One of the guiding principles in starting this site was to write minimally about AI. Why? For one, it is covered relentlessly everywhere. Secondly, the term “AI” is often misused and applied to a wide range of things in the film world, from cataloging footage to generating “complete” films. Simply saying “AI is bad” or “AI is good” doesn’t capture the nuance of the topic.
Now though, we’ve just barely launched, and I already feel compelled to break the AI silence.
As first reported by Deadline, Italian producer Andrea Iervolino claims to have created a feature called “The Sweet Idleness” by utilizing the company’s in-house AI director system called FellinAI. Yes, that’s the name of the system they want us to take seriously. Deadline explains that Iervolino’s company uses digital likenesses of real actors (which almost reveals that AI characters aren’t real actors, but I digress) that FellinAI can then manipulate in digital scenes.
The trailer, which at the moment isn’t on YouTube, (ok, here’s a link) so I don’t need to struggle with whether to embed it or not, shows a series of scenes not unlike other recent AI-generated content. Just in the short clips in the teaser, it is easy to spot the “something-isn’t-quite-right” quality in nearly every shot. I can’t imagine trying to watch 90 minutes or more of that type of film.
To call this a stunt, feels like an offense to Evel Knievel. Iervolino notes there’s still a human “in the loop” supervising the shots. Some might call that a director. The one thing everyone should agree on, is that a lot of people are looking for any angle to make money off of AI. I’m not too terribly concerned about FellinAI coming for our jobs. SpAIelberg on the other hand…
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