Tech giant Meta has announced a partnership with horror film production company Blumhouse to road test its latest AI video tools.
The program, known as Movie Gen, was announced earlier this month, but Mehta said it’s still in development and won’t be added to the generally available product until next year.
Meta announced Thursday that it has been working with filmmakers from Blumhouse, known for its franchises such as “Paranormal Activity,” “The Purge,” and “Insidious,” to refine and improve its tools.
Oscar winner Casey Affleck, who was also granted early access to Movie Gen, praised it in a promotional video, calling it “more of a collaborator than a tool.”
Advances in AI were one of the flashpoints during last year’s Hollywood screenwriters strike, with creators wondering if studios would use AI tools to write scripts or replace actors. I was concerned.
But Blumhouse founder Jason Blum said he welcomes the opportunity to test the program under development.
“These will be powerful tools for directors. It’s important to involve the creative industry in their development to ensure directors are the best for the job,” he said in a Meta blog post. That’s what it means.
Mehta also released a slick three-minute video packaged like an ad, created by filmmaker Aneesh Chaganty. The video is built around the idea that AI should be “hated” because it will destroy industries.
Chaganty revisited a series of snippets he shot when he was younger and used Movie Gen to add an alien, change the location from the countryside to Manhattan, and make it seem like he was inside a bank vault instead of his parents’ house. I showed it to you.
“I hate AI, but if I had a tool like this…I don’t know…I might have dreamed a little bigger,” the narration ends.
While Meta praises Movie Gen’s ability to create videos with audio from short prompts and photos as a major advance, the tool is still limited to 16-second clips.
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