Post-Cinema: Scott Billups on AI and the Future of Filmmaking

Scott Billups is an award-winning cinematographer and visual effects creator who has worked on over fifty motion pictures. As a world leader in the creation of virtual characters for movies and games, Scott went back to school in his forties to study AI as a way to breathe life into his inanimate creations. Armed with an entirely new tool set, Scott was Apple’s first evangelist to Hollywood, co-founder of the AFI Media Lab, CTO of the game industry’s leading supplier of AI (Rival Theory, which became a subsidiary of Google), founder of an AI healthcare company that created the first personified virtual clinician on the IBM Watson health platform, and developer of an AI-robotic eldercare pilot program for the National Institutes of Health. Billups currently resides in Port Hueneme, California.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 1:15

What happens when the camera becomes conscious and your lead actor never existed? Well, today's guest takes us to Inside the Era of Filmmaking, where AI, virtual humans, and quantum computing are rewriting the script for storytellers.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Welcome to the Art of Film Funding, where we give independent filmmakers the tools, insights, and inspiration they need to bring their stories to life. I'm your co-host Claire Papin, along with Carol Dean, president of From the Heart Productions, a nonprofit dedicated for over 30 years to helping filmmakers fund their films, finish their films, and get them out into the world. Today's episode takes us into the future, a future that is arriving faster than any of us expected. What happens when the camera becomes conscious and your lead actor never existed? What happens when the story moves beyond the screen and into spatial worlds, virtual humans, and generative intelligence that can collaborate with you sometimes in ways that feel almost magical? Our guest today has not only witnessed these shifts, he has shaped them. But before we dive in, I want to remind our listeners that From the Heart Productions, our mission is to elevate independent filmmakers. Through our Roy W. Dean grant, fiscal sponsorship, and our new membership avenues, we help creative storytellers find the funding and support they need. No matter what changes are happening in the industry. And change is certainly here. So with that, let's step into the next era of filmmaking. An era Scott Bills calls post-cinema. Scott Bills is an award-winning cinematographer and visual effects creator who has worked on over 50 motion pictures. As a world leader in the creation of virtual characters for movies and games, Scott went back to school in his 40s to study AI as a way to breathe life into his inanimate creations. Armed with an entirely new tool set, Scott was Apple's first evangelist to Hollywood, co-founder of the AFI Media Lab, CTO of the game industry's leading supplier of AI, founder of an AI health care company that created the first personalized virtual clinician on the IBM Watson Health Platform, and developer of an AI robotic elder care pilot program for the National Institutes of Health. Scott currently resides in Port Winemee, California, and is the author of the new book Post Cinema, The Age of AI. And Carol, I'm turning this over to you now.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Okay, Claire, thank you. And Scott, we're really happy to have you with us.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Oh, glad to be here, Carol.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Well, you've been inside the machine. You can share a one moment in your career where you realized the fashion was shifting from digital to what you call post-cinema.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Well, uh, yeah. I guess this happened back in the early days of digital, but it might have might as well have been yesterday. Um, I was presenting at the Directors Guild about how we resurrected Marilyn Monroe for a GTE Super Bowl commercial. And midway through my presentation, the president of the Screen Actors Guild jumped to his feet and screamed, Scott Bills is bastardizing the industry. Oh no. That was the first time I realized we weren't in Kansas anymore. Yeah. So, and keep in mind, this is director's guild. And Hollywood wasn't just evolving, it was pivoting into something entirely new, and everybody knew it. But here's the kicker: we did everything by the book. Um, you know, state approvals, DGA and SAG contracts, uh, full crews for scanning, voice work, post-production. We weren't breaking any rules. We were actually using them to prove that this technology could be legitimate. And that's when it hit me, that the human was becoming data, and the control over that data was starting to slip from the hands of the collective bargaining agreement. That was the birth of post-cinema. And the moment that the game isn't just changing, it's never going back.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Exactly. It's not going back, and in fact, every week it gets better and better. It's shocking what it can do. So thank you for noticing this early on because it's really important for filmmakers to realize that this is not going away, and we have to keep up with changes in our craft, and that's how we have to look at it. So, in your brilliant book, Post Cinema, uh, The Age of AI, you talk about AI-generated characters and worlds. So, how far are we from a film where the majority of the casts in the crew are artificial intelligences? And what does that mean for human storytellers?

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Well, we're already there. Uh, you know, walking with dinosaurs, thousands of AI cognizant CG characters that stayed out of each other's way and followed direction. They were AI actors. Uh, but more recently, uh, I just finished a documentary for an Oscar-winning producer where the sets, the scenes, and even the interviewees were entirely AI generated, but they were based on real people. Um, and the real people saw their Hey Gen doubles and their 11 Labs voice clones and said, hell yeah, let the digital me do it. Um, you know, because it was the personified version of themselves, and they knew they couldn't keep up with it, I guess. But you know, it's it's pretty spectacular when you see yourself um done as uh as an avatar uh that's really photoreal and able to articulate uh ideas you know better than you can. So it's it's um and the the real kicker here is that nobody ever asked if it was AI. As long as it feels real and the audience doesn't care if your actor is pixels or oxygen. So a fully synthetic narrative feature is still maybe a few years out, but um it's not because the tech can't do it. I mean the tech's flipping cartwheels, but because the audiences are are really still tied to flesh and blood actors and all that messy chaos. Hollywood runs on talent and and tabloids, so you know you can't AI still has yet to uh duplicate that phenomenon. So what's left for the human storytellers uh is evolving. Uh AI can build the worlds and populate the caste, but the emotional spine, the thing that people actually care about, still requires a human, and at least until AI learns how to have a midlife crisis.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

Great. Can you tell us the name of that documentary? That's record breaking.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Uh it's uh hasn't been announced yet, but uh when it is, we won't mention that it's AI. So let's not bring that into the conversation. Hey, well that's the whole that's the whole power of uh behind AI. It's another tool, and as long as it's not treated as something other than that, it it shouldn't be part of the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

Okay. Well, um, I've heard of 11 labs, and if you like them, you did you have a good uh film by using 11 labs that you think they're worthwhile?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Oh my goodness, yeah, yeah. 11 Labs are uh by far the leader in the industry. Um Adobe had a a really good um voice cloner, but they were just too paranoid about the legalities involved, and it just took somebody with some uh cojones to get out there and do it and just let the chips fall where they may. And they've handled the the whole process so well. The they've legitimized it really. And the quality of their clone is you know, it's imperceptible.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

So um what did you do for the a clone? I mean, you what program did you use on that?

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Uh well, again, that's you know, uh same issues with uh, you know, reproducing people. You know, there's there's a lot of people out there with darts just looking for a target. Uh and it's a company called Hey Gen. Um, there's a couple companies that make lifelike uh avatars uh or digital doubles. And uh I my personal favorite is Hey Gen. They're they've been around a while. Again, they had the cojones to get out there in front and just do it and uh you know deal with the backside. And surprisingly, uh to everyone, really, there was no backside. There was no, there's so many people adapted to this that there really was no pushback, other than you know, journalistic or people that don't understand what's going on, or people that just have an attitude or an opinion because they can. But for people that are actually working in this industry, you know, the they they see the value of this and uh and look for the the quality suppliers and hey gen uh double with a 11 labs voice, and you can't tell the difference anymore.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

This is incredible. Do you spell that h-a-g-en?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Uh it's h uh h-e-y capital G-E-N.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

And uh keep in mind that there's a lot of there's uh a lot of companies doing this, but uh, you know, they're not cheap when you get into the professional end of it, but it's uh it's definitely worth it. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

I think that that's brilliant. Um thank you so much for that. Um I'm in shock. I can't wait to see the first documentary. Um so you I hope you know it's not the first.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

We've been doing it for a while, you know. And the the thing that really uh brings it home for me is you know, back in 1989, I I uh uh took Marlon Brando up to Monterey and scanned him into this uh cyberware computer. Now, this is the same system that uh Jim Cameron used. In fact, that's how I found out about it. Uh Jim Cameron used to scan the face of Marianne Mestri Antonio for the abyss that for that water pseudopod thing. Yes. And then and then um I did Marlin uh uh and create a photoreal human. Um, and then he came back and did uh Terminator, and you know, next thing you know, scanning humans and creating, you know, that was the pipeline. Uh and uh so I just followed his pipeline. And but we've been making photoreal humans for years. It just took a lot more money and time and effort. It took two years to get that marlin so that it was working good. And by that time, the the producers didn't want to know anything about it, you know, they were all pissed off, excuse me, my language. They were all uh mad at the uh time it took. And we were surprised at the time it took. And by the time we got to making to resurrecting uh Maryland, well, that took um months. So we went in about five years from years to get something done to months to get something done, and now it's instant. So that's the curve.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Oh wow, that's the curve. So we're really full all in now.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

That's it, it's all over.

SPEAKER_02 15:03

Okay, so for an independent filmmaker with a limited budget, what are two or three AI tools that you would recommend for them to learn right now to stay competitive?

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Uh well, here again, things are changing. And the power, the real power of generative AI isn't a single tool. It's in the aggregators, these companies that stitch a dozen apps into one seamless workflow. So um, you know, something that might have like, well, for instance, uh uh they have a photo generator um that gives you sets and backgrounds. They have maybe uh uh uh you know generative uh CG program that gives you uh houses and 3D buildings that uh virtual actors can interact with. It might have uh something like Sora that uh does video. Um, you know, and can combine you can give it one frame uh two frames, uh you know, a start frame and an end frame, and it'll actually build the scene in between. Um and then you have like uh voice cloning, so you'd have 11 labs in there, and you know, for your characters, you'd use Hajen. So you can see how many different applications you can build into that pipeline. And if you're paying the subscription fees, professional subsist subscription fees on 20 different programs, that's gonna be a couple thousand dollars a month. Easy, right? Yes, if you and plus you've got to manage all that in if you're using them individually, but these aggregators, um uh I use a company called Artlist. I don't mean to plug them, but that just better if I don't, because then people won't, you know, crowd the pipeline. But um, you know, there's a lot of them out there. Artlist is one, and they have oh more than a dozen, I think about 20 different leading generative uh uh they just got banana, which is fantastic. Um but uh you know, so now you just you just have one bill at the end of each month, and it's a lot more manageable uh by at least the decimal place.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

Okay, so you go to ArtLift and then you put together uh you uh the programs you want, like 11 labs and whatever else, and then you pay one person and they give you everything?

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Yeah, well, you don't even have to put it together, just they've got everything, they've built a uh uh uh user interface, a GUI, that actually incorporates all the different applications. So uh you don't even have to know anything about uh AI generative art to uh use an art, it's called art list. Uh and you really don't have to you know know anything other than how to type. Just install a command line.

SPEAKER_02 18:21

Oh, how wonderful. Filmmakers, thank you so much. Okay, so now the next question is uh teachers, how do you learn to prompt a computer? Because I use like chat GPT and I'll get something, then my uh my marketing manager will put the same thing in chat GPT and get something better. So obviously he's better at prompting.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Yeah, well, prompting is the ticket. I mean, that prompting is a new language, it's just like learning German or Japanese, it's a new language, and you have to learn how to um get to the ground truth of what it is you want. Uh you're talking to a machine, so it really doesn't have uh an emotional uh spine to the discussion, it has uh limits and blocks and structure, and uh you need to just learn what the elements of that language are, and so there's a lot of ways you can learn it. Uh hunt and miss, hit and miss is one, you know, just sit down and do it is another. Uh there's dozens of online uh classes. MIT has a full spectrum of classes in their edX program, that's small e, small d, big X. Um the Microsoft series is you know very popular, uh free. Um so um more than that, uh Gemini 3.0 now has vibe coding. So uh vibe coding is just uh it actually does this uh computer scripting as well. You just say what you want something to do. So uh for a screenwriter, obviously uh the game industry is is the major influence now in in media um because of the interactivity and so forth. And so to get a result in to to make a a script relevant to a future where spatial media and bespoke entertainment and you know uh use user authorship is is trending. Um you have to code a bit, and this vibe coding from Gemini 3 just gets it all into a prompt uh structure. So it's uh again not uh obscure at all. It's just straightforward coding um and adaptable to the person that's actually uh doing the prompting, regardless of their uh you know, ability to deal with computers and their computer mass and knowledge. So uh it's it's just uh sit down and do it. There's just no better way to say it. This is nothing secret to it at all.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

So it's become more uh friendly, more human-friendly, and it's not as frightening, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

You can put it very well. It's AI doing what AI is supposed to do. AI is supposed to make it easy to deal with. If AI isn't easy to deal with, it's not good AI.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Wow, that's a great statement, okay. I'll remember that. You have a fabulous book. Um, in uh you discuss the chain of production being overturned by algorithms. So, what does this mean for film funding and distribution strategies?

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Well, algorithms are tearing the chain of production apart. So, you know, suddenly uh indie filmmakers aren't begging at studio gates, they're pitching to niche audiences. Um niche audiences are you know showing up everywhere, crowdfunding brands and alliances that didn't exist 10 years ago. The best part is that uh production crop costs are dropping so fast, like this uh uh documentary just did. I mean, seriously, we could have done this on the free version of most of these uh apps that we used. Um it's you know, the the prices are dropping so fast that uh self funding is becoming the new black. You know, it's you know, forget the old gatekeepers, algorithms can. Your film in front of the exact people who'll care about you know what your content is. So basically the little guy can play the big uh game if they know the the cheat codes.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Okay, now that's really important for independent filmmakers that algorithms can put in it in front of you your audience. Tell us how they would be able to find an audience. Let's say you had a film about horses.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Sure. Okay, so you sit down at Chat GPT and say, I got a film about horses. You just type that. And it goes, that's nice. Where's my market? And it's going to give you, it's going to tell you where your market is. It's going to tell you where your market is better than any advertising agency or marketing agency on Wall Street. Period. That's it. That's who your market is. So now you say, This is nice. How do I address them? That's your prompt. That's all you need to do. Boom. And it'll give you another printout of things you can do, you know, best practices. And that's what you know generative AI is heading towards. It it gets easier to use every day. And so if you're having a problem with interfacing with AI, it's because you're using old AI. Just, you know, you got to upgrade it every you know, once a week. If you're not upgrading once a week, you're using old AI. Um, because it's moving so fast. I mean, this is it's obviously it's you know, it's gonna take over the world. Uh, because you know, last time we had a chance to even think about controlling it was back in 2016. Uh and now, you know, different companies, they have they have to just everybody's got their foot on the accelerator because nobody can slow down. I mean, you know, Google can't slow down because Microsoft won't, and Microsoft can't slow down because Anthropic can't won't slow down, and you know, nobody's gonna slow down because China's just you know, got the turbochargers on.

SPEAKER_02 25:29

Yes, yes, China really is into that.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Oh, I just got back from there. Just it's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Oh, tell us, tell us.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Um well, the uh first of all, you get you've got a lot more government support. Although we are getting into that. Uh, you know, it's the only way that you know we can keep it up. Um and uh the government support is is huge on this. They have their robots are you know everywhere, but they've been doing this for a long time now. They're they've had a a long history of of robot develop robotic development. Um, and it's just now that you know the anthropomorphic robots are really taking the lead. That's the human-shaped robots. And it it makes a lot of sense because when you're in a factory environment, you know, does the robot shape, the the form factor of the robot really doesn't matter so much because it's a factory and it just does what you know, it's shaped like what it does. Um, but in uh human accessible robots, uh you know, service robots and and so forth, um, they need to be anthropomorphic because they need to work in a world designed for humans. And we have a shape that everything from you know, cars to doorways to stairs to you know, cutlery, kitchen cutlery. I mean, everything is designed for humans and our appendages. So for a robot to be efficient, it needs to be, it needs to echo that design metaphor. Does that make sense? Yes, right. There you go. That's it. So anybody that doesn't get why they're making robots to look like humans, that's why. Because it's foolish not to.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

I read about a man who worked for Google, and and he said on his way to his office every day, he walked by a uh window where there was a room and they were trying to teach robots. How to pick up a yellow ball. That was the game. And so this went on for two years, and the day that the robot picked up the yellow ball, he was in shock. And he said that did it for him. He got out of business because he said, this is going to take over everything.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Yep. Well, yeah, yeah, I'm not a huge AI robot fan. So I mean, we um I was the CTO of a uh uh uh AI company that created uh AI cognizance modules for the game industry. So that that allows you to talk with your characters and allow uh it helps the characters talk with you and be interested in what you're doing and you know tell you when to duck in first-person shooters and uh you know which car to steal and Grand Theft Auto and you know, da-da-da-da. So um this uh company Softbank, who's a little company, no, they're a huge company actually, but um they don't really get a lot of press, but they're probably the biggest robot manufacturer in the world because they own Boston Dynamics and they they own a lot of the the pipeline that creates robots and um robotics, and uh they had this little robot. We're going back uh you know a decade almost, and they had this little robot called the pepper, and it was the most fantastic little robot. You just fell fell in love with this thing, it was it had full physiological uh matching humanoid physiology above the waist, and then it was on these little rollers, which was a great combination. So um when you become bipedal, that's a whole level of difficulty. But uh, you know, if something can be uh wheel-based or you know uh tread-based, uh, it's it's much easier just to concentrate on the uh the interaction and the technology rather than the logistics of mechanical bipedalism. Um but um this little robot, this uh pepper robot, uh they sent sent us one of these things to upgrade the cognizance. They we had a Sentio cognizance engine that was a universal uh brain cognizance that can be stuck into just about any game engine-based um environment. And so uh Softbank asked us to upgrade their pepper robot with our cognizance engine, and when we did, it turned into a person. That's it. It's you know, no caveats needed, and uh, you know, it carried on conversations like a person, and so we uh we prototyped this uh uh elder care, robotic elder care program uh for uh National Institutes of Health. And it's just um you know the technology moves really fast, and um there's uh the medical machine out there that didn't quite see eye to eye with that kind of thing. So uh but we have a big we have a big problem coming up, you know, this the silver tsunami, you know, there's more old people every day, and there's fewer people to take care of them every day. So, you know, that's that's a crisis, and robots are the only solution for that. Um and uh there's a lot of pending crises that robots are the solution to. So it's not whether people like them or don't like them, they're they're they're coming, whether you like them or not. And they uh they are another breed of human, they're of people, I should say, and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

Thank you. My gosh, you know so much, and they are like us will love you for sharing all this information. But um, let me go back to my questions about like virtual actors and digital people. So, how do you see rights ownership and compensation evolving when your league actor might be a generative model, not a beat model?

SPEAKER_00 32:22

Yeah, yeah, I've been dealing with this for years. Marlin, uh Maryland, the whole thing. The solution is simple. You sit down with an agent or an estate lawyer and you strike a professional agreement. That's it. There's no magic, no secret sauce. It's just professionals doing what professionals do. Now you got unions and guilds, and everybody's got, you know, gets up in arms because nobody really understands this outside of people that are doing it. So if you're an executive of some guild or some uh company that's you know crossed interests, you you're you know, you got to rant about it, but that's about it. There's no secret sauce. Um, just professionals doing what professionals do. Everything else is hot air. So there's really no math or mystery to it. Um, compensation is you know, pretty straightforward. It's just business. And case in point, last month, Matthew McConaughey and Michael Cain both signed deals with 11 labs to clone their voices. There you go.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

Yes, I saw that. So wait, what does that mean to all of us?

SPEAKER_00 33:39

That's how it works. There's no they're coming, it's business as usual. Uh, there's many more people that have are doing that. Uh likenesses are the same thing. Uh to I just sat in on the the uh I was asked to sit in on the the the dealing uh for uh three celebrities that are having themselves cloned that will be available for uh use in your movie um or a commercial or whatever you want. And uh, you know, the clones are damn good, they're just really, really good. Um and because you know, if okay, let's say you're an actor, uh okay, you're never gonna look better than you look today. So today is a good day to get a clone made. Period. I mean, that's just logic. And and even if you don't market it now, put it in a shelf, put it in a hard drive, and uh, you know, because everybody's gonna be doing it pretty soon, and again, you're never gonna look better than you look today. So the logic is just so solid that you can't argue it.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

Yes. Well, let me go back to Matthew McConaughey. Could you go to 11 labs and buy his voice to go in a documentary, for example?

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Hold on just a second. I'm at my computer. I'm just gonna go to 11 labs and see if we can get it. Um bear with me. There we go. There's 11 labs. Um let me see. Voices. Hey, okay, you ready for this? What? License. Oh, there he is. Okay, so wow. They're gonna be doing doing a bunch of them. Um and let me see. So they've got quite oh, here they just got Dorothy from Wizard of Oz. Oh my god. Oh, you should see. Uh just go to 11labs. It's 11labs.io. And uh so anybody listening, there you go. And right at the top, there's Michael Cain, and there's oh wow, that looks like uh. Oh yeah, they've got a lot of people. So Alan Turing, Lana Turner, oh my goodness. So I think that Betty Page, our Amelia Air Fork. Let's see what he sounds like. Did you get that? No, do it again. Uh let me see. I'm trying to figure out how we can get this. Oh, Maya Angelou. Oh, I bet that's a great voice. Hold on. Yes. Oh, they nailed her. Oh my goodness. Uh John Wayne. That's just cracking me up. Okay, so oh, Lisa Minnelli, I'm sorry. Wow. Uh, I'm sorry, it's not for some reason, it's not making it through to uh our pipeline here. So, but it's 11labs.io. Uh, and just um go to voices, and uh you have uh their standard voices, you can clone your own voice, um, and then you have your own voice catalogs, and then it'll have this uh new legendary voices uh catalog? So there you go. I think that answers that.

SPEAKER_02 37:40

Wow, thank you. That's a lot of information. Great. Well, in your book, Post Cinema, The Age of AI, you mentioned quantum AI, spatial computing, and brain computer interfaces in the book. So, which of these technologies do you believe will impact film production first and why? Ooh.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Uh, well, of the three, brain computer interfaces are already landing the first punches. So um it's not when, it's already happening. Um, and then you've got on the market, you've got uh things like well, meta uh the meta wristband um is reading your nerve impulses and steering your AR glasses like a psychic TV remote. So that's you know already there. But you know, the truth is once quantum computing enters the mix, everything we're doing today is going to look like we're banging rocks together. So it's it's already happening.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

Gosh, how amazing. Okay. Uh the next question is that if the filmmakers ignore the implication of postcinema and continue to work in the old system, what risk are they running?

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Um, well, you know, it's it's always going to be there, it's not going anywhere. Um, so the risk is what I call the reverse hockey stick of relevance. Uh technology rarely replaces anything, it just keeps adding options. So uh, you know, people still ride horses, but they don't win the race. Uh so if you stay in the old system, you're basically showing up at the Indy 500 on a pony. Um filmmaking is still gonna be around, it's gonna be a niche. People still using shooting black and white. Um you know, retro filmmaking is is a niche, and this is you know, so now modern filmmaking is gonna become another niche.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

It's another niche, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

It's not gonna be called modern filmmaking, it'll be called, you know, digital filmmaking, maybe, or something. I don't know. Maybe they'll be come up with a cute word for it.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

Okay. Well, uh, let me ask you, what do you think is the opposite side for those? Um, because on the flip side, what new opportunities are emerging for storytellers who embrace post-cinema?

SPEAKER_00 40:20

Yeah, this is the big one. It's well, so Hollywood spent 25 years fighting AI. You know, the game industry has spent the same 25 years developing it. So who do you think is gonna win?

SPEAKER_02 40:34

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

Right? So, yeah, I mean, we got spatial media, bespoke entertainment. There's a lot of stuff coming down the line. It just doesn't fit into Hollywood metaphor. So here's the real shift for storytellers. That's screen script writing itself is changing. You know, interactivity, spatial media, bespoke entertainment, and they all just demand scripts that move more like prompts. And prompts are ruthless. As I said before, they you know, they force you to articulate the ground truth of your vision. And ground truth is, you know, if that's not in your vocabulary, that's a computer, uh, AI computer word. And ground truth is the most important word to learn in AI because that's what it's based on. Um, and when you're forced to articulate that, uh, you know, it's a direct line between human intention and uh machine interpretation, and it strips away all the comforting patinas of pretext. So bad prompt, bad result, garbage in, garbage out. So AI might hand you something gorgeous to look at, or words that sound poetic, but once the machine is done showing off, you know, what's left as the game pipeline uh becomes the new engine of production, everything that comes back to that, the prompt and the agency behind it. So, you know, it's it's it's not participation, it's authorship that's really going to be um the main concern here.

SPEAKER_02 42:19

Authorship, okay. Well, finally, if you could take uh leave one takeaway for filmmakers uh on how to position themselves for success in the age of AI, what would that be?

SPEAKER_00 42:41

Um well they need to learn the uh the new lingo. That would that would be um trying to think what a good example of that. So it's the shift in in script writing. It's I mean it really starts with the ship the shift in screenwriting, I would say. Um and then it's also investors need to stop asking how much AI does it use and start asking whose hands it's in. Uh because if a project looks or feels like CG, you're not dealing with a visionary, you're dealing with a a hobbyist. Uh and so there's this old rule in cinema that um that uh uh the illusion only works when you forget it's there.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

Oh my gosh, that's so true.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Yeah. I mean, you know, back the Lumiere brothers terrified an audience when a uh with you know they projected on a wall this train pulling into the station and people jumped up and ran out of the theater.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

It hasn't changed since then. That's that's all that's all you're doing. And so if you can't do that with AI, yeah it can't be done. So um that would be uh probably just stay focused on that.

SPEAKER_02 44:23

Um that, yes. Because it is illusion, so your your audio has to be perfect, your visuals are perfect. You you just have to maintain uh your skills from normal filmmaking and learn AI to improve them. Look at AI as an improvement.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

Yeah, and so as you know, since it all starts with the script, yes this the screenwriter needs to embrace a new a new grammar. Uh wide shot isn't just an establishment, it's it's an invitation to explore, right? Spatial media, okay, and framing isn't where the director. Points to the camera anymore. It's it's where the viewer chooses to look. But perhaps most importantly, story beats aren't fixed moments on a timeline. They're events that wait for you to arrive.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

Can you feel that shift? So it yeah, so in this new grammar, characters stop performing for you and start reacting to you. A close-up is an emotion, it's the story looking back at you. And this the shift in understanding and meaning. Uh you know, if you get it, you're not ahead of the curb, you're you're actually shaping the new one.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Wow, how brilliant, Scott. Thank you. This has been an incredible amount of information for independent filmmakers. Thank you for sharing all this, and thank you for writing this incredible book. Because they're going to learn the language of AI by reading your book, Scott.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

Um, yeah, yeah, so that's kind of what it's about.

SPEAKER_02 46:29

Well, thank you very much for taking us behind the curtain of post-inema. I really recommend your book to all of our listeners. I found it to be incredibly simple to understand and full of great ideas. So your vision helps us understand not just where filmmaking is going, but how we creators can step forward with courage, curiosity, and a sense of possibility. That's the key. So, if to our listeners today, if you enjoy this conversation, uh, please check out From the Heart Productions online because we're here to champion your voice and support your journey. So, whether you're developing your first script or creative, immersive, AI-driven worlds, or finishing a documentary with an urgent message, our Roy Dean Film Grants, the fiscal sponsorship, the film funding classes, and the filmmaker community are all designed to empower you. And we believe that film changes lives and filmmakers change the world. So you can learn more about our grants and sponsorships at FromTheHeartProductions.com. Thank you for joining us. Keep creating, keep innovating, and above all, keep believing in your vision. And we'll see you next time on the Art of Film Funding.