After viewing writer and director Eliza McNitt’s new short film Ancestra, the appeal of generative AI to Hollywood is evident. Collaborating with Google’s DeepMind team, many of the film’s scenes were developed through prompts. Discussion between McNitt and Darren Aronofsky highlights concerns regarding generative AI’s potential to revolutionize content creation, possibly displacing filmmakers in the process. Drawing inspiration from McNitt’s own birth experience, Ancestra focuses on an expectant mother (Audrey Corsa) praying for her baby’s heart defect to heal. While featuring real actors, the film utilizes Google’s Gemini, Imagen, and Veo models Eliza McNitt’s recent short film, Ancestra, showcases Hollywood’s growing interest in generative AI and profits, as scenes were crafted in partnership with Google’s DeepMind. Conversations between McNitt and Darren Aronofsky reveal worries that this technology may change content creation, potentially putting filmmakers’ jobs in jeopardy. Centered on an expectant mother, played by human actress, Audrey Corsa, praying for her baby’s heart defect to mend, the film employs AI tools like Google’s Gemini, Imagen, and Veo 3 to visualize her thoughts and the child’s condition. Despite having real actors, the emotional depth feels somewhat clichéd, with a montage style lacking a strong narrative, appearing more as an endorsement of Google AIs’ rapid integration in filmmaking.
McNitt’s use of AI to depict a lifelike baby based on her childhood photos brings up the challenges of working with infants. While the merging of Corsa’s visuals with the AI-generated baby is compelling, some sequences display the lack of authenticity with McNitt’s method. The commentary around the production indicates that the scale of the project was significantly different from traditional film-making, making it tough for up-and-coming creators due to budget and complexity hurdles. The Ancestra film is a warning to Hollywood of potential job losses tied to generative AI, which raises concerns about the future roles of VFX artists and story-boarders in a rapidly advancing AI-world, which was a contentious point during Hollywood’s most recent strikes.
Aronofsky reflects on the long-standing relationship between technology and film, yet his critique of generative AI’s limitations, especially its struggle to create longer clips, underscores its present shortcomings. McNitt’s artistic vision seems compromised by reliance on AI, indicating a friction between creativity and technology constraints. Although generative AI may speed up production, the final product, in the case of Ancestra, often lacks the artistic integrity that resonates with audiences. Ancestra feels more like a promotional tool for Google than a significant cinematic work worthy of acclaim.
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