Industry forum sheds light on AI's role in filmmaking

The 14th Beijing International Film Festival hosted an industry forum titled "Establishment and Breakthrough Amidst the Changing Film Industry Landscape," on Sunday at the Langyuan Station, exploring how the film industry can both establish new approaches and break from traditions with emerging technologies.

Cameron Bailey, CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival; Kurt Reed, a senior vice-president from Warner Bros.; Daniel Manwaring, CEO of IMAX China; Gong Yu, founder and CEO of iQIYI; Wang Changtian, president of Beijing-based studio Enlight Media; veteran Chinese director and producer Huang Jianxin, and actress-director Joan Chen convened at a roundtable moderated by film critic Raymond Zhou.

Participants shared their views on how AI technologies, such as Sora, a new text-to-video generator developed by US-based research organization OpenAI, will impact the film industry.

Wang said that AI is essentially a technology that can be another tool in the toolbox of filmmakers and therefore it cannot replace filmmaking. He worried that even though the application of AI in filmmaking can increase efficiency and reduce costs, AI generated content, which largely appeals to popular aesthetics, would lack individuality, and render special aesthetics rarer.

The entrepreneur also predicted that in the age of AI, competition will become fiercer as AI-powered productivity increases, which will make audience find it harder to choose what content to consume. "In this sense, content with unique intellectual property value will become more valuable," Wang said.