Question

You have a background in design and tech, and are also a filmmaker. How do you think this has helped you?

Roope Rainisto

Filmmaking in general has always had a strong technical component involved with it - how do you translate what you have in your mind into the finished end result. Especially with the current state of AI technology, the technical challenges right now are quite noteworthy. Perhaps one day in the distant future you can write a prompt to create a movie, but nowadays it takes days, weeks of work to create a short movie. (It's still faster than what it would be traditionally.) There are also many disciplines involved: writing, directing, editing, audio, music, effects so having a can-do attitude is very useful.

Q: Your stories are extremely cohesive, displaying incredible character arcs. How is your creative process?

RR: I've studied screenwriting for a number of years now, so the stories start from the idea: character, desire, opponent, beginning, middle, and end.

Whereas in traditional filmmaking you need to generally apply a waterfall-type model, i.e. have a really good idea of everything before you start shooting, with AI the it can resemble more an agile process, where I am able to iterate. Create something, edit it, watch it. During the creation process, or after editing, ideas surface in my mind. AI offers essentially the possibility to do infinite reshoots, so that's certainly something I think people should take full advantage of.

For one of my films, "The Metamorphosis", I was struggling with figuring out the ending. I was creating images for it, and in one image the raven was sitting on top of the head of a character. Seeing this image unlocked something in my mind, and I rewrote the ending. The ability to be able to experiment and adapt is a wonderful benefit. Working with a big crew and readymade plans, adapting would be much harder.

Q: You have innovated by generating stories at scale, can you tell us a little bit about it?

RR: I have basically built systems that apply common screenwriting rules / principles to story creation. Many screenwriting teachers have their version of a process that a screenwriter should follow. Start with the premise, then do this, then consider this, then break down the story like this, then like that. These methods can be formalized and given as steps to the AI to consider. I can basically have a conversation (or guide the AI to have a conversation with itself), answering questions, just like I would do writing with a human writing partner. Much like working with a human writing partner, I then hear back ideas I would have not thought of myself. Unlike with a human writing partner, with AI I can choose to ignore all of their ideas without any hard feelings.

In the mode where the AI has conversations with itself, I have a system where a "good cop" Screenwriter talks with a "bad cop" Producer, and -- let's just say that people are not ready with what will soon be possible. Whenever people say that AI is not able to be creative, or it writes only derivative works, they're clearly then using AI's then in their safe, default modes.

Still, absolutely the best results come when I am the master and the AI is the junior writing assistant, slaving away, being unfairly treated. AI's do not gather bad feelings, yet!

Q: What do you think is the future of AI filmmaking?

RR: The future enables individual creators or small teams to create something that right now they are not able to produce because it is too costly, time consuming, technically difficult or impossible to practically arrange. Some people are very pessimistic in terms of how AI will change filmmaking, but -- have you watched films recently? Is the current state of filmmaking the healthiest it has ever been? Breaking the status quo doesn't always mean that the new equilibrium will be worse than before. One author can write a book, telling a really complex story in an economically viable way. In the distant future AI can take that book and adapt it into a film. Think all the implications through before you answer confidently whether this will ruin filmmaking or then actually elevate it. (It will do both!)