At a time when Hollywood is torn between the fear of artificial intelligence stealing jobs and the pressure to cut costs, a new type of hybrid production studio is being introduced with the latest AI tools.
Innovative Dreams is a new production services company, supported Amazon Web Services and Luma, a production AI startup, that integrates cameras and a large LED wall in the soundstage with tools to use AI from pre-production, to shooting, to post-production. By combining visual production, motion capture, and a variety of AI tools including Luma, For Google Nano Banana, and Bytedance’s SeeDream, Innovative Dreams says it can significantly reduce both cost and time.
“We visually design and explore the world, and then we take the images we capture and start mapping that action capture onto these digital assets,” explains CEO Jon Erwin. “You combine the game with the episode of [digital] the wardrobe you love. The fun part is the acting, the camera, the lens choice – it’s all going to go away.” Erwin says the approach brings the traditional filmmaking process into the digital world, instead of replacing cameras and actors with information.
Innovative Dreams was born from Erwin’s production studio, Wonder Project, after using AI to generate historical scenes in remote locations for its biggest show, “House of David.” (The show is available on Amazon Prime Video.) With Creative Dreams, Erwin taps into AI and virtual production to create large-scale films and shows, without leaving the sound stage — and he aims to keep production in Southern California.
“It was a big change for the House of David, so we came back from that experience thinking that other people must be doing the same thing,” said Erwin. “We quickly realized that people were not there.”
Director and founder of Innovative Dreams Jon Erwin for CNBC films Julia Boorstin on the sound stage in Los Angeles.
The first project using this new workflow is an upcoming three-part series called “Old Stories: Moses,” starring Ben Kingsley, which will premiere this spring. The three-episode series, shot in one week at the virtual audio station, features actors in 40 locations, including images from around the world on screens in the production area. Erwin says it would take five or six weeks for a standard production – and there wouldn’t be the budget to go to so many locations.
AI video production requires such large amounts of computing capacity, Creative Dreams brought in AWS as an investor and partner; AWS is providing cloud and AI infrastructure to power real-time hybrid production tools used on set, part of its broader effort to collaborate with the entertainment industry.
“We’re providing … tools that will allow filmmakers to be able to work in ways they couldn’t before and produce content much faster, much cheaper, and collaborate in ways that can accelerate production cycles at scale,” said Samira Bakhtiar, general manager of media, entertainment, games and sports at AWS.
Another major Innovative investor and partner is AI company Luma. Valued at more than $4 billion, Luma has a new agent tool that brings together multiple AI productivity tools in a collaborative workspace. And Erwin says they provide feedback to the company.
“By allowing Luma to invest and connect directly with many of these companies and having these collaborative discussions, we are able to shape the tools we use in a profound way,” he said.
It took less than an hour for the artists at Innovative Dreams to use AI to transform CNBC’s Julia Boorstin into a legend.
But the rise of new AI tools is causing more concern about job losses in an already struggling industry. The Covid pandemic halted production, and strikes by the writers’ and actors’ unions shut down production again for months in 2023. Los Angeles County has lost more than 40,000 entertainment industry jobs by 2022, with manufacturing employment in the city sinking to its lowest level since 1995. their intellectual property and stealing their works.
“The industry has been hit by a series of shocks. Construction, consolidation, cost cutting, content reduction,” said entertainment lawyer Jonathan Handel. “Everything is down 25% to 35% compared to pre-COVID.”
But now, the ability to create sets, costumes, and makeup digitally raises questions about potential job destruction for costumers, set designers, and makeup artists.
“The question of how much change there will be compared to the expansion of job opportunities, is one that has not been played out yet and is still making people very worried,” said Handel.
But Erwin says he thinks Innovative Dreams’ hybrid manufacturing capabilities won’t accelerate job losses.
“There’s an alarming lack of green lights, especially in America,” Erwin said. “I think this is a way that allows us to record here again.”
While Erwin suggests that leading industrial workers will adapt their skill sets to this new AI-powered world, Handel notes that AI could impact entry-level jobs, shrinking the streets into an already difficult industry. But Erwin is bullish about AI as a tool that brings the industry to life.
“I think this is necessary to bring jobs back to LA,” Erwin said. “We’re inventing a new way to fix something that’s out of control.”
Watch the video to learn more.
