Screenwriting : Have you guys heard of Sora by Open AI? I think that very soon, any screenwriter will be able to easily produce their own full-length screenplays by Niki Galiano

And we complain about producers using AI to create screenplays.

What I see happening is a sea of basically unwatchable AI generated movies flooding Youtube and Vimeo. They may even start charging us for hosting.

I will not be using it. Mostly because the years I have spent learning to write is just the same as the time other artists like cinematographers and directors have spent learning. I cry foul when someone says a computer can write a screenplay, I cannot request protection when I sacrifice others.

I believe when we let machines think, we stop.

I'm amazed at what AI can do to produce imagery for movie posters, storyboards and pre-viz. Way better than my half-assed Photoshop. Then more AI can animate those images into clips. Combine all that with Sora and we'll be able to make our own trailers to promote our scripts i.e. a visual logline?

Dan Guardino sorry if I was vague. I am defending other artists.

The point I may have failed to make was, we cry and scream when people suggest that writers can be replaced with AI. But we cheer when we get to replace other artists with AI.

I may use it to see if a story is boring or works visually. But I would keep that secret and probably delete it anyway.

I will not use AI if there is a human option.

I'm a little torn, I think they are very interesting tools. The example I have in my head is that I like to draw, and what I like about drawing is spending the time, thinking about the marks I want to make on the page, and then seeing it all come together - all those small marks make a beautiful drawing. It is therapeutic. Much like screenwriting - lots of small chunks of dialogue and actions that come together and make the bigger piece.

Where AI would be useful for me with imagery is if I have an idea in progress, and I make a pitch deck, I don't have time to make these immaculate images by hand every time, especially if I may get notes and feedback where the tone and style may shift. So, as a tool for bringing to life my 'in progress' ideas I think it's fair game. It's not therapy, it's effective production.

I've been getting spammed with examples of what Sora can produce. I must say it looks impressive. I'm going to put a positive spin on it - I tend to write grounded, gritty, understate, low budget dramas and comedies. Mainly because I feel they have the best shot at being picked up and produced. I have big ideas too - big budget, high concept ideas. However, my confidence in seeing them ever being options and produced are slim as they are not born from successful novels, video games or comic books - however, if a tool like this brings down the budget to the cost of a subscription and I can self produce from my bedroom. Am I going to say I stand against telling these stories I'm keen to tell?

I understand it threatens jobs. AI threatens my day job as a developer, what makes me feel secure is that to operate AI someone still needs to feed it the information. My stories will always be born out of authenticity and my emotions, my work will always be born out my approach to solutions.

AI is a tool, it is not the brain, and it isn't the heart.

How exciting AI is an amazing tool for Scriptwriters but it can't replace the human brain in a fix, it can give you a framework.

Adam Harper I agree with your last sentence. Do you know who doesn’t? People that think AI is a good tool for creativity. AI is amazing for repetitive tasks and things that are carrying out a non-creative task. Like colour correction while editing. I can do that, no generative creativity is needed. I just adjust value. There is a good AI tool that I can give it a clip and tell it grade my footage the same.

It is quite impressive, and I believe it cannot be stopped. It's going to like any other radical technology that eventually transformed the world, putting some people out of work and creating new jobs elsewhere, but... I also fear it and am not particularly happy about all that. I figure, however, that we will begin to see new lines being drawn, such as between AI made films (AI will "conceive" the story, write the script, and make the movie) and human made films (perhaps using AI in a limited way, or no AI). Perhaps even "human made only" film festivals. And huge debates will be all about what constitutes art and creativity, etc. But it's hard to stop money. My future prediction: AI will largely begin to dominate the insatiable content-demanding beast and, in reaction, there will be a slowly growing desire for demonstrably (or certifiably) human made films, but this desire will be in the minority. Still... I do want to play with Sora.

by uploading your ideas to the neural network, you make them public domain and lose copyright. don't work with AI.

I turned off all cloud services because I don't trust corporations. Protect your work from theft.

Niki we have not spoke in over eight years.

It’s Mario! We worked on a comedy catoon screenplay one with Chihuahuas.

Hope you’re doing well. Niki Galiano

Hey, Mario!! How are you?? Great hearing from you again! What are you up to these days??

Dan MaxXx, Well, as they say in Star Trek, resistance is futile. AI will be coming for movie-making, and we will all be assimilated. :)

M LaVoie, yeah, computer engineers have a way of making people learn new computer language prompts to get anything done. But that's why I'm planning on using an API key to create a product that would translate a screenplay into a series of text-to-movie prompts, so that screenwriters wouldn't have to learn a whole new language....we will just be able to upload our screenplay. Sort of like google translate, but the two languages are "screenplays" and "AI text-to-movie" prompts. I actually wrote to Open AI asking if I could collaborate with them on a project like this. We shall see what they say. (Probably not, since I'm not a computer engineer, but I suppose I can work on the screenplay translation product after it's been released.)

A lot of people are boycotting that movie, Dan MaxXx (me included), and they should.

Well, just t think about it this way...journalists thought that nothing would replace newspapers when the internet arrived, and they were wrong. Newspapers are going the way of the dodo bird, and journalists are struggling to remain relevant and getting laid off more and more every year. (Not just due to the internet, but also due to A.I.) We can do what they did (believe that nothing could replace them, and continue on, as usual) or... we can learn how to use AI and adapt. Personally, I would rather learn how to use AI so I can produce my own screenplays (which is what I've been doing this past year), rather than rely not he outdated method of pitching to producers and hoping that a studio will pick it up. The chances are minuscule these days that that will happen, and even when our screenplays do get optioned by a producer, they want us to re-write it...again. I've already produced several of my short screenplays with the help of AI, and I tell you, that experience was much more rewarding than pitching to producers, getting optioned, then being asked to do a re-write, yada yada yada. With AI, we can remain in creative control of our own intellectual property. By sticking with the old-fashioned method of pitching to producers and studios, we lose creative control. I for one, enjoy having control and producing my own screenplays. But, that's just me.

Filmmakers have been producing and making their own content without studios, networks, etc., long before AI; this is just another tool, no different than Smartphones, YouTube, Final Draft, Adobe...

I think Dustin is right. AI may be a useful tool but "BUYER BEWARE!" I have also been following AI for years. When I interviewed Steven Spielberg for my contribution to "100 Years of Moving Pictures," he gave me his most insightful take on computer generated characters and stories, and I agree with him. He called these new characters "SYNTHESPIANS." Artificial actors with artificial dialogue. Maybe it will work, but I don't think so. At least not until synthetic dialogue proliferates.so much that it becomes the norm. I hope not. I prefer to use my own human imagination as the creating force behind my story. What do you think?

I agree, Scott. It will be useful like any other writing software. Once it starts replacing our creativity with computerized tome, watch out, next it will be artificial actors.

old man voice Back in my day, we didn't have AI to write a screenplay for us.

We had to read "Save the Cat" and follow each of the outlined steps to generate our original work.

Well, I'm not using AI to write the screenplay....I'm using it to help me produce my screenplays that I've already written. Anyway, to each his own. I think AI could make it possible for us screenwriters to become screenwriter-producers for a lot lower budget. But, I guess we'll see what movie making is like 5 years from now. Who knows what could happen. All I know is that it should be interesting!

Preston, read the CAT and it was inspirational. I recommend it to any writer.

Niki, I won't use AI to write a screenplay, but I believe it can help to produce it. It could create complete budgets, and many other things. I especially think it will help immensely with editing and soundtrack.

Lee, I'm not using it to write screenplays, either. When I say "translation" I mean translation from screenplay to AI prompts, which are directions to the AI to create what you want to see on the screen. I think everybody is misunderstanding what I'm talking about. I'm using it to produce my own screenplays, which I wrote myself...way before AI was ever a thing.

But yes, AI can totally reduce a filming or animation budget. For example, I had been wanting to produce one of my short screenplays into an animation for years, but I couldn't draw, I couldn't animate, and I couldn't afford to hire an animator. But when AI came on the scene, I used it to create the art backgrounds and the characters, then I imported them into a video editor and animated them myself. It was SO CHEAP to produce my short screenplay that way. I had been wanting to animate it forever, but I just couldn't afford it, until AI came out.

I'm also using AI to help me with some of my inventions, and it's making the process so much easier. I came up with the basic idea (wearing digital clothing, so people wouldn't have to buy clothes all the time), and it helped me make my idea so much cheaper than I ever imagined. We shall see what I create first with AI - a full length movie, or my prototype. Lol. Or maybe AI will help me create both in one year...who knows....

NIKKI, I applaud your ambition and success thus far. I am totally on board with your definition of AI regarding the writing of a script. Once an AI program is capable of duplicating (or replacing an actor with a synthetic one) I'm burning my card! I am a mechanical engineer by trade. I was the personal assistant to Dr. Patrick Murphy, the inventor of the Gemini pacemaker, I also developed numerous medical devices for surgeons. I started writing my first novel in 1996 and it was my first best-seller, Voice in the Mirror published in 1997. I actually began writing short screenplays for movies when I was 12 years old. I shot over 75 short films all over New York with my 8mm Bell & Howell camera. Some of them were pretty darn good, too!

Lee, cool...I was in the medical/pharmaceutical world for a long time, too. I was a pharmacist for 29 years until my epilepsy got so bad that I couldn't work on the computer databases anymore. (I'm pattern sensitive.) But you know what they say, when one door closes, another one opens....or at least, I hope so. :)

So maybe this can do for screenwriters, what computers and Digital Audio Workstations did for making music. Giving an opportunity for small or allmost no budged to create something. There will be successful and wonderful movies, but a lot of nonsense as well.

Lee Shargel, P.S. I'd love to get your feedback as an M.E./ medical device designer on my invention. I finally just filed my provisional patent after messing around with different prototype designs for a while. I sent you a request to connect. :)

All moot.

In five to ten years the entertainment industry will bear little resemblance to what it is today. Consider the Fifties compared to today. The rate of change has accelerated. Moore's Law that tracks computing change can't even keep up. Seventy years is less than a year now.

Those decrying or wringing hands are shortsighted. "Edit non-linearly? Nonsense!" "Run with a camera and there's no shake? That's crazy!" "Digital over film? Never!" There are still editors, camera operators and films.

The die is cast. Get aboard or watch the train leave the station without you. Humans will have a prominent place in this new landscape because people know what people want.

NIKI, what if it's a revolving door? It never closes. You just have to step out at the right moment and WHALA! You will bump into a producer, and he will drop some papers and you will pick them up and slip your screenplay in between them. A few days later you will get a call and he will ask if he can meet you. Could happen. A year later there you are sitting in a theater watching YOUR movie.

I'd love to help you. Send me an e-mail, leeshargel@gmail.com and we can discuss this further.

In 1997 I won the President's Award at Johnson and Johnson for my fixing a cardiac pacer problem that saved the company millions.

We can start today using Midjourney to construct scenes and characters. What Sora (etc) does is animate the image. Creating the image and characters is the hard part. I can see a future where producers will expect screenwriters to send them an AI generated movie instead of a script. Lol.

Jeff, you are probably right. Lol.

Thanks, Lee! I'll be e-mailing you soon!

Zoddle me this Batman - Sorry Niki. I couldn't resist doing that

Richard...LOL!

Niki - I have to admit, the concept is pure genius. Two of the scariest things in the world, zombies, and toddlers, combined together into an amalgam of sheer terror. Can't miss!

Thanks, Richard. :)