Netflix already uses AI in various capacities on about 300 titles, one of its senior production executives said during an industry discussion at the Busan International Film Festival on Saturday.
Sung Kyu Lee, Netflix’s senior production director for Asia-Pacific, said technology is being deployed in the filmmaking process, but he stressed the importance of preserving human creativity.
“[AI] It’s being used in previsualization, production design, working on set-dressing concepts ahead of time, in editing, and of course in VFX,” Lee said. “But the question that matters to me is not, ‘How much AI can we put into this title?’ But, ‘What else can this title do with the help of AI?’
Lee was speaking at Netflix’s annual Creative Asia event, presented in partnership with the Busan International Film Festival. Co-hosted with the Motion Picture Association, the panel also included Korean filmmaker Kang Eun-sung and directors. Dacoit and Kimball Thurston, an enthusiastic adopter of AI tools and Chief Technology Officer of Wētā FX.
Much of the discussion focused on the opportunities AI could create for filmmakers working with limited budgets, though speakers repeatedly stressed the need to preserve human creative judgment. The occasion also highlighted how the Hollywood creative community and the Asian content sector view the potential threats and promise of the technology differently, with the former being overly cautious and the latter mostly seeing it as an opportunity.
Kang partnered with self-described AI filmmaker Kwon Han-seul last year to co-direct run westBilled as Korea’s first fully AI-assisted facility. The project struggled at the box office amid poor press regarding the AI visuals, grossing around $100,000. Kang said that the pace of AI progress meant that the film seemed somewhat dated by the time of its release, but he is confident about the technology’s ability to enhance storytelling on screen.
The director is now producing an action film titled Gulf of AdenWhich makes heavy use of generative AI tools from China’s Cling AI. He said technology has enabled them to realize countless scenes that otherwise would not have been possible due to budgetary constraints “that have prevented the Korean industry from growing to its full potential.”
Kang estimated that the AI-assisted approach could reduce the film’s production costs by about 40 percent.
“When we calculated how much we would save Gulf of Aden For financing, it decreased by about 40 percent,” Kang said. ”It’s not just about changing the CG and VFX. The shooting itself was streamlined, and this reduced our production time somewhat.
He added, “Things that had been put on hold because of budget issues could be put back on the table.”
Netflix’s Sung tried to place AI in the context of the constant technological revolutions that have characterized the film industry since its early days.
“Technological changes and new tools have greatly improved the ‘how’ or how to improve what we make,” he said. “But they never decided ‘why’ – why we had to tell this story.”
“But when it comes to conveying emotions,” he said later, “after all, a human has to touch it. AI can get many things done, but does it touch human emotions? The human touch is important and necessary.”
Thurston similarly described Wētā FX’s use of technology so far as “assistive AI” and not as something that “allows creative intent to be changed in any way.”
“It gives us – very fast – visual images and visualizations. So from the director’s point of view or from the cinematographer’s point of view, it’s much easier to identify errors and fix them,” he explained.
“Our goal is to reduce simple, repetitive tasks,” he said.