The future of filmmaking.
Directed by: You.
Starring: AI.
Agence is mix of a film and a game or it can only be one of those, that is fully up to you. This might sound very confusing, but this blog allows you to catch a glimpse of what the future of AI filmmaking can be. Allow me to explain.
On the 14th of September, director Pietro Gagliano of the dynamic film Agence received the Venice Award for Best VR Immersive Story. Agence places the faith of its AI characters in your hands. You can either assist them having a happy and peaceful existence or you can create chaos along the way. It is a dynamic film that combines cinematic storytelling, user interactivity and AI (National Film Bond, 2020). The movie just came available on Steam and its clue revolves around a group of AI creatures and their appetite for a mysterious plant that appears on their planet (Graham, 2020).
Agence is not a blockbuster and since it is operating between films and games, it will possibly have a hard time finding an audience. But that is not the aim of this blog. Agence is the first example of a film that uses machine learning to control its animated characters and that could be one of many great examples that can shape the future of filmmaking.
The makers of the movie want to enable their viewers to either have the option of sitting back and enjoying a story unfold, by leaving the AI characters “to create” their own movie, or getting the viewers involved and letting them change the direction of the movie. A lot of you might be familiar with the concept of interactive films, like Netflix’s “You vs Wild” starring Bear Grylls. The concept allows you to make choices at so-called decision moments. In that way you can change the narrative of the movie. However, producer Gagliano wanted to “create something that let you transform the story at any point” (Heaven, 2020).
The required interactivity already starts before the movie does. You have to choose a type of AI for each character. For example, you can choose for a more static AI, that uses simple heuristic that will respond by the “cause and effect principle” (if this, then that). But you can also choose to let the machine learning do its work, by letting the AI figure out how to seek the rewards themselves. This will mostly result in the AI characters fighting the more static AI for a bite of the fruit (the reward). But you can also participate yourself, by using the VR controls and control any AI character by moving them around. The other characters carry on with their usual business around you, seeking their rewards as best they can (Heaven, 2020).
Yet, Agence remains a work in progress, but it is a start. In the long run, AI could be used to generate all parts of a film. Think of character behaviour, conversations or the creation of complete environments. I believe that the developments are promising, however it feels like a very personal experience. Since, watching a movie together with friends or family also contributes to that experience, I think it will not completely change the way we watch movies. In addition, it feels more like a video game, than an actual movie. But again, it is still work in progress. Therefore, I think that AI implementations are able to revolutionize filmmaking soon. If you are interested, check out their 1-minute trailer on https://www.agence.ai/.
What do you think? Should future filmmaking merge with AI to this extend?
References
Graham, P. (2020). Venice VR Expanded: A Festival Of Immersive Imagination. Retrieved from: https://www.vrfocus.com/2020/09/venice-vr-expanded-a-festival-of-immersive-imagination/.
Heaven, W. D. (2020). A VR film/game with AI characters can be different every time you watch or play. Retrieved from: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/02/1009254/vr-film-movie-game-ai-reinforcement-learning-venice/.
National Film Board. (2020). News Release. Retrieved from: https://www.canada.ca/en/national-film-board/news/2020/10/the-nfb-makes-a-strong-showing-at-fnc2020-with-five-innovative-productions-and-co-productions-bold-works-that-use-new-technologies-to-push-the-boun.html.
Hi Rik,
You have written a very interesting article. I really enjoyed reading about this topic. The development of a narrative and storyline generated by an AI does sound quite appealing to me. I am quite fond of interactive films myself, so this topic does peak my interests. However, I do believe that such films might be more of niche content as people prefer to just sit back and watch the film rather than active participating in shaping the narrative. By luring the audience to shape the narrative, this becomes more of a story-telling game instead of a film. Beside this point, I am rather curious how AI films may differ from other popular films. What might be the similarities and differences between AI generated story developments and developments written by people. Seeing how the development has progressed over the years, I can imagine that the AI can flawlessly or to a high degree simulate the actions and emotions of what a real person would express and act.
Greetings,
Kawah
Hi Rik! Quite a read this article, my compliments! You’ve really sparked my interest, I will actually watch Agence in the near future. Personally, i also enjoyed the first interactive Netflix movie: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. I think you should give it a go! One point of doubt that I have regarding the use of AI in filmmaking, is that of human emotion. As filmmaking is a creative process, I still need to be convinced that AI is actually able to truly portray (and thus understand) human emotion. I know that recent advancements of the technology have made AI able to understand basic human emotions, but I think that it might take a while for AI to make successful movies that portray advanced human emotion. Nonetheless, a very interesting development! I’d like to here your thoughts on this limitation of AI, and the developments of this regarding filmmaking.
Kind regards,
Jesse