Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable.
Hello everybody, welcome to Roundtable.
Coming to you live from Veijang, I'm He Young.
Good to have you join us on a day's show.
The 26th Shanghai International Film Festival is in full swing.
And it's a 10-day movie lovers dream.
Plus, with artificial intelligence technology shaking up the industry,
get ready for a cinematic adventure like no other.
For today's program, I'm joined by Lee Yee and you should in the studio.
First on a day's show.
The 26th Shanghai International Film Festival established in 1993
has kicked off on May the 14th.
As the red carpet rolls out, thousands of filmmakers and many more movie buffs
are gathering in Shanghai for a captivating 10-day showcase
of global cinema and cultural experiences.
Meanwhile, the debate over AI's role in revolutionizing filmmaking heats up.
Especially with the Shanghai Film Group's global AI film marathon competition
showcasing its top selections during the festival.
So before we get into the AI discussion, what are the highlights?
This year at the Shanghai International Film Festival so far and what are you anticipating?
So this year, SIFF, or Shanghai International Film Festival,
showcases 461 films from 64 countries and regions featuring 70 world premieres,
which means the first public screening and 48 international premieres,
which means the first public screening outside the country of production.
81 Asian premieres and 73 Chinese premieres.
And according to SIFF's official release, this is the film festival that is a lot of film goer
or if movie goer will like to go because you can see a lot of these films.
I mean, new films or old films at the same time.
And the increasing number of premieres reflects the growing international influence of this film festival.
And we can see there are so many programs or activities are going to be held or is holding right now.
The festival featured various programs including the Film Panorama, Film Forum,
and Film Market providing a comprehensive platform for filmmakers and industry professionals
and also of course film enthusiasts.
That's an excellent presentation of this year's Film Festival.
And also what really impresses me this year is that they have been conducting this special segment called Walk with Film,
Shanghai City Walk.
And also, according to my own research, Shanghai somehow has earned its nickname as the city of films in China
because Shanghai is really the birthplace of Chinese cinema.
And you can't really miss Shanghai, the city when you're talking about the filming history here in China.
And also Shanghai is also the location.
I mean, the shooting locations for a lot of filmmakers.
And also it produces different numerous high quality talents for the film industry.
And also the city has been making huge contribution for the global film industry.
So that's why I guess during this year's Film Festival, I think to explore the charm of the city
and explore how the city has been making contribution to the film industry is a highlight.
Because during this Film Festival attendees can really visit historic cinemas and landmarks across the whole Shanghai city.
They can really learn about the city's heritage, featuring a selection of Shanghai themed films.
And also when you enjoy watching this film, you can somehow learn the special history of the city.
It's pretty interesting.
Yeah, it's a bit of history, a bit of culture, and also see how it reverberates with today's cultural life.
I think that's definitely something that is really fun to do.
And also recently, the weather in Shanghai has been fabulous too.
So walking around that city, definitely something one could take up if you happen to be over there.
And also this year is not the first time, but we've seen that there's a lot of chatter surrounding AI.
And now there's a whole sci-fi film week that touts AI's role in film making.
So what do we know about that?
Because the sci-fi film week and forums are held during this festival, tellings and experts from the film industry or science fiction literature circle and AI technology sector together together to explore how AI technology can reshape the film industry and reconsider artificial intelligence from, you know, the perspective of science fiction movies and stories as well as its applications and prospects.
And also what we mentioned, this marathon thing global AI film marathon competition.
This competition actually launched by a Shanghai film group in Los Angeles invited global talent to compete actually for a cash price for about 100,000, 100,000 USD.
And maybe investment opportunities and we can see over 700 entries were received and some of the prize winning works were showcased during the festival, which means I think this year this film festival is focusing a lot on artificial intelligence or the application of artificial intelligence in film industry because we know that this is actually a creative work, I would say, when you were creating a movie.
But with the you know the add on of AI, maybe we need to reconsider, you know, what is going to be the future of film industry?
Yeah, I think that's definitely the million dollar question that everybody working in the movie industry regardless of your country is thinking about.
And actually the potential disruptive role of AI in Hollywood was a major reason that actors and writers went on strike for many months in 2023.
And here with the Shanghai International Film Festival, I think they're, they're kind of ambitious, if not a little bit, you know, unconventional as they're actively taking up this role of inviting.
AI technology to be used in film, so do you see this as the possible like to start.
And different perceptions towards AI's usage in film and here in China, I think in general, there's the spoiency of perception when it comes to using technology in possibly every aspect of our lives.
But I just find it to be fascinating that you know these the film organizers have the film festival organizers have conducted this this marathon of and competition of inviting applicants to submit their AI generated movies, so to speak.
Yeah, definitely I would say when you look at the participation or involvement of AI technology, whether it's the AI plus film, you know, exhibition or film week or where this marathon competition, you see, at least I think Shanghai Film Production Company, they're being so active in terms of involving technology.
But I think when it comes to the usage of AI in film making and even for the whole creative industries, there still remain this controversy or discussion or at least there is debate.
I mean, when you look at the global situation, the Hollywood strike, right or strike, yes, you mentioned and also I remember just recently, Sony pictures, they have announced that they are,
considering to use AI to reduce cost in film making in future, which actually has been strongly resisted and by some famous producers of its own famous film series, Spider-Man.
I think the same situation here in China, yes.
It actually caused a lot of controversy on Sony's this whole production of films because people are saying, oh, you're going to integrate AI into your film, then just because that famous movie Spider-Man vs.
Animation Film and people are saying it actually look like AI-generated content, but they are saying that it is 0% of AI-generated content aimed at.
And yeah, I think that is why a lot of employees or industry experts are claiming that we need to consider the application of AI in film industry because if you're using it, can you really be as trustworthy as before when we are creating these kind of astonishing images or pictures or scenes that
our audience really like.
Right, but bear in mind that AI has already taken a big role in film making in Hollywood and here in China to a certain extent too, because also these days when you talk about CGI, which is computer-generated imagery, that sounds like an abbreviation of the past, but certainly AI has given great assistance to this older technology.
And it's everywhere. Okay, that might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but it's found in movies, all kinds of movies. And could you give us some of the examples of how AI is being applied in film making already, let's say in the last decade or so?
Yeah, I'm not really an expert on this, but try to do some research and what really in-prices me is that one in comes to the involvement of AI in film making people usually referred to say post-production.
I mean, the visual effects, however, it has already been applied in so many different sectors than we expect. For example, in the production process, there is a very time consuming procedure in film making that is called location-scouting.
Meeting that, you don't need to send a whole screw to find and select suitable locations for shooting scenes. And it could be quite complicated because you need to find the best location that really suits the whole script and also the director's vision and their requirements.
And also, you need to consider whether to have all the shooting crew here is practical or not. You need to consider all the logistics and infrastructure and all the budget and safety, of course.
So now I learned that some film production company, they're already using AI to help them to find a suitable location, meaning that AI can really analyze these thousands of hours of video footage of images or videos to help you identify some suitable familiar locations that can really match your specific criteria or visual requirements provided by filmmakers.
And also, they can even analyze different environment data, meaning that the weather conditions and also the lighting conditions, the seasonal changes, they can even include all that in a scheme provided by AI.
So that's why I think filmmakers are using that because it can be so much more efficient. And also, of course, it's much more friendly for their budget.
Yes, it seems like a lot of these, you know, AI that can handle many tasks that require extensive screening. And this is how AI right now, I think, is more trusted by human because it is actually, because that requires a lot of human work to do.
And also in, I think production area, AI can help editing because they, you know, they can do a lot of its work, such as color grading or scene transitions, a visual effect and sound synchronization.
And these can also identify, you know, the best takes in this movie or to finally streamline the editing process and also marketing and distribution area, maybe they can analyze audience data to actually tailor marketing strategies and recommend movies to viewers based on their preferences.
I think these more or less are utilizing the, you know, algorithm of AI.
Yeah, definitely. And I'll just add one more point to from the beginning to end of this whole process of from film, from coming up with the script to making the film to release a marketing.
So AI can help a great deal with the scripts as well, because there are actually specific companies who do exactly this using hundreds of models.
AI can help analyze a script in great detail and what might stick, what might not and why doesn't this scene resonate is that because of character strength, is it because of a lack of motivation or is it pacing.
And to a granular, granular level, AI can help with all this analysis and also, like you guys said, it is being used so much in production.
And have you ever wondered why a certain actor looks maybe younger than his or her age or that person claimed to have become pregnant during shooting.
But actually you can't see any, you can't tell any of those, you know, deviance us from like, you know, their normal appearance.
And then you realize, ah, it's all thanks to post production, AI doing its magic. And in the past, maybe you had to have someone sitting or maybe a whole team of people sitting in front of computers and manually correct every little detail.
But now you can just use AI. And yes, it sounds a lot more efficient, but also I wonder if you don't need a whole team of people to do it then, even despite all that argument about, oh, AI is also creating jobs.
AI is here to help the writers, directors and actors, but you don't need that many people anymore.
So isn't it ultimately still cutting jobs? Question mark. And also one more thing I found kind of interesting that in the past, you know, when well for Chinese people or anybody who's speaking a different language or you want to appreciate a foreign film, we've all been through, we've all been there that when you're watching this movie and it's.
And the voice dubbing doesn't naturally or perfectly synchronized with the movement of the lips, but now with AI, it sounds like just with is it the work of maybe a couple of days, it can, AI can help the dubbing easily synchronize with voice movement.
They can even make your lips move. Yes, right. So we've, oh, yeah, we must have all seen those videos of like, was it in some American late night TV show and then, you know, American actors go in for some kind of interview and then they were all suddenly spilling out Chinese and in, yeah, those kind of fun video.
So it's really easy to do these days and what do you see as the potential pitfalls of AI being used so widely despite having certain restrictions, but one might argue certainly not enough restrictions, but it's posing a new different range of challenges.
Well, I think just despite the many risks that people have already discussed, such as AI might just replace a lot of human jobs in the sector. I think another issue just a struct my mind that you mentioned her young saying that filmmakers, they're using it to, you know, polish the face of those actors and actresses.
I'm thinking that maybe with the white, white application of this technology, somehow people's expectation towards everything has been increased somehow we are embracing perfection with the use of AI, I would think actors and actresses, they should be flawless when they want to appear on the big screen.
And also we can't really accept any, say, trunbong in filmmaking or drama making meaning that the failure of the scene setting and everything somehow I think, yeah, maybe I think to her is also part of the charm of human beings as we discussed before.
I think if we are using the United to this extent, so what about the taste and the needs of audiences, are we somehow creating also unrealistic of expectations from audiences that that could also be another potential challenge brought by widely application of AI.
Yes, and also I think AI generated content. Another point we've been discussing is the copyright issues. It raises questions about ownership and copyright and de-term and to actually determine that who owns the rights and to AI composed music or scripts and other creative outputs can be, I think,
challenging and posing legal and ethical dilemmas for the industry while you are actually using AI to be part of the story and how can we define that this is copy or this is just plagiarism or not.
And when we are discussing also artistic effect of movies, there is a concern that AI might undermine the uniqueness and creativity of human filmmakers leading to just doing the same style things in content and balancing AI automation with human intuition and vision is something that is very crucial to preserve
the artistic essence of films. Could you also maybe just say a bit more about how do you see as AI maybe undermining human creativity? What do we mean by that?
My guess is that maybe people say before, say those bigger filmmakers companies, they can somehow rely on their huge investment, say involving a lot of technology or a lot of hiring, a lot of talents to contribute to get their Britain idea to make it part of their filmmaking.
But now I think with AI, it can really be achieved by the use of AI. I mean the big scene and also a lot of creative scene can somehow just be produced within seconds as long as you are using AI.
So people are also saying that when we are using AI, somehow those creative things that used to be considered as creative are not as simple as now as normal.
Some of these plots are just so obvious and you can even guess the end of the story when we are only watching the beginning of this movie.
I mean, I guess this is happening even before AI, the advent of AI. But yes, it sounds like it's pretty formula lay-ek and they appear to have a whole team of writers to put together the storyline.
But I didn't necessarily see an abundance of creativity there anyway. So I suppose with this creativity argument, you could see it both ways. The other side of the coin could be that now AI can produce the run of the mill already existing story plots.
But it has maybe a hundred if not more templates that it could just turn out in a matter of seconds. But doesn't this also push humanity to another level of achieving creativity?
Because now if you want to come up with something new, well AI is there to keep you in check and then you really have to come up with something outstanding that nobody has ever done before. And good luck doing that.
There's an interesting creativity discussion surrounding AI, but also you should you refer to I suppose what is called AI's original sin. And that is with all the AI or generative AI systems systems out there.
We must have wondered how did it become so good or how do some of these systems still don't see to be able to achieve a pretty satisfactory level of results.
And that's it all comes from the amount of data where the data came from of that it's been trained upon. And then you know we're already seeing that there are a lot of lawsuits happening in the US which involves authors, publishers, news, news organizations coming up with lawsuits saying that their copyrighted data or content have been scrapped.
By these AI systems to train them to get them better and open AI is definitely being sued right now and apparently what's really interesting here is that.
Did you know open AI scraped over a million hours of YouTube videos and Google who's also developing a different AI system noticed it.
But Google didn't sue and by the way Google owns YouTube why because Google's also scraping YouTube for all this content to train is AI so I think that's a real food for thought for everybody to think about what kind of intellectual property rights and regulations should we adhere to and at what expense with the most powerful generative AI system at hand.
And so that's it all comes from the most powerful generative AI system at hand.
