Our reporter Ni Zhaozhong reported from Shanghai
At present, Chinese science fiction film and television are ushering in a wave of new development opportunities. With the success of the " three-body " series, " the wandering earth " and other works, domestic science fiction movies have gradually emerged, not only occupying a place in the domestic market, but also arousing attention and discussion on a global scale.
However, in the face of the rapid development of AI technology, how to effectively integrate this emerging force and promote domestic science fiction movies to a higher artistic and technological peak has become a topic of common concern both inside and outside the industry. With its efficient and innovative features, AI technology is gradually penetrating into every aspect of film and television production, from special effects generation to pre-design and even script creation, and its influence cannot be underestimated.
A reporter from "China Business News" noticed that at the 26th Shanghai International Film Festival's "The Pros and Cons of AI in the Practice of Domestic Science Fiction Film and Television" special forum, many filmmakers started from their own practice and clarified that AI can currently The role it plays in film and television production also points out its shortcomings and what mentality practitioners should adopt to deal with them.
Pay attention to the impact of AI on the industry
Currently, the movie "The Wandering Earth 3" has been scheduled for 2027. In addition, the filming of adaptations of "Ball Lightning", "Three-Body 2: The Dark Forest", "Feeding Humanity" and other works have also been put forward schedule.
As a science fiction film, the most important thing is the science fiction scenes, which require a lot of advanced special effects to complete the visual effects. A person engaged in film and television special effects at the scene told reporters that special effects are the top priority of science fiction movies. One of the important reasons for the success of domestic science fiction movies in recent years is excellent special effects. If the special effects of a science fiction movie are done well, That's basically half the battle.
With the AI craze rising, how helpful can AI be to special effects? In particular, what attitude should we take towards domestic science fiction movies?
Chen Yi, associate professor at the Film School of Zhejiang University of Communication, said that his students are all artistic and have worked hard in their professions for more than ten years. Some students asked: "After the emergence of AI, the threshold for painting has been greatly lowered. Why should I learn to paint?" Chen Yi's answer is that as a good questioner and a good decision-maker, one should give When AI issues instructions, it must also have corresponding knowledge reserves. "If you want AI to draw a painting by a famous artist, you yourself must also know the characteristics of famous paintings."
Regarding the current application of AI in film and television, he feels that it is very helpful in the process from literature to imaging, and it can also provide a variety of choices in the early creation process, and finally manually select the ones that meet the requirements. design.
ai can provide more possibilities
Song Donghuan, a science fiction screenwriter and founder of the StoryStorm AI community, is very optimistic about the application of AI. He said that when many technological revolutions come, people often fail to predict accurately and underestimate the speed of their progress. Therefore, we must pay attention to the real impact of AI on the film and television industry.
He said that currently in the film and television industry, AI is not only used for front-end, but can also be used for production, and related technologies and industries are gradually improving. For example, the LED studio currently used for virtual shooting has a very high daily cost, but the improvement in the picture is not particularly large. The main reason is to facilitate synthesis. If AI is used, the cost can be greatly reduced.
In addition to engaging in scientific research, Chen Yi is also active in the industry and has his own company. He has been a visual director for more than 20 years. In his view, film is a highly work-oriented industry with a very strict division of labor and a particularly detailed process. When AI became popular, Chen Yi discovered that in some scenarios, AI was significantly better than humans and could even provide all-round help. In the first half of this year, he participated in a science fiction drama on a certain video platform. In the drama, there are many designs for the universe and planets alone, and they do not even exist in reality.
In the end, Chen Yi and others used AI for about 3 weeks to select 17 pictures from more than 100 pictures to build the basis of the world in the play. "This was completely unimaginable in the past. This made People see its efficiency value.”
In addition, there is another thing that makes Chen Yi feel the efficiency of AI.He needed to produce a pilot concept film about the company, and it took a team of three people three days to complete the work. Different people may have different understandings of creativity that originally stayed at the textual level. After it is expressed visually, there will be a unified picture and emotional tone.
Young science fiction director Xu Zhu also uses AI in film production. In her opinion, AI cannot complete the high requirements of some films, but it can bring more possibilities and allow some small teams to complete it. High quality production.
For example, they made a low-cost science fiction movie this year. Some scenes were shot in real life, and some were science fiction scenes. These science fiction scenes need to achieve a visual impact. If they rely on special effects, it will cost a lot, but their costs are limited. Just use AI to do it.
There are still many project requirements that cannot be met
Although AI can indeed bring a lot of help, there are still some unsatisfactory aspects. Chen Yi feels that in current science fiction movies, AI still cannot meet real needs. For example, he said that when he first participated in the production of " The Wandering Earth 2", the director requested that one of the scenes have very clear rut marks, and such work could not be completed by AI.
Chen Yi also said that the autonomy of AI is not high enough, especially the autonomy similar to the creativity of an artist. Moreover, although the efficiency of films produced with AI is high, the traces of AI are very obvious and the homogenization phenomenon is serious. It is far from meeting aesthetic needs and is difficult to modify and improve.
In this regard, popular science writer and director Wang Jie also expressed similar views. He said that he is a person who is particularly interested in new technologies, and he must experience new things as soon as they come out. He tried to use AI to make the beginning of a film, which was about 6 shots in 30 seconds, but the AI failed to complete it smoothly.
In another attempt, Wang Jie succeeded. He needed to make some science fiction settings for a film. One of them was to make a 10,000-meter-high tower. How should it be designed and where the center of gravity should be. It turned out that AI could do these tasks better than humans, but they still had to be modified manually. .
Wang Jie said that although the works produced by AI can meet the general needs, they always feel that there is still a "breath" left, and this gap needs to be solved at a high price. He admitted that AI can indeed relatively reduce the cost of video production, but it is still far from theater-level movies.
Regarding the cost of movie production, Wang Jie does not believe that AI can significantly reduce the cost of high-quality movies. "Even if AI develops maturely in the future, the cost of using it to make movies will still remain high."
Regarding the future development of AI, Wang Jie feels that it may be somewhat similar to the path of CG animation. He said that when CG animation products were produced 20 years ago, people were very surprised. At that time, there was a view that "future movies will not require real people, but will all be animations." However, 20 years later, CG animation has not replaced real people.
Xu Zhu also said that at present, in specific applications, it is mainly focused on some preliminary work, such as art guidance and production of related graphics, which can now be completed in one or two days, which indeed saves a lot of labor costs.
But she believes that AI is just a tool after all and cannot replace humans, because AI has not developed its own intelligence and expresses content given by people. Generated content cannot perfectly realize what people want, and there will always be things that exceed people's expectations. "AI can indeed give some newer inspiration, and I hope to make more progress in future development."
(Editor: Zhang Jingchao Reviewer: Li Zhenghao Proofreader: Liu Jun)
