MultiChoice owner Canal+ is deploying artificial intelligence (AI) through partnerships with Google Cloud and OpenAI, to cut production costs and make the impossible possible on screen.
During the company’s recent results presentation, Maxim Saada, CEO of Canal+, said AI will be used in production at StudioCanal. “We’ll be able to use AI to generate scenes that were previously impossible to produce, expanding the creative possibilities of Canal+ productions.”
The technology should be viewed in the same way as previous advances in visual effects, Saada added. “This is not about replacing human creativity. It is about adding another tool to our production toolkit, not unlike the improvements in special effects over recent years.”
Cutting costs, not people
Anna Marsh, global chief content officer at Canal+ and CEO of StudioCanal, says the company is taking AI tools seriously in terms of time and productivity. “It will allow us to put more money on screen – or at least make it look like there’s more money on screen.”
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StudioCanal already produces films at lower cost than many US studios, and AI will strengthen that approach, says Marsh. “We know how to make movies at a budget that is a lot lower than a lot of the American studios.”
Marsh notes the company is working with creative talent to ensure AI use remains aligned with industry expectations. “It’s really important for us that we work with the talent as well to make sure everybody is on board.”
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, national executive director and chief negotiator of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, had previously drawn a hard line on where AI should be used in the film-making industry.
Writing in a blog published to coincide with the World Economic Forum, Crabtree-Ireland argued that acting is fundamentally rooted in lived human experience. “Acting is not simply a task that can be executed. It is a craft shaped by memory, vulnerability, curiosity and choice.”
Synthetic systems, Crabtree-Ireland argues, cannot replicate the emotional depth that human performers bring to storytelling. “Synthetic systems do not possess experience. They recombine patterns that suggest emotion.”
If audiences become saturated with AI-generated content, viewers risk mistaking technical fluency for genuine artistic meaning, notes Crabtree-Ireland. “That would be a loss not only for creative workers but for anyone who relies on stories to make sense of the world.”
Crabtree-Ireland is clear the concern is not the digital tools themselves. “We can use technology to create extraordinary stories, but we cannot confuse simulation with humanity.”
AI on your screen
The shift is already underway across the industry. In January, McKinsey noted that AI is already beginning to be deployed in some areas of the film and TV production process, “though the potential magnitude of its long-term impact is still coming into focus”.
McKinsey estimates AI could cut production budgets by between 5% and 10%, with around 20% of original content spend moving to AI within five years, surpassing current technology.
Netflix this month acquired InterPositive, the filmmaking technology company founded by Ben Affleck that develops AI-powered tools built by and for filmmakers.
Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman used machine-learning tools to digitally de-age Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci. Disney digitally resurrected actor Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
At the same time, a new immersive version of The Wizard of Oz, created for the Las Vegas Sphere, used AI to restore footage, enhance resolution and extend scenes beyond the original frame.
Prosus CEO Fabricio Bloisi, speaking at the company’s Prosus Forward event, pointed out that the pace of change has sped up.
AI and generative AI were until recently seen as disruptive over a five- to 10-year horizon, Bloisi says. Now, he notes, “we believe the disruption and the complete transformation on how we work is in the next one to two years”.
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