Hollywood is not necessary
Anyone who’s “spooked” by AI is a gullible moron. So yeah, probably most people in Hollywood.
The Motion Picture Association (MPA), the Hollywood trade association, accused ByteDance of “unauthorised use of US copyrighted works on a massive scale”.
Fuck 'em.
Anyway, I’m pleasantly surprised to see people in the industry sit up and take notice. This was always the most promising use-case for video models: obviating the insane cost of putting a good script onscreen. A lot of trunk projects that would otherwise never get made - for better or for worse - will become actual movies. At least insofar as the deluge of streaming exclusives are “actual movies.”
The trick is not doing what this specific clip did. If you don’t need real actors then they don’t need to be fake real people. Your characters do not have to look or sound like anyone living. If some fanfiction author coaxes Mission Impossible 12 out of an online model, Ethan Hunt should look like nobody in particular. The franchise is just an idea, but Tom Cruise is a real human being, probably.
The article links to a video on X, so here’s an alternative on YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NITeSGfj7I
I’ve seen some AI shit on Instagram that actually looks pretty good. (Read: scary and horrifying in how real it looks)
There’s one named granny sparkle or something. An old woman who wears all pink everything, has money, and is sassy and hip with the young crowd by doing little dances and shit. The entire account is an AI created character but she looks like a real goddamn person.
And that’s what cartoons can be, now. This is the medium.
It’ll be more interesting once creative types stop performatively gagging at it and just use the tool for the thing it does. You can do as much work as you like, the hard way, and then use this tech to make up the difference. It’s powerful enough to go straight to a finished shot from a description. Of course it’ll work on real actors and half-assed sets.
