“I don’t want to use AI to replace artists, I want to use AI to create content,” Lee Sangwook, Head of the AI Content Lab at MBC C&I, said this afternoon during an AI-focused panel at Filmart in Hong Kong.
Sangwook was joined on the panel by Yuhang Cheng, COO at Midjourney China Lab; Fu Binxing, CEO of China Huace Film & TV; Ricky Lau, AI Specialist Lead at Google Hong Kong; and Yunan Zhang, Vice President at MiniMax.
The panel is just one of many AI-focused sessions at this year’s Filmart. The disruptive technology is a hot topic here in Hong Kong. But this afternoon’s panelists were less concerned about the challenges AI could pose and instead extolled the benefits it could provide artists.
Yuhang told the crowd in Hong Kong that the “fear” around AI is “based on the uncertainty of creation.” Yuhang continued to say that creation is the “total package of emotions of an artist, which cannot be replaced by AI.”
“The AI can only visualize the graphics that artists have in their minds. What we want to do is use AI to visualize and allow artists to spend more time thinking, designing, and improving AI’s work,” Yuhang said, adding that advancements in AI technology could lead to a new era of artists’ empowerment.
“When in the past you had to spend weeks on work, thanks to AI, you can now spend just hours,” she added.
“In the past, if you had an idea in your mind, you’d need to engage actors to visualize it, but the machine can now visualize your concept immediately.”
Alongside AI panels, there is a bunch of AI-generated content on show this year at Filmart. MBC C&I, in fact, launched Raphael, an entirely AI-generated 80-minute feature as part of its slate at the market. The film was produced using a mix of AI tools, including products produced by Midjourney and ElevenLabs.
Lau told the audience that a hybrid approach to AI tools will be the base of future AI-generated production and urged filmmakers to become competent in a wide pool of AI tools.
“I don’t think only one or two models can compete with everything. I hear that a lot of production houses are mixing tech. Filmmakers will have to learn a lot of different things,” he said. “There are so many AI tools in the world today. The most important thing is that you have to unlearn your past experiences and learn to work in new ways.”
When quizzed on how they think patterns of film production will be shaped by AI in the near future, the panelists were roundly positive.
“In the next three to five years, everything will be more democratic,” Fu concluded, “so even an elementary student will be able to use AI to create a good piece of work.”
Filmart ends March 20.
