Netflix uses AI in one form or another in nearly 300 of its titles, Lee Sung-gyun, the streamer’s senior director of APAC production, told audiences at the Busan International Film Festival.
At the same panel, “The Outlaws” director Kang Yoon-sung said AI workflows could save 30% to 40% of a feature film’s production budget.
Lee shared the stage with Kang and Wētā FX chief technology officer Kimball Thurston for “Film Production and Artificial Intelligence: New Tools, New Possibilities.” Netflix and MPA co-hosted the session. This was part of Creative Asia, the Netflix and BIFF program for emerging Asian talent. Film critic Yun Sung-eun moderated.
“In nearly 300 Netflix games, AI has actually been used in various ways,” Lee said. “It is used in pre-visual, production design, pre-preparation of set layout concepts, editorial and, of course, VFX.”
Lee said new technology always surprises people when it arrives. “All these technological changes and new tools have been very helpful in terms of the ‘how’, what to make better, but they never got to the ‘why’, why we need to tell this story,” he said. “AI is the same.”
He also showed a video from Netflix’s VFX studio Eyeline about what the company calls hybrid production, combining live-action photography, VFX and generative tools. In the second clip, artificial intelligence and visual effects were seen working together to produce large crowd scenes for Netflix India’s “Glory”. Lee said these scenes would normally have to be canceled due to tight budgets and schedules.
Kang co-directed “Run to the West” with AI filmmaker Kwon Han-seul. The film was released in Korean cinemas last October and was billed as Korea’s first feature film to use artificial intelligence in its entire production. Kang turned to AI instead of CG. “At the time, AI technology was really primitive and low-level, so we mainly used it to combine and create creatures,” he said. “And even the creatures at the time didn’t quite match the footage we were shooting.” He said that in just one year, the quality of artificial intelligence had reached a point where using it commercially would be no problem.
The test clip for “Gulf of Aden,” a movie built around military operations at sea, was made entirely with artificial intelligence using Chinese software Kling earlier this year. Kang said the testing was done at low quality. He said existing tools can output 4K with 10-bit color or higher resolution, which is sufficient for cinemas.
An audience member asked about the cost. “When we calculated how much we would save on ‘Gulf of Aden’ for fundraising, it actually turned out to be around a 40% reduction,” Kang said. “It’s not just about changing the CG and VFX. The shoot itself became simpler and shortened the overall production time to some extent.”
Kang said that artificial intelligence puts projects that collapsed at the budget stage back on the table. This opens the door to genre and science fiction films at a time when the Korean industry is struggling to grow. But he also said that as AI takes on most of the creative work, it often eliminates the discussion, effort, and experience of the many people that filmmaking has always relied on, leaving images created from just a single person’s ideas. “So the quality of the images that the AI makes is very high, but when it comes to delivering emotion and moving audiences, I think we are in a period where the situation is actually getting worse,” he said.
Lee said he strongly agreed with Kang’s view. Now some things come with a single click, “but when it comes to conveying emotion, ultimately a human has to touch it one more time. I totally agree that a human touch is absolutely essential.”
Thurston described the deep learning denoiser behind the second Academy Scientific and Technical Award as “assistive artificial intelligence.” “Basically, no alteration of the creative intent is allowed,” he said. “It touches the pixels but only corrects them.”
He said Wētā has been using machine learning for at least a decade, or 20 to 25 years if you count the early forms of Massive, the system he created for “The Lord of the Rings.” It also flagged gaps in color accuracy. “If all your AI models are trained on video footage, you can’t get the right red for a Coca-Cola can,” Thurston said. “You get Netflix in the red, but you don’t get Coca-Cola.”
When asked how companies are adapting to new models, Lee said Netflix operates within strict internal guidelines and tests new tools before adopting them. “If you’re asking about speed, I’d like to say we’re not overly obsessed with that,” he said. Wētā has developed an open-source tool through the Academy Software Foundation designed to connect with initiatives like C2PA to track AI usage and provenance, Thurston said.
On sustainability, Thurston said Wētā’s data center in Wellington, New Zealand, which uses closed-loop cooling, now draws “zero liters of water per year.” Netflix is looking at sustainability across the company, including its goal to reduce carbon emissions, and is not examining the impact of AI separately, Lee said.
Kang expects AI usage to split in two directions. Short-form content will focus on productivity, and he pointed to China where some short-form projects are being done entirely with AI, from planning to distribution. Film and drama will focus on reliability instead. He also showed footage from a feature-length animation he was developing, which featured photorealistic backgrounds and animated characters he wanted to move like live-action actors.
Kang said it would be difficult to replace actors. “No matter how advanced AI technology becomes, actors are creators who convey emotion and move the audience,” he said. “Even if the AI’s acting becomes very sophisticated and mimics very precisely, emotion does not emerge due to its mechanical coldness.” Instead, he sees the role of AI in stunt and stand-in work.
Thurston agreed. “It’s not about changing the actors, is it? No way,” he said. “We are audiovisual storytellers, and storytelling is an examination of the human condition.”
Lee closed the session by saying that technology will continue to change and surprising, even shocking videos will continue to come. “But ultimately it is people who will write, and we want more, stories told by people,” he said.