Netflix has used AI in one form or another on some 300 of its titles, Lee Sung-gyun, the streamer’s senior director of APAC production, told an audience at the Busan International Film Festival. On the same panel, “The Outlaws” director Kang Yoon-sung said AI workflows could take 30% to 40% off a feature film’s production budget. Lee shared the stage with Kang and Kimball Thurston, chief technology officer at Wētā FX, for “Film Production and AI: New Tools, New Possibilities.” Netflix and the MPA co-hosted the session.
It was part of Creative Asia, the Netflix and BIFF program for emerging Asian talent. Film critic Yun Sung-eun moderated. A second clip showed AI and VFX together producing large crowd scenes for the Netflix India title “Glory.” Lee said that under tight budgets and schedules, those scenes would normally have had to be dropped.
Kang co-directed “Run to the West” with AI filmmaker Kwon Han-seul. The film opened in Korean cinemas last October and was billed as Korea’s first feature to use AI across its entire production. Kang turned to AI there as a substitute for CG.
His test clip for “The Gulf of Aden,” a film built around military operations at sea, was made entirely with AI earlier this year using Kling, the Chinese software. Kang said the test was rendered at reduced quality. Current tools, he said, can output 4K at 10-bit color or higher, which is enough for cinemas.
An audience member asked about cost. The shoot itself got simpler, and it cut the overall production period to some extent.” Kang said AI has put projects that collapsed at the budget stage back on the table. That opens the door to genre and sci-fi films at a time when the Korean industry is struggling to grow.
But he also said that because AI handles so much of the creative work, it often cuts out the discussion, effort and experience of many people that filmmaking has always relied on, leaving images made from one person’s ideas alone. Lee said he related strongly to Kang’s point. Some things now come out with a single click, he said, “but when it comes to conveying emotion, ultimately a human has to touch it once more.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
