Postproduction in times of AI: tools… and extinction?

En esta Tribuna, Fran Porras, supervisor de VFX del estudio de efectos visuales Dare Planet, reflexiona sobre el creciente uso de la IA (Inteligencia Artificial) en procesos de postproducción y cómo este fenómeno está modificando la industria.

Se dice que cuando Phil Tippett, responsable de los efectos prácticos de Jurassic Park, observó los dinosaurios generados por ordenador que ILM había desarrollado para la película, acertó a decir a su director, Steven Spielberg: “Me acabo de extinguir”.

La industria audiovisual ha vivido all kinds of transformations and in its genetic memory is the ability to adapt and overcome the challenges it has faced. We reached 2024 with a long-awaited agreement between the Actors Union (SAG-AFTRA) and the Producers Alliance (AMPTP) that has paralyzed productions for 118 days and that, among other requests, demanded protection against the rise of Artificial Intelligence. These measures, far from being anecdotal, show a short-term (if not imminent) scenario, in which even the image of the actors and their voice will be easily replicable thanks to technologies based on generative Artificial Intelligence.

Film post-production and visual effects industry are part of that threat; being, in turn, one of the sectors most vulnerable to change. We are facing a technological migration about whose scope we can only speculate, but whose results are already underway. On the table is the debate about whether these tools will make our work easier, or if They are part of an announced “extinction”.

AI tools already applied in the VFX world

According to analysts Goldman Sachs, Technology based on Artificial Intelligence could expose the equivalent of 300 million jobs, aunque la mayoría de los empleos e industrias estarían solo parcialmente expuestos a este cambio. Más que de un reemplazo, estaríamos hablando de una complementación. Los que trabajamos frente al ordenador procesando fotogramas, llevamos meses conviviendo con algunas de estas herramientas, y ya tenemos claro que han venido para quedarse. Que los grandes desarrolladores de software como Foundry o Adobe estén desarrollando e implementando herramientas basadas en IA en los programas de composición y edición de imagen, apoya el discurso de que las personas involucradas en estos procesos no van a verse reemplazadas por máquinas, ya que eso iría en contra de su modelo de negocio. A día de hoy, herramientas como “Copycat" of Nuke are being successfully applied in those repetitive tasks in which the Tool training compensates for the volume of planes to which a certain effect must be applied. The tools of matte extraction, continue to evolve and although they promise to lighten entire days of rotoscoping, to this day, they still do not compensate for the virtues of planting a good chroma. In this regard, and in order to satisfy the curiosity of an important part of the readers, I am afraid that these advances They are not being reflected in the budgets (at the moment).

Those of us who work in front of the computer processing frames, llevamos meses conviviendo con algunas de estas herramientas, and we are already clear that they have come to stay.

El aspecto más disruptivo que esta tecnología plantea en nuestra industria tiene que ver con la naturaleza artística de muchas de las tareas asociadas a los efectos visuales. Las herramientas de Inteligencia Artificial de generación de imagen a través de texto, o a través de imagen como Midjourney, Pika, Krea o Stable Diffusion, offer the possibility of generating highly realistic images through a properly formulated description. While it is true that these processes require a specialized profile that understands the tool, and is capable of bringing the result to a specific narrative, the artistic execution is relegated to the background. Mastery with a pencil is no longer as essential in the elaboration of a conceptual design or a “mattepaint”, as it is to know and operate with each and every one of the tools that appear on the market daily. For some it will mean a democratization of processes, others may feel it as the death of art; but, above that, there will always be a person specialized in the process.

As if that were not enough, if this technology has one advantage, it is its scalability. Today you can access it and obtain great results both at the user level using a personal computer, and on the largest audiovisual scales. Differentiating yourself is going to become one of the biggest challenges of the sector.

AI, reflection of the sign of the times

In his famous essay “The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility” (1936), Walter Benjamin He said: “Cinema is not only characterized by the way in which man presents himself before the device, but also by how with the help of it the world around him is represented.”

He cine, as a tool of artistic expression, It is still a reflection of the world in which we live. And yes: this is going to be the century of artificial intelligence, automation and the democratization of talent.

Surely Benjamin did not have in mind the scope that the technology would have in the way we perceive and represent the world. The way in which a Artificial intelligence It generates a work of art for you, directly, it would dismantle its concept of the aura. More accurate is this last mention of how cinema, as a tool of artistic expression, It is still a reflection of the world in which we live. And yes: this is going to be the century of artificial intelligence, automation and the democratization of talent.