Each time the ground shakes it could mean a big truck rolling by, a small earthquake, or the arrival of a world-shattering creature just outside your window. Regardless of which it is, you gotta keep your head down and keep going.
As I write this, it is actually unclear what the future of Gen AI in filmmaking will be. The creative, cultural, and collaborative way in which the best films, shows, shorts, and commercials are made is not something that can be easily approximated. Decisions are made at every level of our creative process from large thematic ideas all the way down to the specifics of eyebrow and finger movements in performance. Throwing all existent animation into a dataset and blending it up as a means of making things is to ignore and disrespect the creative process foundational to making good film.
I’ve been saddled with a particular sense of backseat anxiety since the arrival of these systems (the "I can't sleep at night" kind of anxiety). I think it’s misleading to call them “artificial intelligence” at this point. The LLMs, to my understanding, are guessing machines that pull bits and pieces from vast libraries of content to stitch together the program’s calculation of the most probable expected answer. Huge roulette machines filled with the shredded contents of the entire internet which you can guide by typing words into a box.
My backseat anxiety demon tells me that the days of profitable living from the animation industry are numbered. That the flood of content from these Gen AI systems will absolutely wipe from the internet the ability to easily find human-made art. That everything will be a constant, unstoppable, polluting sludge.
Another part of me thinks that this will poke us creatively as artists. In my most boring and least inspiring days in animation, I already feel like a generative LLM. When I’m told to reference such-and-such shot from such-and-such movie by such-and-such-director (even when the context of the shot is completely different). When I’m told to grind down the creative flow of a sequence into the most basic/simple version of it with the most basic simple, budget-saving action to pull off a gag that’s been done hundreds of times. When I’m told to center-weight all shots, and cut to each character for their dialogue in a medium (so we can see the acting…?), to always show comedy in flat staging. Etc. In these moments, it feels like we’re already making film by rote. We’re already painting by number. Already making “content” sludge to just fill time and attention that audiences would otherwise be doing something actually rewarding with. If Ai can do this, then why are we making this stuff at all?
There have to be deeper reasons for the stories we craft than extending a franchise or filling time or remaking a billion-year-old IP. We need to be making films for real, deep human issues. Then those depths have to inform the choices that make the specifics of design, storyboarding, editing, animation, lighting, etc. The heart guides the form.
If Gen AI makes content creation faster, then it means a deluge of content of dubious quality. Humans will still craft works of art but it will be harder and harder to find adrift amongst the sea of trash. More so than now, anything relevant to distribution, marketing, and reviewing film (in any format from features to youtube videos) or any way in which people are made aware of things worth watching/interacting with will become considerably more important.
There’s already more content on Youtube than a person can watch even in many lifetimes. It will get so much worse with video generating AI systems. But, the content that is truly good, that is truly artful will become that much more precious.
While the 200 ft monster outside my window peers in with its giant, internet-scraping eye, I comfort myself with the thought that it still doesn’t know how many fingers humans have. I comfort myself with the thought that there may yet be ways forward for quality over quantity art on the internet and IRL. As long as we center our human-ness and human experiences, we can win.
Keep calm. Keep drawing. Don’t be distracted by the kaiju outside your window.