AI paves way for dawn of new era in movie production

By Abdulkadir Gunyol and Tolga Yanik

ISTANBUL (AA) - Movies will be generated on a whim with artificial intelligence (AI) models like OpenAI’s Sora, without the need for high budgets, production crews, or even actors.

The ChatGPT-maker’s new AI tool, Sora, whose generated samples the firm recently provided to the public, is paving the way for the dawn of a new era in movie production, with realistic generative videos.

The tool is currently not for the use of the public, as OpenAI is still ironing out bugs and other issues, which they display on Sora’s website.

Ferdi Alici, director and founder of Ouchhh, a Türkiye-based studio, told Anadolu that machine learning and deep learning have positively impacted many artistic sectors so far, such as graphic design, animation, and cinema as a whole.

“Sora is not like the others, since, compared to other image-generation AI algorithms, which can also produce images at a certain quality, Sora sets the bar much higher, as it knows the physical world, in that, how different objects interact with each other is reflected in its generated content,” he said.

He added that Sora is aware of the physics that govern the material world, meaning that objects do not have that “uncanny valley” appearance and behavior.

- Sora generates convincingly real-looking videos

Alici mentioned that Sora generates convincingly real-looking videos, as six out of 10 people cannot tell whether Sora-generated videos are made by AI, according to a US study.

He noted that OpenAI established the “Red Teaming Network” to eliminate confusion, saying: “OpenAI is trying to put the phrase ‘produced with artificial intelligence’ in the metadata of all visual, audio, and text-based files generated with AI; therefore, even if one cannot perceive whether a content is AI-generated with the naked eye, they will be informed that it is, in fact, made by AI, as it will be embedded in the file itself.”

Alici highlighted that one can create low-budget, or even no-budget movies thanks to Sora.

“Let’s say, you want to make a movie, though you don't have a team, you only have your laptop. You can go and write the script, and you can cast whomever you want for your movie, for instance, Morgan Freeman as the lead,” he said.

“This is an incredible power to behold. Imagine that making movies, which used to be very expensive, will now be open to everyone and anyone to create at their own leisure. I mean, the last movie that won an Oscar was made by a visual effects team of five people who learned by watching videos,” he added.

- ‘Incredible invention’

Alici stated that AI developments are progressing much faster than expected, saying: “A famous professor on AI was asked a question a decade ago, ‘how close are we to general AI,’ to which he said it would not be developed in no less than 30 years, though only two years ago, they said that we are closer to it in less than five years.”

“Although time seems to be getting relatively longer somehow, it is actually getting shorter in terms of AI technologies. It's amazing how far we’ve come from that one video of Will Smith eating pasta last year,” he added.

He mentioned that there is a race between companies developing AI, and he estimates that an AI category on the popular streaming platform Netflix, or even an AI film festival may be on the horizon.

“The human factor is still very important, as prompts are necessary to generate any media,” he said.

Alici argued that AI should not be a mere tool, but a companion with whom one can cooperate on projects.

“That’s how we do it in our studio, where we go through a creative process in which we communicate and influence each other, leading to producing good-quality work,” he said.

He pointed out that videos generated with Sora are difficult to differentiate from the real thing.

“There is no artificiality that can be detected in 5-10 seconds,” said Alici.

He underlined that the current state of Sora is only the first version, as he anticipates it will get even better in further iterations.

“I can’t even imagine the cinematic works, videos, animations, and stories one can produce with Sora. We are witnessing the creation of an incredible invention,” he added.

*Writing by Emir Yildirim