Hi class, today I chose to analyze POOF- AI Short Film.
I enjoyed watching this film but couldn’t shake the suspicion that it was 100% AI-generated. Turns out I was right. I watched the behind-the-scenes video and it turns out the creator used a substantial amount of traditional digital effects to stitch together the AI footage. Fun watch, linked here:
Anyway, the film is about these monsters that work in an office space but they’re all bored out of their minds and end up spontaneously combusting. It’s clear that these clips are AI-generated. you can spot it from a mile away. The animation of the character is odd and the background tends to morph. Having said that, it’s still pretty dam good for AI.
In the case of POOF, the creator mimics a real-life aesthetic and interestingly tries to recreate the special effect of traditional puppetry with the special effect of AI. In this way, the creator is replacing old special effect techniques rather than altering or enhancing them.
It’s hard to say what AI is going to do for the world of cinema. Will it simply replace existing special effects techniques, or create new ones? How will it interact with the world of traditional cinema? Will it add/aid it, or replace it entirely? In my opinion, AI is just another tool, like all the other procedural forms of digital enhancement. Of course, the underlying tech is completely different, however, my point is only that it will afford us the same opportunities to shift the production of cinema to a more digital and individual base environment – one that inherently prioritizes quantity or quality. (If you watch the breakdown video, which I highly recommend you do, you’ll notice he repeats something along the lines of “This isn’t perfect but it works for my purposes”… quantity over quality).
If we track the rise in digital technology in the cinematic field (digital cameras, digital video processing/editing, 3D digital rendering) it’s clear that with it comes an increased rate of content production and at a decreased cost. The creator of POOF was able to cheaply and by himself make something that 10 years ago would have cost at least tens of thousands and required a substantial crew with specialized skills. We also see a shift in the content itself to a more sustainable form of media that can handle a high rate of production (short-form internet content). Will AI take over traditional film production? Maybe for a short time but not in the long run. What’s more likely is that it will harbor a style of media production that is entirely different from the fundamentals of traditional cinema. Long-form narrative content will slowly die out and with it, cinema will go too. Makes me sad to say.