My head kept nodding down to my chest during the Austin AI Film Festival this month. It wasn\u2019t the fault of the festival, which was well-run, well-organized, and in a lovely local theater venue, or even the films, which contained some astonishing images, especially considering how people created them.<\/p>\n
But one of the three choices in the \u201cfeature\u201d section, an endless drone about unidentified anomalous phenomena, starred a man, a woman, and a child who discover a mysterious ball in the woods of Finland or Russia or wherever. Then the ball haunts them. There\u2019s something about alien abductions. I couldn\u2019t keep track because I kept falling asleep.<\/p>\n
As one attendee said to me as we were walking to lunch, \u201cI\u2019d like to see something with characters talking to each other. Give me something I can care about.\u201d<\/p>\n
This stood in direct contrast to what I\u2019m seeing with artificial intelligence film online. There, AI filmmaking is a manic, wildly imaginative gold rush, a phantasmagorical fever dream of large-breasted barbarian chicks, rampaging goblin hordes, soaring spaceships, rapping rubber-faced fish aliens and pigs, Hank Hill clones singing Dire Straits\u2019 \u201cMoney for Nothing,\u201d fake sitcom scenes, and insane cyberpunk music videos.<\/p>\n
Dozens, maybe hundreds, possibly thousands of people around the world have discovered they can make actual movies with minimal budgets and scant help. Some are putting together full features by themselves. Prometheus has stolen fire, or maybe Mongo discovered fire. We\u2019re trying to harness lightning, and by \u201cwe,\u201d I mean I\u2019m trying to do it too. Because once you see the potential of AI creativity, you can\u2019t unsee it.<\/p>\n
The festival contained glimmers of this barely contained madness. The first session was a presentation by a filmmaker named PJ Accetturo, or \u201cPJ Ace,\u201d as he calls himself on X. Frustrated by the slow pace of Hollywood, he turned to AI filmmaking tools partly out of curiosity and partly out of desperation.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s working on a series of shorts \u2014 that may become a massive world-consuming intellectual property \u2014 called \u201cNexus,\u201d which he described as a combination of \u201cStar Wars,\u201d \u201cGame of Thrones,\u201d and Pok\u00e9mon. The TikTok-connected filmmaking app Dreamina is backing the project, which he\u2019s making with a double-digit team.<\/p>\n
He predicted the next \u201cStar Wars\u201d would come from a kid with a laptop. \u201cThat kid could be me, or it could be you.\u201d But it requires a hook, something other than \u201chere are some cool images.\u201d People have to respond to the material, he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t just walk into Amazon and say, hey, AI\u2019s here, give me a million dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
PJ Ace\u2019s material has mainstream potential, but AI filmmaking has a decidedly indie-revolution feel to it.<\/p>\n
Roger Avary, who won an Oscar for co-writing \u201cPulp Fiction,\u201d told me that after the pandemic he couldn\u2019t even get meetings in Hollywood. Jail time had already interrupted his career following a 2009 conviction for a drunken-driving crash that killed a passenger.<\/p>\n
A French graphic designer friend pointed him toward Runway, which gave him free access to its tools and wanted his advice. From his Paris headquarters, Avary is now making films with AI himself, including work with French filmmaker Paul Mignot on \u201cCort\u00e9s,\u201d a hybrid production using AI alongside actors and a conventional crew.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s go man,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s go with the technology. Let\u2019s see where this takes us.\u201d<\/p>\n
One filmmaker Avary has been championing is Jenny Krakovsky, a U.K.-based director who has made commercials for Prada and Nike but had struggled to get her first feature made. She had a script for \u201cBoss,\u201d a crime caper about women becoming gangsters in 1960s Liverpool. A period piece was a tough sell.<\/p>\n
In May, she announced online that she would make it with AI in 30 days. Tech companies offered free access and credits. It took her 50 days. She recorded every character\u2019s dialogue herself in a Liverpool accent, then used software to change the voices. She made the whole film in her bedroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a sh*tty little laptop, it\u2019s not very good,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
At 16, she\u2019d made what she called a \u201cripoff\u201d of Avary\u2019s \u201cThe Rules of Attraction\u201d in her living room. After taking a look at \u201cBoss,\u201d Avary praised her as a vanguard of indie film.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was running around the house screaming to my wife,\u201d she said. \u201cI called my mum.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh Daws, a former Disney software engineer now a vice president at Blaze Media, had put filmmaking aside as his family grew. AI let him start again after the kids were in bed. His animated \u201cMary Sue\u201d\u00a0series follows an overconfident heroine who has to learn to be teachable.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor those of us on the right who have for so long felt shut out of the Hollywood system, we can make our own entertainment,\u201d he said. He wants to compete with \u201cpeople who make good movies but with rotten messages.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also thinks conservatives are equipped to withstand the backlash against AI filmmaking. \u201cWhen you\u2019re on the right, you\u2019re used to being hated for your beliefs. We have a thick skin.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Daws, the immediate result is enthusiasm bordering on insomnia.<\/p>\n
\u201cI regularly wake up at 3 a.m. just excited about the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the people taking the AI filmmaking bus to the end of the line is Paul Sprangers, who makes films as Dr. Dreams and hosts a YouTube talk show where he exchanges war stories and ideas about AI filmmaking. His main contribution to the genre is an absurdly entertaining sci-fi fantasy series called \u201cBambi the Destroyer.\u201d He talks about the possibilities in terms of Heavy Metal\u00a0magazine: fantastical worlds that would never get a conventional movie budget.<\/p>\n
He says he can now make a short film or two every week. One episode of \u201cBambi,\u201d which he published on X, he said he made while \u201ceating snacks.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are scrolling while they\u2019re driving so you have to make it entertaining and make it move fast,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s Bone, a Central Florida entrepreneur who vibe-built something called Slop Cannon to make creating AI music videos easier, though he has ambitions to make it a platform for generating advertising, sitcoms, and other genres. He has particular tastes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI make AI music videos about rapping pigs,\u201d he told me. Of the Cannon, he says, \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a bit that got out of control and became real by repetition. Now it\u2019s real and it\u2019s making money.\u201d<\/p>\n
And this is where my own AI filmmaking experience started. I found the Slop Cannon on X, liked the vibe, and started making music videos based on characters from an AI-generated comic book I\u2019ve worked on for a few months. The videos range in length from 30 seconds to four and a half minutes and in quality from terrible to amazing.<\/p>\n
None took me longer than a couple of hours to create, using a combination of my imagination, ChatGPT, Suno, and the Cannon itself. Bone has started something called \u201cSlop TV,\u201d and I have my own channel, with 20 videos, all of which I created in the last month. None is quite a coherent narrative, but it\u2019s a start. Any barriers that Hollywood might have thrown in my way, or anyone\u2019s way, have fallen.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s happening everywhere. Minh Do, co-founder of the global AI creative network Machine Cinema, described communities he\u2019s found in Paris, Warsaw, and Nigeria with people who love movies but who don\u2019t exist in the Hollywood ecosystem. The French and Polish governments in particular, he said, have been bullish about backing AI filmmakers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho else is going to stick around and play with Midjourney for 12 hours straight?\u201d Do says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Austin festival, Jason Fisher of StageRunner, a soundstage marketplace that\u2019s pivoting into AI production, said Hollywood is exploring AI but wary of angering actors, writers, and directors. He expects the breakthrough to come from outside the system and to be a group effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not going to be someone in their basement,\u201d he told the audience. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a group of people in their collective basement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Take, for instance, Zack London\u2019s Gossip Goblin, which is turning out serialized fantasy and science fiction with a small team and AI. The studio says it has released more than 600 episodes in two years and attracted more than 3 million followers. Its filmmakers describe \u201cGods Don\u2019t Give Gifts\u201d as the first AI feature to receive a\u00a0Motion Picture Association rating \u2014 an R. The breakthrough is coming. It\u2019s only a matter of who and when.<\/p>\n
Krakovsky put it this way: \u201cI\u2019d rather make fake films for real people than real films for fake people.\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Neal Pollack, \u201cthe greatest living American writer,\u201d is the author of 12 semi-bestselling books of fiction and nonfiction and is a three-time \u201cJeopardy!\u201d champion.<\/p>\n