The Advent of AI-Generated Movies: A New Era in Indian Film Industry

The Indian film industry is on the cusp of a revolutionary change with the advent of AI-generated movies. The world's first feature-length film generated entirely by artificial intelligence (AI) is set to make history, and it's all happening in India. The film, titled "Maharaja in Denims," is a Punjabi-language romantic drama that tells the story of a wealthy teenager who believes he is a reincarnation of a prominent historical figure.

The film's production marks a potentially huge shift for India's massive film industry, which is already home to some small-scale AI-generated experiments. The use of AI in filmmaking has the potential to disrupt traditional norms and shape world cinema, according to Indian writer Khushwant Singh, who is behind the project.

How AI-Generated Movies Work

The film will be generated by AI, save for the script, which will be written by an as yet unnamed writer. Intelliflicks Studios, a joint venture between Singh and tech guru Gurdeep Singh Pall, will use AI to create digital sets and film shots, as well as render music and dialogue. The AI will be blended with human creativity to create a unique and innovative film.

Challenges of AI-Generated Movies

While the use of AI in filmmaking has the potential to revolutionize the industry, it also comes with its fair share of challenges. The studio's creative director, Revant Bogra, faced numerous hiccups in creating a likeness of Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving attacker of the 2009 terror plot in Mumbai. Intelliflicks also faced hurdles in lip-synching scenes with long dialogue sequences.

However, Pall believes that new research and new AI models are emerging rapidly, often every week, and those help reduce the amount of effort required to create scenes or movement in the background of a still image or a higher-resolution version of a scene.

Impact on Indian Film Industry

Unlike Hollywood, where actors and screenwriters have staged protests over AI-generated content in cinema, India's film industry is still trying to gauge the impact of AI. Nitin Tej Ahuja, the CEO of the Producers Guild of India, said it was too early to assess how disruptive the technology would be for Indian filmmaking.

However, Ahuja believes that AI could help producers by speeding up and enhancing production processes and values, but producers had to also be mindful of the unauthorized usage of their intellectual property.

Concerns Over Intellectual Property

Recently, Indian voice actors expressed concerns over the use of their audition recordings, telephone conversations, or even publicly available audio to create AI-generated voice clones. Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor, best known for his role in Slumdog Millionaire, won a court case regarding the unauthorized use of his name, likeness, image, voice, and any other aspect of his persona through AI.

Cinematographer Sudeep Chatterjee, of Gangubai Kathaiwadi and Bajirao Mastani fame, said he did not feel threatened by the advent of AI in films, as it could only aggregate information from work he had already created, but not emulate his creativity or life experiences, let alone the inspiration that will fuel his future artistic efforts.

Screenwriter Manu Sharma, 46, whose latest release is Dono, said that AI "might replace junior writers at entry level – because they may not have much life experience to offer in their writing." However, he also believes that writers brought a specificity and sense of the unexpected to their writing, something that could never be duplicated.

Ruchika Roy, 46, who wrote the screenplays for films including Dil Bekaraar and 24 India, said AI was a useful tool in that it efficiently summarized what it has understood of her writing, which allowed her to identify gaps in her stories more quickly.

Conclusion

The advent of AI-generated movies is a new era in Indian film industry. While there are fears about whether writers would be paid well or even hired if AI could generate stories, Roy believes that AI could give Indians access to a far wider range of films than they'd previously enjoyed, as anyone with access to the technology could now create a viable story in a fraction of the time.

The use of AI in filmmaking has the potential to disrupt traditional norms and shape world cinema, and it's exciting to see how this technology will evolve in the future. With the potential to revolutionize the industry, AI-generated movies are set to make a significant impact on the world of cinema.