AI Is a Tool, Not a Creative Solution
Andy Marken December 19, 2024
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What you men call work life' is full of flattery and peer pressure. I can be part of those, too. I'm just appalled by them. - Yeo Mi Ran, Love to Hate You, Netflix, 2023
Okay, who or what will write AI's biography in the video content (movies/shows) industry?
Will it follow the storyline of Ex Machina, Her, Terminator 1& 2, A.I. or ?
Studios, streamers and content owners aren't thinking that far into the future.
They're 100 percent focused on next quarter's/next year's results.
To achieve results, they are intent on embracing the innovations that will enable them to stay ahead in a very competitive, rapidly changing industry.
Right now, AI is a promising tool that will enable them to develop, create and deliver films/shows that audiences want to see more efficiently and more effectively.
The technology has been poking around the industry since it first appeared in Metropolis in 1927. It has been getting bigger, better, more refined and more involved but we still don't have a clear idea (be honest) about what it's going to do for us other than Gawd it's gonna be great!
The technology limped/lumbered along doing stuff - crunching, grinding numbers and data - the hard way over hours and days until Jensen Huang's Nvidia introduced the first GPU (graphic processor unit) in 1999 to make secret government visualization work easier, faster, better and more photorealistic.
Spook stuff is nice, but Huang and his folks wanted to have fun (and make money), so they made bigger, better GPUs for the video game industry. Not the kind of stuff you play on your iPhone for hours but for big hummer computers like those a couple of friends build from the frame up so they can play ultra-realistic games for days on end.
As computer power grew, so did its ability to handle vast amounts of data and the need for more data to do more things.
Smart Use - Netflix has been sifting through, sorting and prioritizing viewer data not to sell it to outsiders but to give them an edge on sucking viewers in and keeping them involved with their content. The data also helps them shape content and projects to attract more subscribers.
Netflix and the other streamers solved the difficulties of distributing any content around the world as well as deliver just the content the viewer wants in the blink of an eye (O,K., faster).
Working closely with SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers), Netflix developed codecs (encoder/decoder) that would enable high-resolution video to be sent over the internet for people to enjoy.
To minimize the time/frustration in finding just the show people wanted to watch, they used GPUs and AI to use viewer data to recommend shows/movies folks would most likely enjoy. The more data available/used, the better the recommendations, the happier the viewer.
Content creators see the GPU and AI as opportunities to make video stories that are more realistic, more immersive, ones that more emotionally involve the viewer.
Commenting on AI in video creation, Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix during a recent earnings call said AI will produce a number of creative tools that will enable creators to tell better stories, noting that there's a better business and a bigger business in making content 10 percent better than making it 50 percent cheaper.
That's true but studio executives, content owners and streamers see the potentials of the technologies as opportunities to do both.
Allan McLennan, former CEO of 2G Digital Post and now CEO of PADEM Media Group, has been instrumental in localizing vast amounts of excellent international content economically available to people around the globe with AI-enabled localization tools.
Global Views - Streaming broke down country borders to show you like our stuff and we like your stuff as long as we can understand what is being said. AI-enabled localization (subtitles or dubbing) has gotten better, faster and cheaper.
Fast, accurate, economic localization has expanded our viewing horizons to projects created in Germany, France, Africa, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan and elsewhere.
It doesn't really matter if it was carefully dubbed into English - or your native language - or if it has subtitles, the technologies have broken down the time/cost barrier for people to watch, enjoy, understand and appreciate the video stories as they unfolded.
But the AI-enabled globalization has come at a cost.
The GPU-powered solution is faster, more accurate and more efficient than human facial manipulation and voice translation.
It is even less expensive to add subtitles and still enjoy the richness of the dialogue and follow the project.
McLennan noted that the role of the film/show translator and visual artists have changed from one of long hours of detailed facial/voice translation to one of ensuring the accuracy and flow of the content.
Similar changes can be expected throughout the content creation/production cycle. But change and adjustment have been constant throughout the history of the film/show industry.
A month ago, we took a break and went through the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco's Presidio.
Animation - Early animation films took months/years to produce with each cell painstakingly painted by an animator/artist. Computerizing the work reduced production time, increased quality and opened the door to great entertainment. No one really wants to go back.
It's difficult to believe that animation artists spent hours carefully creating each of the cells that were needed to produce a 10-15 minute short.
Living Art - Pixar and other animation studios around the globe have blended together computer power, GPUs and powerful software to make projects more interesting, inviting a
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AI Is a Tool, Not a Creative Solution 
