Mark Murphy, Director: The Impact of AI on Filmmaking

Mark Murphy, director, producer, writer and composer, has worked on several high-profile movies and TV series, including composing for the We Are Not Alone television series in 2022 and writing and directing the films For Love or Money and The Comedian’s Guide to Survival.

Mark Murphy, Solar Productions company director, also produced the captivating six-part television drama Casanova’s Love Letters, which was shot for the Discovery Network and broadcast around the world, with its cast boasting several of Hollywood’s most famous actors.

This article will look at the exponential uptake of AI throughout the filmmaking industry, exploring the technology’s potential to make production processes more streamlined, effective and cost efficient, as well as highlighting some of its shortcomings.

Almost three decades after Tom Hanks and Robin Wright broke box office records around the world with the Oscar-winning movie Forrest Gump, the actors are poised to collaborate once more in the upcoming movie Here. The difference is, this time around, Hanks and Wright will be considerably older than last time moviegoers saw them grace the silver screen together. But is that how they will appear?

The emergence of AI is transforming filmmaking processes, posing the potential to seamlessly de-age actors. A flurry of innovation has paved the way for the creation of future applications that could transform virtually every aspect of modern filmmaking, from casting to script development.

Helen Packer serves as senior vice president of DGene, a Shanghai and Silicon Valley-based developer of AI technology. She suggests that AI could help people to express themselves in ways where they have been stifled until now.

According to Helen Packer, AI is a tool that could be used to expand the art of filmmaking. She believes that the future of AI in movies ultimately depends on what audiences believe, pointing out that they must accept AI as a reality for it to work and recognising that there will be both potential and challenges as AI evolves. For example, AI is increasingly being used in de-aging techniques that mostly focus on the face. One of the most complex yet important features for AI to get right are the eyes, since they are so communicative.

In the realms of screenwriting, AI technologies have created a huge stir, causing uproar among writers who are concerned that their jobs may become obsolete, with production companies instead relying on banks of computers to produce scripts and screenplays rather than human writers.

Experimenting with an AI app, Mark Murphy tasked it to come up with a new comedy centring around a judge who is secretly the head of a mafia family. The app came up with The Honourable Don, the story of an uptight judge leading a double life as a powerful mafia boss. Hilarity ensues as his two worlds collide, forcing him to juggle mobster antics and courtroom shenanigans while striving to keep his true identity under wraps.

The AI app produced a synopsis, explaining that as the story unfolds, the line between the protagonist’s respectable public image and criminal activities become increasingly blurred. It also provided breakdowns for five characters, as well as a sample scene, although Mark Murphy acknowledged that this ‘was less than impressive’.

When asked to create the full script, the AI app replied that generating an entire script was beyond the scope of what it could provide, although it did offer help with specific scenes, dialogue and script guidance. The app also highlighted that it was only one particular AI app, and that there might be others that could oblige.

As Mark Murphy points out, one stumbling block of AI is that cultural and social nuances may be deemed offensive to social norms, as it is hard to gauge these without a human perspective. Indeed, humans themselves often get it wrong as these norms are constantly changing. For example, many films and television series from the ’80s and ’90s are deemed offensive today in light of current social norms.

Mark Murphy suggests that AI will not only change the creative side of filmmaking but storylines too. The proliferation of smartphones has impacted virtually every aspect of modern life. A movie could have a very different ending if characters could, or could not, access modern technology. For example, Mark Murphy’s example of the kid who hopes his crush will come over to help with his homework. He will no longer have that excuse now that AI is readily available, providing 24/7 learning tools, information and support wherever he may be in the world.

Experts warn that mass adoption of AI throughout the filmmaking industry could culminate in a loss of human creativity. While AI algorithms may be capable of making accurate predictions and generating new plot lines, they currently lack the emotional depth and unique perspective that comes from human creativity, potentially leading to a homogenisation of storytelling that could impact the overall quality of filmmaking. Nevertheless, with the technology progressing at such a rapid pace, it is impossible to say whether AI will have advanced sufficiently to be up to the task in years, or even months, to come.