OpenAI's Sora Shakes Up Hollywood: The End Of The Film Industry As We Know It
OpenAI's Sora can generate realistic video scenes when prompted. What does this mean for the future of the film industry?
Introducing the latest advancement in artificial intelligence: Open AI’s Sora.
Sora is a text-to-video AI model that can create realistic and imaginative scenes up to one minute long.
Following image-generating AI models, such as DALL-E 2 and Midjourney, Sora is a revolutionary advancement for its ability to make realistic videos, which stands out from other models. To preview what Sora is capable of, check out the video above prompted by OpenAI.
How Does Sora Work?
Like any other AI model, Sora is complex. In order to reference realistic videos, it is trained on “internet-scale data” by analyzing video clips and learning how to produce its own version when prompted.
For example, if you ask Sora to create a video of a race car track, it will reference all of the race car track videos it’s seen. However, AI still needs to understand how different parts of the video interact frame by frame. At this point, the AI model references ‘visual patches’ from the videos it references. Additionally, Sora has the ability to create a video based on a still image, animating the image with attention to detail.
While it is unclear where Sora is training its data from, OpenAI has a partnership with Shutterstock, which is likely the source.
If you’re curious how real these videos turn out, check out this video Sam Altman prompted Sora with.
Sora vs Hollywood
A major concern following the launch of Sora is how video-generating AI will impact the film industry regarding both movies and animated films. Compared to previous AI video generators, Sora has the ability to generate longer and better quality videos.
Hollywood is already taking caution, including actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry who was in the process of building an $800 million studio expansion, which he put on hold after the news of Sora.
“I was in the middle of, and have been planning for the last four years, about an $800 million expansion at the studio, which would’ve increased the backlot a tremendous size — we were adding 12 more soundstages. All of that is currently and indefinitely on hold because of Sora and what I’m seeing,” Perry told The Hollywood Reporter.
He also discussed how AI is already being utilized in films for other purposes, such as aging filters on characters. “I just used AI in two films that are going to be announced soon. That kept me out of makeup for hours. In post and on set, I was able to use this AI technology to avoid ever having to sit through hours of aging makeup,” Perry said.
As always, copyrights are a concern for new AI models, including the use of actors’ voices and faces to create films. However, in some ways, actors can sell these rights and use it to their advantage.
I do have concern over how Sora will affect the future of the film industry, and I think it will be a revolutionary AI model. If it gains the ability to generate longer videos more quickly over time, it will be at a greater competitive advantage. Although this model has launched, it has not yet been released to the public. When it is released, we will share when this happens, how people feel about it and how to use it. Stay tuned!
Best,
Ariana for the Don’t Count Us Out Yet Team