A growing number of independent entertainment studios are emerging with a capability Hollywood has never seen: generative artificial intelligence at the heart of their creative DNA.
Among these studios, several focus primarily on the production of feature-length and short narrative films and television content, including Promise, the recently announced Venture backed Peter Chernin and Andreessen Horowitz; Asteria Film, owned by the XTR documentary studio after acquire AI animation studio Late Night Labs; TCL Studios, owned by the American division of the Chinese electronics giant; Based in the United Kingdom Pigeon Sanctuaryand creators of original animated IP made for YouTube and social media, including Toonstar and Invisible Universe.
Rather than taking a cautious or stuck-in “wait-and-see” approach, as some have perceived among traditional Hollywood studios, AI studios are proactively integrating generative AI tools and models into their processes and design workflows and production pipelines around them. They aim to deeply understand the technology and rigorously push the tools to discover what they are capable of, how they are limited, and how best to use them to produce compelling, high-quality content, as opposed to further neglect of the technology. ‘AI.
But what exactly it means to be an AI studio is less clear and raises deeper questions about how generative AI is used in a professional workflow for content production.
VIP+ spoke with executives from seven of these studios to provide an in-depth exploration of the studios’ different approaches to generative AI tools, production workflows, pipelines, and teams.
Two main strategic philosophies guide these companies:
Aggressive experimentation: Many sources have called the current moment the “Wild West” because no one yet knows how this technology will be applied to cinema. Rather, it must be discovered through deliberate trial and error by actually working with the tools to try to create content.
Many consider their teams to be at the forefront of the next wave of production technologies in the industry, already far ahead of major studios and VFX studios in their facilities with gen AI in production thanks to their serious efforts to experiment and stay on top constants. changes to tools and features. They described their teams achieving “breakthroughs” during production that could only be achieved through creative storytelling and teams of technical experts confronting and solving real-world creative problems.
“Production breakthroughs really happen through being creatively led,” said Paul Trillo, a director and filmmaker who now collaborates with Asteria movie. “That’s why ILM is what it is. They had to brute force figure out how. All of this is in service of an underlying story that demands something. And we’re like, okay, well, no one knows how to do that. Let’s see that.
Several studios further cited their agility and adaptability as essential operational elements, given the rapid pace of advancements in AI. With new models and tools constantly emerging, sources said their toolsets become obsolete within weeks or months, followed by the launch of new features or tools that solve yesterday’s production challenge.
This agility allowed them to quickly evaluate and adjust toolsets in a workflow as needed, in some cases immediately integrating a new or updated tool if it improves a different or previous tool or meets a specific creative need on a project. In contrast, existing studio systems with established pipelines would not allow for sudden tool changes as easily.
Search for efficiency: AI studios want to create workflows and pipelines that leverage the ability of build AI tools to reduce content budgets, shrinkage production deadlines, get faster feedback (“fail faster”), and boost the output of their creative teams and artists, in some cases to keep pace with certain distribution channels (e.g., social media).
Sources have argued that content produced through the traditional Hollywood pipeline simply costs too much and takes too long to make. “In Hollywood, it’s very difficult to produce something at an affordable price. We’re basically looking to compress the economics of these units, both in terms of budget and build timeline,” said Jonathan Lutzky, COO at EDGLRD, a IP-based digital studio led by filmmaker Harmony Korine.
Some have further argued that efficiency, through AI’s powerful tools, could revive projects lying fallow during a period of contraction in Hollywood. “We develop software and workflows that allow you to be more efficient and reduce the time or cost it takes to create something,” said Bryn Mooser, CEO of Asteria. “We explain how these tools can help filmmakers either make something they couldn’t have done before because the budget was too high or because they didn’t have access to these kinds of tools. Now the cost can come down to where they can finance independently.
In addition to their mastery of AI tools, studios view the strength of their talent teams as their true differentiator and X-factor. AI studio sources described deliberately building their teams to bring together creative and technology, including highly skilled traditional artists, animators and producers with deep knowledge of storytelling, senior VFX specialists (e.g. CG generalists and compositors), and tech talent with deep knowledge of generative AI. More importantly, sources pointed out that creatives and technicians work directly with each other to resolve issues.
For example, AI tech talent may consist of engineers, who can act as the research and development arm of the studio, tracking new research and tools and show it to creatives on the production side to evaluate how it could help solve a particular production problem. But it can also mean AI generation specialists who understand more advanced and technically “in the weeds” ways of using the tools.
Perhaps most important to the industry right now are AI studios hiring, but arguably from a limited pool of people.
“The kind of dream team that we form as a core creative research team is made up of people who have both (creative) backgrounds, whether it’s directing, filmmaking, “animation or visual effects, and who know AI tools very intensely,” Trillo said. . “You would be surprised how few people have both sets of knowledge.”
“We’ve tried to host some of the first and best creators in this space,” said Eric Shamlin, CEO of Secret Level. “We are by no means alone. There are probably half a dozen stores in the competitive landscape right now. We are all trying to identify the best talent.
Coming to VIP+
• December 18: How AI Studios Are Integrating AI Tools and Techniques into Their Workflows
VIP+ Uncovers AI Data and Insights from Every Angle – Choose a Story