As Hollywood is torn between fears that artificial intelligence will take jobs and pressure to cut costs, a new breed of hybrid production studios equipped with the latest AI tools are springing up.
Innovative Dreams is a new production services company backed by: Amazon Luma, a web services and generative AI startup, combines giant LED walls on cameras and soundstages with tools that apply AI from pre-production to filming to post-production. By combining virtual production, motion capture, various AI tools such as Luma, Google Nano Banana and Bytedance’s SeeDream, Innovative Dreams, say they can significantly reduce both cost and time.
CEO Jon Erwin explained, “We visually design and explore the world, capture the footage we capture, and begin to map that performance capture onto these digital assets.” “You’re merging the performance with your favorite (digital) wardrobe. What’s great is the actor’s performance, the camera, the lens choices. It all comes through.” Irwin says this approach blends the traditional filmmaking process with the digital world, rather than replacing the camera or actor with a prompt.
Innovative Dreams was born after Irwin’s production studio, Wonder Projects, used AI to create historical scenes in remote locations for its biggest show, House of David. (The show is available on Amazon Prime Video.) At Innovative Dreams, Irwin is fully committed to the possibilities of AI and virtual production, creating large-scale movies and shows without ever leaving the sound stage. And we aim to continue producing in Southern California.
“This was a game-changer for House of David, so we came back from that experience thinking that other people must have been doing the same thing,” Irwin said. “People quickly realized that wasn’t the case.”
Innovative Dreams founder and director Jon Irwin films CNBC correspondent Julia Boorstin on a soundstage in Los Angeles.
The first project using this new workflow is an upcoming three-part series called “The Old Stories: Moses,” starring Ben Kingsley, scheduled to debut this spring. The three-episode series was shot in one week on a virtual soundstage, projecting footage from around the world onto screens in the production facility, showing the actors in 40 locations. Irwin says a traditional production would have taken five to six weeks to shoot and wouldn’t have had the budget to travel to so many locations.
Generating AI video requires massive computing power, so Innovative Dreams turned to AWS as an investor and partner. As part of a broader effort to work with the entertainment industry, AWS provides cloud and AI infrastructure to power real-time hybrid production tools used on set.
“We are providing tools that enable filmmakers to work in ways never before possible, produce content much faster, much cheaper, and collaborate in ways that accelerate production cycles at scale,” said Samira Bakhtyar, general manager of media, entertainment, games, and sports at AWS.
Another major investor and partner in Innovative is AI company Luma. Luma, valued at over $4 billion, has new agent tools that integrate multiple AI-generated services into a collaborative workspace. And Irwin said he is providing feedback to the company.
“By allowing Luma to invest and having direct contact and collaborative conversations with many of these companies, we were able to shape the tools we actually use in a very deep way,” he said.
It took Innovative Dreams artists less than an hour to use AI to transform CNBC’s Julia Boorstin into a fairy.
But the rise of new AI tools is adding to fears of job losses in an already struggling industry. Production was halted due to the coronavirus pandemic, and then again for several months in 2023 due to a writer’s and actors’ guild strike. Los Angeles County will lose more than 40,000 jobs in the entertainment industry starting in 2022, and production activity in the city has fallen to its lowest level since 1995. The guild’s conflict with studios was largely due to concerns by actors and writers that AI would infringe on their intellectual property and take away their jobs.
“The industry has been hit with one shock after another: construction, consolidation, cost reductions, reduced content spending,” said entertainment attorney Jonathan Handel. “Everything is down 25% to 35% compared to pre-coronavirus.”
But now, with the ability to create sets, wardrobes and makeup digitally, questions are being raised about the potential for job losses for costumers, set designers and makeup artists.
“The question of how much job loss there will be versus how much job gain there will be has yet to play out and is still making people very anxious,” Handel said.
But Irwin said he doesn’t think Innovative Dreams’ hybrid capacity will accelerate job losses.
“There’s an alarming lack of green lights, especially in America,” Irwin said. I think this is another way to take pictures here.
Irwin suggests that the industry’s best workers will adapt their skill sets to this new AI-driven world, while Handel points out that AI could impact entry-level jobs, narrowing entry into an already competitive industry. But Irwin is bullish that AI is a tool that will enable the industry to survive.
“I think we need this to bring jobs back to Los Angeles,” Irwin said. “We are inventing new ways to repair what has become unsustainable.”
Watch the video to learn more.
