The cost to generate a future kind of film from some template (script, characters, art choices, etc in some kind of source file) won't be much more than the cost to store it.
When this happens, perhaps we will cache the results but later dump them. Assuming storage costs don't drop faster and more significantly.
Maybe 30 years?
Edit: Lots of downvotes. I'm a filmmaker, I've made lots of photons-on-glass films. Most of us are experimenting with this tech and aren't thumbing our noses at it like people outside our industry. We don't really have a choice but to adapt, and I find it funny that casual observers on the outside are so morally opposed. It's actually an incredible tool for pitching and has utility for some SFX, compositing, and B-roll shots today. It's really going to help mid market and below, for films that don't have Disney budgets.
> I find it funny that casual observers on the outside are so morally opposed. ... It's really going to help mid market and below, for films that don't have Disney budgets.
Agreed. I also have a few decades of experience in film and television production, mostly in creating and deploying new digital tooling paradigms from 'desktop video' in the 90s to virtual sets to real-time 3D environments. New digital production tools have almost always had the biggest impact enabling low-end and mid-tier creatives, not big budget studio productions. In the early 90s the Amiga-based Video Toaster enabled upstart productions like Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Babylon 5. The Toaster also enabled about 95% more cable-access crap and bad porn but the other 5% was fantastically creative new stuff which couldn't have existed on indy budgets. Dramatic new production paradigms tend to unleash both democratization and disruption. Most people welcome the democratization yet reflexively fear the disruption. Today, few recall the early 90s predictions from the professional production industry of desktop video causing economic and creative doom, despite being widespread and echoed across mainstream media.
While machine learning-based production tools aren't flexible or granular enough yet for more than limited experiments, there's no reason they won't become increasingly useful for real work. IMHO they'll likely have the same kind of democratizing impact as desktop video and the Toaster - 95% more regrettable crap, some of which we're already starting to see but, eventually, also 5% more wonderfully creative stuff which wouldn't have existed without it. The crap will quickly fade away but the bold new stuff will remain pushing creative frontiers and shaping tomorrow's classics.
It's funny to me that I work in film and have more hope and imagination over the use of this technology than people who (presumably) don't make films at all.
As long as humans have dreams it won't be like that. The human spirit and desire to connect to others and tell stories doesn't just suddenly die.
I think the very best lens to look at it is that all of the tens of thousands of kids that go through film school and never get to bring their VFX-heavy fantasy to life now suddenly have voice to match their ambition.
The downvotes are a good sign. If AI didn't promise massive artistic disruption -- the sort that threatens to put real creative power into the hands of outsiders -- no one would object.
Look at the history of photography itself to see an example. "But... but... but my portrait-painting skills will be obsolete! Somebody do something. Waaah."
Your comment left me incredibly annoyed because I think you fully misunderstand the relationship of AI to art.
> If AI didn't promise massive artistic disruption -- the sort that threatens to put real creative power into the hands of outsiders -- no one would object.
Putting creative power into the hands of outsiders isn't important. In fact, creative power is currently in the hands of outsiders. You do not need a cinema studio to make a good film. There is nothing stopping most people from making a good feature length film and putting it up on YouTube except for their willpower, spirit, and creativity.
The bottleneck on great art has never been technology but the creative vision of the individual. Increased AI presence in art will do nothing to alleviate that bottleneck.
With that said, I am not bothered by the emergence of AI or its applications for any kind of art. I'm just a realist. It will enable equally enable both the great and the shitty, so in the end it is a wash.
Your comment left me encouraged, just because there are so few people left around here who would say something like
>You do not need a cinema studio to make a good film. There is nothing stopping most people from making a good feature length film and putting it up on YouTube except for their willpower, spirit, and creativity.
That being said, it's not true. Even Robert Rodriguez had to exercise a modicum of management skill and spend a non-trivial amount of money to get El Mariachi made. And even then, the available resources severely constrained what he could do with $7000 (about $20000 today).
The next Rodriguez is probably already using half-baked, primitive tools like WAN 2.2 to blow us all away. We just don't know who he or she is yet.
Something else that's not true is:
>It will equally enable both the great and the shitty, so in the end it is a wash.
The great works add far more to our culture than the shitty works take away. Before AI, 90% of everything was crap. After AI, 99% of everything might be crap. But the remaining 1% is all that matters.
My reaction to your original comment was probably too ornery.
You are right that not everyone can make a great film, but I would still contend that most everyone (in the US and Europe) has the right material conditions to make a great film (access to a camera, editing software, people, and locations). You'd need great discipline, leadership, creativity, and charisma to get it done. Most people lack one or more of those qualities.
The cost to generate a future kind of film from some template (script, characters, art choices, etc in some kind of source file) won't be much more than the cost to store it.
When this happens, perhaps we will cache the results but later dump them. Assuming storage costs don't drop faster and more significantly.
Maybe 30 years?
Edit: Lots of downvotes. I'm a filmmaker, I've made lots of photons-on-glass films. Most of us are experimenting with this tech and aren't thumbing our noses at it like people outside our industry. We don't really have a choice but to adapt, and I find it funny that casual observers on the outside are so morally opposed. It's actually an incredible tool for pitching and has utility for some SFX, compositing, and B-roll shots today. It's really going to help mid market and below, for films that don't have Disney budgets.