As synthetic intelligence grows extra refined each day, its use circumstances have gotten innumerable. And with Google’s new video-generation software Veo, content material creation may get simpler and extra accessible than ever.
However regardless of the efficiency of latest AI-powered video and content material technology instruments, movie and tv consultants aren’t holding their breath the expertise will utterly upend the business. Whereas AI can improve efficiencies for tv and movie producers, content material creation on this business has grown extremely costly because of streaming wars—and even AI can’t repair that.
“Content material’s squeezed proper now, and it takes some huge cash to create nice content material. Should you’re doing conventional film- and TV-length content material at a excessive manufacturing worth, it’s costly, it’s getting costlier,” Kevin Mayer, a former Disney government, informed Yahoo Finance’s “Opening Bid” podcast final week. “You possibly can’t actually depend upon AI an excessive amount of.”
The rationale the price of content material has risen so dramatically is the streaming wars—the battle between Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and extra—in line with Jennifer Turner, a former government vp of TriStar Tv for Sony Photos Tv.
Throughout her time there, she managed the event and manufacturing of latest premium tv collection for cable and streaming platforms. Over her profession, she labored on hit reveals like Gray’s Anatomy, Determined Housewives, Misplaced, Friday Night time Lights, and The Good Physician.
“The price of buying [intellectual property], attaching expertise, and the scope and scale of productions elevated dramatically in service of streamers’ objective of buying prospects,” Turner informed Fortune. “It was a progress technique. Now the main focus is on profitability.”
Rob Rosenberg, former government vp and basic counsel of Showtime Networks (a Paramount subsidiary), defined that when a number of the streamers got here on-line, they overpaid for tasks to win in aggressive bidding conditions. This resulted in them generally paying 10 occasions the quantity they might have paid to win the venture.
“When a single episode of collection like Lord of the Rings, Citadel, and Stranger Issues began costing greater than many function movies, somebody ought to have pumped the brakes, referred to as for a trip and reassessed whether or not these prices may ever ship a [return-on-investment] that justified them,” Rosenberg stated. For instance, one episode of Stranger Issues value $30 million, The Wall Road Journal reported in 2022.
But, streaming giants like Apple hold pouring cash into content material realizing they might nonetheless “lose” the battle. In response to a latest report from The Data, Apple has misplaced greater than $1 billion per yr by spending over $5 billion on streaming since its 2019 launch.
How AI helps movie and tv manufacturing, up to a degree
AI has already made its mark on the tv and movie business—and even not directly acquired just a few Oscar nominations this yr. Emilia Perez and The Brutalist each used AI to change voices, and Adrian Brody received the Academy Award for greatest actor despite the fact that AI perfected his Hungarian accent. The tech has additionally been used to reverse-age Tom Hanks and Harrison Ford, in line with a BBC report.
Though AI can be utilized for visible and audio results in tv and movie, the expertise remains to be restricted, Turner stated.
“We’re a methods off from AI absolutely changing feature-length movies,” she stated.
In the meantime, using AI in movie and tv manufacturing has been a contentious challenge lately, with greater than 11,000 Hollywood movie and TV screenwriters happening strike in 2023 in opposition to using the expertise of their business.
Rosenberg emphasizes that at this level, AI remains to be simply one other software that’s used for growing content material—like CGI.
“The business is relying on the promise of efficiencies from AI streamlining workflows and automating labor-intensive duties, however they haven’t but generated proofs of idea that might trigger everybody to dive in,” he stated.
