Artificial Intelligence | April 26, 2024
‘Bloomberg’ reports that OpenAI will meet with representatives from major Hollywood film and TV studios and other industry executives to promote the use of Sora, their AI for generating videos.
Just over a month ago, OpenAI surprised with the announcement of Sora, their new artificial intelligence for generating hyper-realistic videos of up to one minute with just a text description. The technology is not yet available to the general public, although the startup promises that access will be enabled later this year. However, Sam Altman’s team is not wasting time and wants this tool to quickly establish itself in Hollywood.
According to Bloomberg, OpenAI will meet next week with representatives from major film and TV studios, talent agencies, and other industry executives to promote the use of Sora in future productions. These meetings are part of a strategy to persuade the sector about the advantages and benefits of this application.
The mentioned media outlet indicates that OpenAI has already granted access to Sora to a very limited group of top directors and actors. The intention would be to gauge the reception of this technology in films and series that could come in the coming years. This is coupled with a demonstration that Brad Lightcap, the chief operating officer of the California-based firm, reportedly gave in Hollywood last February, and Sam Altman’s recent presence at parties with artists and other industry members during the 2024 Oscar weekend.
The report does not specify which studios or executives will participate in the meetings with OpenAI for the potential use of Sora in their productions. However, it is logical to think that this artificial intelligence tool is already generating a lot of interest —for better or for worse— in the entertainment industry.
Creating clips with extremely high levels of detail from a simple text description could change the way movies and series are made. That doesn’t mean that Sora or OpenAI aspire to replace principal photography tasks or anything of the sort. However, they could streamline secondary shooting tasks, serving as a complement to existing visual effects (VFX) tools.
Let’s consider a somewhat silly example to understand where Sam Altman and company could be aiming. Currently, if a production team wants to shoot an aerial shot over a cliff at a certain time of day, they have to coordinate several elements. This includes hiring a helicopter to transport cameras and the cameraman, coordinating insurance, shooting schedules, and rescheduling in case of bad weather, just to name a few. Something similar would apply if the scene were shot using a cinema drone and a professional pilot.
With Sora, OpenAI would allow for creating the same shot completely artificially. And in just a matter of minutes. Additionally, filmmakers could instruct the AI on the time of day, weather conditions, lighting, and many other parameters that can sometimes be out of their control during a real shoot. A tool like this applied in an industry like film and TV could be a game-changer.
Recently, Marques Brownlee made an interesting analysis of what OpenAI can achieve with Sora. The YouTuber mentioned that an AI of this kind could revolutionize—or even obliterate—the stock video sector. This observation seems very accurate, and it’s likely that Sam Altman’s team has taken it into account from the beginning. However, bringing this tool to Hollywood highlights that the strategy is even more ambitious than we might think.
It’s worth noting that the use of generative AI in film and TV has already been a source of conflict. The arrival of this technology in the industry was one of the many triggers for the Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strikes in 2023. It makes sense to expect that promoting the use of Sora in major productions could garner several detractors for OpenAI. We’ll keep a close eye on the matter.
