Zack Snyder Urges Filmmakers to Embrace AI as a Creative Tool

Zack Snyder: 'Use AI in film instead of watching from the sidelines'

The use of AI and whether it can be done safely for the people working in the respective industries where the technology is used is one of the big questions at the moment, and film professionals in particular are quite worried about whether it will lead to job losses and eventually the loss of originality and creativity. However, if you ask Zack Snyder, the director of the two Rebel Moon films, directors should be using AI instead of watching from the sidelines. In an interview with Wired he says this: "Every single person has a pretty good movie camera on their phone, and yet we don't have, right this second anyway, millions of awesome movies being uploaded out of peoples' pockets. Educating yourself and understanding what [AI] can and can't do is important right now, especially where it exists in image-making and storytelling. You have to understand what it is and what it's not capable of, and you have to be able to use it as a tool as opposed to standing on the sidelines with your hands on your hips." In fact, he encourages smaller filmmakers to use AI to save money on expensive shooting costs:

Zack Snyder Says Filmmakers Should Embrace AI: 'Use It as a Tool as Opposed to Standing on the Sidelines' - IGN

Justice League and Rebel Moon director Zack Snyder has said filmmakers need to embrace artificial intelligence instead of "standing on the sidelines with your hands on your hips." Snyder said at The Big Interview event by Wired that directors and other creatives need to use AI as a tool instead of being cautious of it, likening its increased presence to the increased availability of high quality cameras in smartphones. "Every single person has a pretty good movie camera on their phone, and yet we don't have, right this second anyway, millions of awesome movies being uploaded out of peoples' pockets," Snyder said. "Educating yourself and understanding what [AI] can and can't do is important right now, especially where it exists in image-making and storytelling. You have to understand what it is and what it's not capable of, and you have to be able to use it as a tool as opposed to standing on the sidelines with your hands on your hips." Creating shots which are otherwise difficult to access is a chief example of where AI can be useful, Snyder said. "AI doesn't care if a house is on fire or if it's on Mars or whether it's underwater. All the things that might cost a filmmaker a lot of money to shoot are, to the AI, no different." AI has proved a controversial topic within creative industries. Legendary filmmaker Tim Burton called AI generated art "very disturbing" while Wizards of the Coast was forced to issue a correction after claiming it didn't use AI for some Magic: The Gathering artwork when it actually did. Several video game voice actors have also rallied against AI, including Grand Theft Auto 5 voice actor Ned Luke who called out a chatbot which used his voice. The Witcher voice actor Doug Cockle also told IGN that AI was "inevitable" but "dangerous", sharing in Luke's assessment that chatbots and similar uses are "effectively robbing [voice actors] of income". Image Credit: John Nacion/Getty Images

Zack Snyder Thinks Hollywood Needs to Get on Board With AI or Get Left Behind

Zack Snyder doesn't seem to be all that worried about AI disrupting the filmmaking world, bringing scores of novices to the fold. At WIRED's The Big Interview event in San Francisco on Tuesday, the director told managing editor Hemal Jhaveri that "every single person has a pretty good movie camera on their phone and yet we don't have -- right this second, anyway -- millions of awesome movies being uploaded out of peoples' pockets." That doesn't mean he thinks Hollywood creatives can avoid AI altogether. "Educating yourself and understanding what it can and can't do is important right now, especially where it exists in image-making and storytelling," Snyder said. "You have to understand what it is and what it's not capable of, and you have to be able to use it as a tool as opposed to standing on the sidelines with your hands on your hips." While Snyder says he still sometimes questions the "why" of AI filmmaking, asking what the point of using the technology would be if you just want to shoot footage of someone sitting in a chair in a living room, for instance, he also acknowledges the technology's potential to make some shots more accessible. "AI doesn't care if a house is on fire or if it's on Mars or whether it's underwater," he told Jhaveri. "All the things that might cost a filmmaker a lot of money to shoot are, to the AI, no different." Snyder says he's especially intrigued by the idea of an AI that could understand a movie or filmmaker's aesthetic core, like if he was able to shoot an actor's performance and then sync it up with a production designer-created world of sets in some sort of "aesthetic bank." If an AI could understand what he truly wants -- the "motes of dust," a backlight, overall set design -- rather than just convey its interpretation of what it thinks he's asking, then, he thinks, "the concept is pretty awesome." As a director who's made a number of movies, superhero and otherwise, with a massive range of VFX, Snyder says he's no stranger to "a very virtual world when it comes to filmmaking." Still, he says, he's always seen artistic performance at the front of what we eventually see on screen. Everything that's not an actor is just "context," he says. "My favorite movies are the ones where I can feel the director's hand. I want that human point of view to be moving me in a narrative way through a story in a way I wouldn't have thought of or couldn't imagine what would happen next," Snyder says. "As audiences, that's what we pay for and that's what we hunger for. How we get to that very human thing, though ... well, that could change." How audiences see movies could also change, Snyder says, acknowledging that streamers like Netflix have become an absolute juggernaut in the cinematic world. Movies and shows he's made for the platform have been seen by millions more eyes than might have seen them in the theater, he asserts, and even films classified as "blockbusters" have and will undoubtedly draw a bigger audience if they're on a bigger streaming service than they would at the box office. As a director, Snyder says, as long as he's aware that he's making something that's exclusively for streaming, then he's up for the challenge. "It feels rude to say that I'm not an artist if my movie isn't in the theater," he told Jhaveri. "If you're the streamer, you're paying for the movie, and if you say, 'This is our format and 250 million people are going to look at it on their phones, probably' at the very beginning of our conversation, then I have to know that's the reality. And if that's the case, then I should be fine with everything that happens afterwards."