Currently, tools are already being utilized to generate songs in the voices of artistes who did not originally sing them, as well as creating posters featuring actors in different roles. However, experts predict that AI will aid scripting, casting, shooting, post-production, marketing, and even the generation of melodies and lyrics.

AI can also generate valuable data on audience preferences and potential box office performance and help scale up content production and democratize opportunities. However, certain risks persist, particularly concerning the potential for plagiarism of existing content. Despite the advancements in AI, human intervention will continue to be necessary, feel experts.

“There is much benefit possible to those who do not necessarily have the infrastructure to make it big in the entertainment industry. There could soon be a scenario where AI could generate potential storylines, dialogue and drafts of scripts,” said Devdatta Potnis, CEO of tech creator company Animeta. The major impact of AI, Potnis added, is being seen in how social media creators come up with enhanced visuals and branded content and integrating technology into how they engage with audiences. Effects, could over time, trickle down to mediums such as film and television, too.

Impact will be felt in shooting, casting, post-production, and marketing, Harikrishnan Pillai, CEO and co-founder of digital agency TheSmallBigIdea said. “Casting recommendations, look development, storyboarding, and mock-up creation will become easier through AI. It could also provide editing and poster references, simplifying pre-production work. It is already being used in music production and launches, providing inspiration for tunes and lyrics. Additionally, it streamlines post-production processes, automating tasks like mixing and mastering for improved sound quality,” Pillai said.

Experts feel AI will impact almost all stages of the film production process, especially post-production. “Creating better visuals, special effects, colour intelligence, sharper editing and automation of redundant tasks such as colour matching, all can be managed with AI tools now. The ideation stage needs research and building of strong characters where AI can assist with enhancing character development, improving the dialogue quality and suggestions on the personality traits of the characters. The marketing stage will also get newer dimensions—generative content that can be used in promos, sentiment analysis of the audience, which social media platform is the audience available on, and also creating a full media plan can be tasked with AI tools,” said Chandrashekar Mantha, partner, media and entertainment sector leader, Deloitte. Measuring and attribution of how marketing campaigns have affected box office collections will be another advantage, Mantha added.

Regarding songs, AI can generate music in the style of different artistes. For example, companies like OpenAI have developed models like Jukedeck and MuseNet that can compose original music in various genres and mimic the styles of famous musicians, Sujai Chandran, creative director, art (south India), at FoxyMoron, a performance digital agency pointed out. “This technology allows for the production of music that closely resembles the work of specific artists, even if they didn’t create it themselves. In the film industry, the same mechanism can be applied for several purposes like analyzing large amounts of data, including scripts, box office performance, and audience preferences, to assist in decision-making related to greenlighting projects or even predicting the commercial success of a film ,” Chandran said.

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To be sure, like every new phenomenon, experts point out that there are both pros and cons to the use of AI. While it is already able to create passable scripts for film production, as a self-learning system, it will take a while to grow into artistic film-making, Nidha Luthra, executive director at advertising agency Thought Blurb Communications said. Another fear is that AI can generate “deepfakes”, or take a known personality or celebrity and realistically make them say statements written by an advertiser.

Earlier this year, the Writers Guild of America, while floating a proposal to allow writers and studios to use AI in limited capacities, clarified that such content would not considered literary material that writers come up with on their own.

Further, the use of generative AI for songwriting assistance, lyric and melody generation needs to be examined seriously for legal and ethical concerns, especially in relation to intellectual property rights. “AI definitely possesses the ability to fundamentally impact the M&E ecosystem in India but its promises and perils need to be carefully weighed to assess what the overall effect could be, especially in relation to intellectual property rights. Generative AI presents concerns on copyright infringement and privacy breach, in relation to the datasets used for machine learning; fears on misinformation and bias and dilemmas on authorship and legal liability,” Ranjana Adhikari, partner at legal firm IndusLaw said. On the human side of things, the potential lack of artistic creativity as well as the impact on jobs needs to be carefully borne in mind, Adhikari pointed out.

Updated: 11 Jul 2023, 12:29 AM IST