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> Hollywood is gonna be changed big time especially with cost and speed reduction Over 100 years of history suggest that Hollywood experiences an ongoing, stro

> Hollywood is gonna be changed big time especially with cost and speed reduction Over 100 years of history suggest that Hollywood experiences an ongoing, strong pressure to make productions more expensive and slower. Productions have been much cheaper and quicker in the past, and there's no technical impediment to making them that way again already (nothing has been lost), but studios and audiences generally want to see the limits of spectacle. But generative AI does not deliver on "the limits of spectacle" and has no clear path to doing so. It makes average-ish digital content, by definition, and has unsolved challenges with maintaining coherency and consistency across and within sessions/segments. It does do that pretty cheaply and quickly though. We can expect it to see the most use in already budget-constrained projects, where its compromises are a tolerable backdrop against some other focus (writing, humor, romance, etc), not the blockbusters that have huge budgets and polish demands and that mark the signature of "Hollywood". There, it'll expedite some creative utility tasks as people get the hang of using and improving it, but we can expect that the money and time saved there will just get routed over to other artisan, limit-pushing tasks.

liontwist 2y ago
Isn’t this kind of a universal problem in media now? Movies compete with every other media. The only voices that can be heard in that competitive marketing environment are big budget, winner take all, projects, and direct access to niche segments (YouTubers).
famouswaffles 2y ago
>Productions have been much cheaper and quicker in the past, and there's no technical impediment to making them that way again already (nothing has been lost) Productions also looked a lot worse in the past. Some productions are more expensive today because that's the budget the kind of production requires. You act like a movie like Guardians of the Galaxy looking as good as it does was even remotely possible decades ago and studios just want to spend more money for vain spectacle. Star Wars 77 was great for its time but that's exactly it, 'for its time'. 77's budget adjusts to 60M today and while you certainly can't recreate a modern 'will hold up' star wars with that budget, 60M today gets you a lot farther than it did decades ago with much better looking movies.
- swatcoder 2y ago
  "Looks a lot worse" or "Looks better" is an aesthetic judgement so confuses the discussion here. But what you're actually doing here is agreeing with me. Movies whose intent is specifically to deliver on spectacle -- i.e. the big blockbusters like GotG or Star Wars -- are specifically trying to push the limits of what their financing can deliver for the aesthetic tastes of their current audience. That means competitively throwing piles of money at creative talent and asking them to produce their best ever work. While using generative AI to trim costs on some non-spectacular supplementary stuff or noisy, brief background stuff can make more budget available for the spectacle, the goal is to spend as much as possible on the spectacle, not cut its costs.
  - famouswaffles 2y ago
    Not every part of these blockbusters is pushing the limits of what's possible, even for spectacle. Studios are quite happy to leave a lot of things as they've previously managed because it's good enough.
- liontwist 2y ago
  When I look at the budget of modern movie effects compared to quality, I suspect there is money laundering going on.

liontwist 2y ago

Isn’t this kind of a universal problem in media now? Movies compete with every other media. The only voices that can be heard in that competitive marketing environment are big budget, winner take all, projects, and direct access to niche segments (YouTubers).

famouswaffles 2y ago

>Productions have been much cheaper and quicker in the past, and there's no technical impediment to making them that way again already (nothing has been lost) Productions also looked a lot worse in the past. Some productions are more expensive today because that's the budget the kind of production requires. You act like a movie like Guardians of the Galaxy looking as good as it does was even remotely possible decades ago and studios just want to spend more money for vain spectacle. Star Wars 77 was great for its time but that's exactly it, 'for its time'. 77's budget adjusts to 60M today and while you certainly can't recreate a modern 'will hold up' star wars with that budget, 60M today gets you a lot farther than it did decades ago with much better looking movies.

swatcoder 2y ago
"Looks a lot worse" or "Looks better" is an aesthetic judgement so confuses the discussion here. But what you're actually doing here is agreeing with me. Movies whose intent is specifically to deliver on spectacle -- i.e. the big blockbusters like GotG or Star Wars -- are specifically trying to push the limits of what their financing can deliver for the aesthetic tastes of their current audience. That means competitively throwing piles of money at creative talent and asking them to produce their best ever work. While using generative AI to trim costs on some non-spectacular supplementary stuff or noisy, brief background stuff can make more budget available for the spectacle, the goal is to spend as much as possible on the spectacle, not cut its costs.
- famouswaffles 2y ago
  Not every part of these blockbusters is pushing the limits of what's possible, even for spectacle. Studios are quite happy to leave a lot of things as they've previously managed because it's good enough.
liontwist 2y ago
When I look at the budget of modern movie effects compared to quality, I suspect there is money laundering going on.