pick and choose AI, that if I accept generative AI filmmaking, by proxy, I have to accept the existence that a bot is going to write a really good book one day, and it will be made into a movie. Which I am here to definitely say that AI in the filmmaking space, just like the writing hit novel space, is not there yet. Filmmakers, your jobs are safe, and I’m open to movie deals, contact me.
But seriously, I did try to make a movie with generative AI and here’s what happened… on the next post… cliffhanger… da da dum-dum-dum dum!!!!!!
Making bills and earnin’ like a baller with l33tskillz4va’s crypto fast cash is not what happens in this book!
But there are killer trees and bloody arena battles. What more could you want? Except sex. That happens too.
It also resolves plot points like certain characters stuck in a painting and what’s Petra’s mom doin’ at that volcano, yo!
I mean I guess there’s stuff like personal character growth and human connection and all that warm, squishy stuff.
But did I mention sex that happens in this book, and magic, swords, battle axes, battles, and plenty limbs being chopped off?
Time Burrito 