Ty Harper

No technological advancement will ever stop humans from the desire to make art. So what you're saying is 100% true but not really in dispute. This is about the filmmaking economy and who will be able to make a sustainable living off the art of filmmaking.

THR did an interview with Tyler Perry about all of this. Tyler is in the interesting position of being a director but also the owner of his own production company. Great read! ==== The actor, filmmaker and studio owner is raising the alarm about the impact of the tech, saying, "I feel like everybody in the industry is running a hundred miles an hour to try and catch up, to try and put in guardrails." BY KATIE KILKENNY Over the past four years, Tyler Perry had been planning an $800 million expansion of his studio in Atlanta, which would have added 12 soundstages to the 330-acre property. Now, however, those ambitions are on hold — thanks to the rapid developments he’s seeing in the realm of artificial intelligence, including OpenAI’s text-to-video model Sora, which debuted Feb. 15 and stunned observers with its cinematic video outputs. “Being told that it can do all of these things is one thing, but actually seeing the capabilities, it was mind-blowing,” he said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday, noting that his productions might not have to travel to locations or build sets with the assistance of the technology. Is Hollywood Sleepwalking Toward Strike Three? As a business owner, Perry sees the opportunity in these developments, but as an employer, fellow actor and filmmaker, he also wants to raise the alarm. In an interview between shoots Thursday, Perry explained his concerns about the technology’s impact on labor and why he wants the industry to come together to tackle AI: “There’s got to be some sort of regulations in order to protect us. If not, I just don’t see how we survive." After seeing Sora, what are your current feelings about how fast AI technology is moving and how it might affect entertainment in the near term? I have been watching AI very closely and watching the advancements very closely. I was in the middle of, and have been planning for the last four years, about an $800 million expansion at the studio, which would’ve increased the backlot a tremendous size — we were adding 12 more soundstages. All of that is currently and indefinitely on hold because of Sora and what I’m seeing. I had gotten word over the last year or so that this was coming, but I had no idea until I saw recently the demonstrations of what it’s able to do. It’s shocking to me. What in particular was shocking to you about its capabilities? I no longer would have to travel to locations. If I wanted to be in the snow in Colorado, it’s text. If I wanted to write a scene on the moon, it’s text, and this AI can generate it like nothing. If I wanted to have two people in the living room in the mountains, I don’t have to build a set in the mountains, I don’t have to put a set on my lot. I can sit in an office and do this with a computer, which is shocking to me. It makes me worry so much about all of the people in the business. Because as I was looking at it, I immediately started thinking of everyone in the industry who would be affected by this, including actors and grip and electric and transportation and sound and editors, and looking at this, I’m thinking this will touch every corner of our industry. Are you currently implementing AI in any of your productions and/or do you plan to do so in the near future? I just used AI in two films that are going to be announced soon. That kept me out of makeup for hours. In post and on set, I was able to use this AI technology to avoid ever having to sit through hours of aging makeup. How are you thinking about approaching the threat that AI poses to certain job categories at your studio and on your productions? Everything right now is so up in the air. It’s so malleable. The technology’s moving so quickly. I feel like everybody in the industry is running a hundred miles an hour to try and catch up, to try and put in guardrails and to try and put in safety belts to keep livelihoods afloat. But me, just like every other studio in town, we’re all trying to figure it all out. I think we’re all trying to find the answers as we go, and it’s changing every day — and it’s not just our industry, but it’s every industry that AI will be affecting, from accountants to architects. If you look at it across the world, how it’s changing so quickly, I’m hoping that there’s a whole government approach to help everyone be able to sustain. How would you like the entertainment industry as a whole to confront this rapidly developing technology? I absolutely think that it has to be an all hands on [deck], whole industry approach. It can’t be one union fighting every contract every two or three years. I think that it has to be everybody, all involved in how do we protect the future of our industry because it is changing rapidly, right before our eyes. I think of all of the construction workers and contractors who are not going to be employed because I’m not doing this next phase of the studio because there is no need to do it. What’s your message for the industry at this point, as we’re watching this unfold? I know each union is individual, and I know that unions have stood with each other in times of negotiation, but I think that this is a time for galvanizing one voice in motion to help save, protect the individuals of our industry. As a studio owner, are you feeling any pressure to use AI at this point? No. I’m absolutely not feeling any pressure to use it, but I’m definitely looking at the advantages and what it brings to the table. However, I can focus on the bottom line of my studio continuing to do extremely well and avoid the conversation, or we can jump in and have the conversation head-on to make sure that we’re protecting all the people that are coming up. So I’ve got two sides here to this thing. For me, I’m looking at my business and the bottom line, but I’m also very concerned about all the people that I have trained and bought up in this industry. I’m concerned about what will happen to them. How do you think this convergence of the rapid development of AI and the current contraction in the industry is going to play out? I think it’s going to be a major game-changer, because if you could spend a fraction of the cost to do a pilot that would’ve cost $15 [million], $20 million or even $35 million if you’re looking at HBO, of course the bottom line of those companies would be to go the route of lesser costs. So I am very, very concerned that in the near future, a lot of jobs are going to be lost. I really, really feel that very strongly. Who needs to act? You’re speaking up about this, but who else should be speaking up and working on this? I just hope that as people are embracing this technology and as companies are moving to reduce costs and save the bottom line, that there’ll be some sort of thought and some sort of compassion for humanity and the people that have worked in this industry and built careers and lives, that there’s some sort of thought for them. And I think the only way to move forward in this is to galvanize it as one voice, not only in Hollywood and in this industry, but also in Congress. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/tyler-perry-ai-alarm-1235833276/

I mean I'm not really trying to argue about all of this. I think we're all gna cope with a moment like this in different ways. What matters is we're aware that it's happening and we aren't naive about what it might mean for many of us and/or our peers' livelihoods.

Julio do you work professionally in the media/film production industry? Not meant with any condescension or malice - just want to get a sense of where you're coming from?

It won't always look shitty. Sorry but anyone who's saying this looks sh*tty must not have seen the original Will Smith spaghetti one they had a year ago. THAT was sh*tty - this new one is no where near perfect, but sh*tty is just a ridiculous descriptor of something that is still developing. It is imo good enough for us to understand the implications for the art-based labor industry.

Reality TV is not even 'reality' and clearly cares little for the tenets of JSP, so I would argue that format will embrace AI with the quickness and you'll have AI-based characters that viewers are rooting for...

Also forgot to mention that I think journalism/reporting/news gathering, where the facts of an event are a priority, are spaces where traditional cams/audio, etc will still matter. At least in publicly funded broadcast vs private broadcasting companies. But both realms will be tested by advertisers and waning streams of investment to support those journalistic standards and practices.

I don't think any style or medium or approach is ever rendered completely obsolete. I think the ones you can't monetize just become much less sensible to use for that particular purpose. Whether we're talking reel to reel tape for audio production (which I started with!), OG film cameras, vinyl, cassettes, etc. These become super niche things that creators pull out to return to a "warmer", "more analog" feel. So one day using digital cameras and capturing actual human beings will very likely fall into that category in the media economy - particularly Hollywood. As far as what you're saying about documentaries. Well that is a world I have been thinking about the most, as a hobbyist and sometimes professional. I think it will be a mix of what you're saying. For example, I'm doing a family doc about my parents. How they met, fell in love, moved to Canada from the Caribbean, etc. I've already filmed the main interviews with them. But it is clear that there isn't alot of historic video footage of them as kids or as a young couple. So this is totally where AI will transform the possibilities for this project. Because I could take archival photos of them from those periods and use AI to create video representations of those photos in tandem with what they are describing from their past in the video interviews I've already captured. Even create AI video scene of dialogue between them as a young couple based on their accounts. Will it seem strange to them. Maybe? But I'm more inclined to think it will be surreal and fascinating. For me personally, I have no video footage of myself as a kid - and I can tell you I would really appreciate using tech like this for that purpose. All that said, I agree that weddings and realtime captures of life and current history will likely still depend on some tyoe of traditional raw video capture. But even in that instance I think there's a scenario where you now use something compact like a phone (with much less interest in thinks like the highest resolution, dynamic range, etc - bcuz AI won't need that kind of stuff) just to give AI the raw data to work with, and then AI reproduces that raw capture perfectly and with even more 'detail' AND gives you infinite angle options to build what we now call a 'multicam' doc of an event. I would even think that you could get alot of that done with photos of the event and the people there as well. If anything audio might be the thing we still need to continue to capture the way we do it now - but again, you prob wouldn't need to worry about having the ultimate quality either - just some raw data for AI to work with. So yeah, there are ways that traditional tech will likely still be used - but it will prob be vastly minimized and also very obvious that AI tech will be driving the bulk of the creative process.

This is vastly underestimating the quality of AI based video in the near future. You must see that the tech we're seeing/talking about right now will be capable of reproducing imagery that is stunningly life like. The only thing being removed from the equation moving forward is our role in the capture process. But even that is not true - because this AI tech stands on the sum total legacy of everything humans have captured of the world to date. One thing that is humbling about AI-based video/audio etc, is that it is telling us that even our physical existence can be reduced to 1s and 0s. There were/are human economic systems within which something like AI would/can be used in non-exploitative ways towards human beings. We unfortunately do not exist within one of those system at the moment.

Agreed. As you say, if people want to use cams and other traditional forms of real life capture for home/family use, no one will stop them. But it's unlikely that media/film production companies in the future will be hiring/paying people who offer camera capture, set design, lighting, etc, etc, as a sole and primary service - which is really what we're talking about. Also, the AI approach won't be seen as a 'forgery' to mass consumers in most circumstances. The ones intended for insidious deep-fake purposes? Yes, of course. But most AI-based video will be seen/consumed as a valid representation of real life ala a painting. It will also be impossible to tell the difference in the future. That's just based on how far a company like Open AI has come in a year. Also, these distinctions we're making around real vs fake will be irrelevant to the vast majority of humans born into it from here on out. All realms of commerce have experienced crushing human labor disruptions in the past and present times (car manufacturing being the most obvious example). What makes this stunning and unique is that it is happening to the realm of commerce (i.e art-based commerce) that we instinctively know humans will continue to do whether they are paid for it or not. You can't say the same for alot of other realms of the human labor economy. So it will be, imo, one of the most poignant blows in the history of human labor to date.

Some will - most won't and my kid might wax nostalgic about the days when people took pictures and shot video, but will be just fine with AI, the way we were just fine with mp3s.

Yeah he covers this exact topic toward the end, and agrees with you. The entire film and media production industry will be vastly different in the coming years, and that is obviously an understatement. But also the pandemic did not help. I've watched my audio engineer and video peers fight for the tech/quality standards that have governed terrestrial tv and radio since its creation - and the pandemic, which forced all productions to use Zoom video/audio conferencing tech via hosts' living rooms with crappy audio situations - actually proved to the higher ups that audiences don't notice the loss in audio/video production quality. Which is also due to the reality that social media had already crept up and normalized subpar audio/video quality in the minds of the audience. Now YouTube/TikTok/IG audio is a 'style' or 'sound' - not an example of inferior quality.

This is what I was getting at whenever I've gone on rants about the changes coming to the way we think about storytelling via 'video' and why our convos around cams are discussions about tech that already has an expiry date:

Unlikely that 2024 will be a no gear year for me but it's definitely feeling like I'm coming up on the end of me buying cams period. I just sold my R5 to buy a 2nd R5C and I'll prob get an R7/R6 MKII as a C-cam. But I cannot fathom me needing anything else after that - and the way tech is going it feels like the next big wave will either be iphones as prosumer cams, or not needing cams at all.

Well that's where we disagree philosophically, which is obviously totally fine. But I wouldn't be shooting something or even caring about the image if I wasn't trying to tell a particular story first and foremost.

I think the idea of nailing it in-camera is in and of itself not that big of a deal nowadays - if you have a basic color workflow and most importantly, know how to really nail the story you're trying to tell. That statement isn't meant to dismiss the importance of nailing it in-camera - but to say that imo nailing it in-camera has always been less about hitting a fixed target dead on - and more about a ballpark. And that ballpark is so much easier to hit thanks to the aggregated knowledge base of spaces like this, and of course YouTube. To the point where asking someone with experience for assistance is usually not as prudent as simply typing the question in YouTube's search engine! But that ball park around the target of perfection is also much wider than ever before, thanks to the corrective tools we now have within Resolve, Premiere Pro, Finalcut, etc. Not to mention basic in-the -field tools like a color chart and/or Sekonic C-700 or C-800. I was a deejay for most of my life, and I still pride myself on knowing the basic theories of bar-counting and melody-matching and taking the time to know the unique bar construction of every single song I was gna play, so that when I hit the party and got on the 1200s, my 'in-camera' settings were pretty good. But then Serato came along with other recent mind-blowing advances - and now in 2023, a deejay simply does not need to have/understand those 'in-camera' settings. Is it something deejays like myself lament? 100%!!! But the REAL deejays of those past generations also understand that the actual mission, first and foremost, was always: to tell a great story. So while there are deejays I know and admire, who still love to do 'all-vinyl' parties as a way to exercise/show-off the skills they HAD TO developed in the past, as a means to the ends of telling great stories, again, the REAL ones within that cohort also understand they are doing those parties for the sake of nostalgia, which is also very important and life affirming. All that to say, hopefully when we are in passionate pursuit of getting it right in-camera (as I am myself, to a degree) we aren't losing sight of the more important plot of getting the story right in our minds - which is a whole other skill that still demands that we strive to master it at the highest of levels.

Random test between R5C and FX3 that just popped up in my feed:

Thanks @kyeand I should clarify that it was my bad for seeing all the hype around R5's IBIS vs the R5C's DIS and not taken the time to fully understand exactly what each system did/didn't do. The thing is, when lens IS first came on the scene it was very clear why it was better than no IS at all. And sure IS, IBIS and DIS at their core are all able to make a handheld static video shot feel like it's on a tripod - but where lens IS shines for my use cases is in the way it translates movement above a certain threshold to look natural/organic vs IBIS and DIS. Had I fully grasped that IBIS was never going to give me anything better than DIS when it came to that particular aspect, I would've just bought another R5C and called it a day! But ah well, again totally my bad, tho it's not like the R5 isn't a great hybrid camera in its own right.

Ah ok, now I get your perspective/needs much better. I'm on the opposite spectrum and only have EF lenses with IS.

Honestly it was that thinking that had me pick up an R5 as a second cam for its IBIS and I gotta say, I wish I had just bought another R5C. Whatever it is that IBIS does 'better' than Digital IS is lost on me. Nowadays I don't use IBIS or Digital IS and mostly shoot with IS lens on both the R5 and R5C.

I keep hearing about these matching issues, either between R5C and R5 or R5C and C70. I found that a WB and good ole color checker brings these cameras damn near close. So unless people are looking for an exact match, I honestly don't get the concerns. Also 8K RAW might be unwieldly but from what I know, 5.6K RAW on the R5C has only slightly bigger file sizes than its 4K XFAVC 422 files. Yes there's a crop, but that's where the .071x speedbooster can be a helpful. Josh Sattin just did a whole episode about this but it's been a known option for a minute altho prob only for people using EF-L glass: Battery issues aside (although I don't know why we would expect a cam with a dslr styled body to give more than the 1+ hours/2+ with a grip that it currently does with its updated power saving mode) I cannot stress how versatile the R5C is in practical use. It is likely the most versatile all-in-one cam Canon has ever released. Also I think some will look back at our obsession with DR and other metrics in this moment (when pretty much every cam in the prosumer range offers a fantastic image and specs for the price point) and shake their head.

Exactly and exactly - it's why people simply are not grasping how disruptive AI will likely be to the art and entertainment economy. They keep thinking about it in outdated terms and not something that simply needs a critical mass of data to master a thing and not require more human input. To be clear, AI will likely be disruptive to all human driven economies but A&E is the obvious place human creativity has traditionally intersected with commerce.

Well the most obvious reasons it can are: (i) because AI has almost 100 years of data (i.e. film history) to draw from, and (ii) because it likely has (or eventually will have) access to data mined from all these programs we're using right now to make our art. I mean why else do you think some of these apps with these fantastic tools are being offered for us to use for free? And remember AI doesn't need the entirety of that data - it just needs a large enough sample size to crack the code. The mistake we continue to make as humans is thinking that the things that make us complex cannot be reduced to 1s and 0s. But it totally can, if given enough data. And again, none of this will ever end our human need to create or be creative. It will however make it harder for us to monetize our creativity in economically profitable and sustainable ways.

For now I think there will absolutely be a great and lucrative (albeit temporary) lane for AI-linked filmmaking that is indeed an art for "more careful consideration". What will (and is) changing are the fixed jobs that humans in the film world traditionally occupied (like video editors, DOPs, audio engineer, etc). Many of those traditional jobs will/are becoming obsolete - and in their place you will just have creators who use tools (including AI based ones) to do alot of the stuff that was once left to colleagues who specialized in mastering specific said tools. And eventually, yes, AI will likely be for "bland content" or said differenty, mass consumption. But what that really means is that there will be less and less opportunities for human filmmakers to monetize their art for personal longterm economic gain. This will likely also signal the end of producers, showrunners screenwriters, etc as we know it (i.e. any job that essentially revolves around mining data to create the building blocks of storytelling and filmmaking). Maybe I'm wrong, but from my real-time vantage point working in an adjacent/intersectional field of arts & entertainment - the writing seems to be on the wall.

Honestly I'd rather hear people discuss the pros/cons etc of 24p vs 60p vs others than the hyberbolic end of days talk. What kinds of storytelling, visual messaging, etc, benefit from these combinations of frame rates, lightings, resolutions, formats, color grades, audio soundscapes - y'know?