Weta FX’s Kimball Thurston Talks AI Strengths & Limitations

Kimball Thurston, Weta FX’s chief technology officer, Korean filmmaker Kang Yun-sung and Netflix’s APAC Senior Director, Production, Sung Q Lee, discussed the advantages and limitations of using AI tools in production workflows during Netflix’s Creative Asia day at Busan International Film Festival.

They agreed that AI is bringing a range of efficiencies to the production process – reducing budgets, speeding up workflows and helping filmmakers realize scenes that were previously impossible to achieve – but they also noted some of its limitations.

“We’ve been growing it at a measured pace; using using it for image clean-up; not necessarily for generating images; but generating the motion that goes into some of the crowd scenes; and beyond that we’re starting to see some other small use cases,” said Thurston. “But I think there’s still some problems that we have to solve.”

He noted that while the resolution issue is currently being solved – filmmakers can now output to 4K resolution in many cases – there are still issues around color volume: “There are still some some things that I hope that technology companies will come and collaborate with the creative industry on more than they have been historically,” Thurston said.

“There’s actually a number of color issues, not the resolution of the color, but the range of color volume. For example, if all your AI models have been trained on a certain set of video images, you might not be getting the right shade of red. I hope we can collaborate more so we can help these companies solve some of these problems.”

Thurston also noted that the way that creatives currently have to work with the technology is not so intuitive: “We need better interfaces – for a visual artists, a text-based prompt is not the best way to interact with this technology.”

All three speakers focused on the use of AI to provide filmmakers with more creative choices – more iterations of a sunset or battle scene, for example – rather than using fully AI-generated images or replacing actors. “Remember there are different forms of AI – it’s not just about image generation, there’s also assisted AI, it’s about using these tools to help the creative narrative,” Thurston said.

Netflix’s Sung said the streamer is using the technology for pre-visualization, editorial and VFX, and has often had discussions about other use cases, but stressed that the “human touch is always critical and necessary”.

After playing a showreel of work done by Netflix’s VFX subsidiary Eyeline Studios, Sung added: “We have strict guidelines within the company. We’re not just chasing after the use of AI for the sake of it – if it helps the viewer experience then we have an internal process and we work through that. We’re not trying to be the fastest by using AI.”

Sung also touched on sustainability issues when asked by an audience member, who quoted figures on AI technology’s use of water resources. “If we’re talking about sustainability, we need to talk about the bigger picture beyond just AI, to achieve net zero we need to look at a range of issues and make different attempts,” Sung said.

Kang, whose credits include Run To The West, South Korea’s first feature-length AI-assisted film, said that AI is enabling the Korean film industry to reach its full potential. “Incorporating AI into film is turning our imagination into reality. In the past, genre films were not able to be the biggest due to budget limitations, but AI can now extend creative possibilities.”

Kang also screened a teaser of Netflix’s upcoming Gulf Of Aden, a Korean-language action thriller that he is directing, and which is using AI tools to recreate scenes of war-torn African countries, battles with modern-day pirates and ships being hijacked. “Not just because of savings on CGI, but also because the shooting process was simplified and the production period shortened, we were able to make savings of 30-40% by using AI,” Kang said.

However, he added that he doesn’t believe AI can currently replace real life actors: “AI generated battle scenes may have better quality than what we can otherwise afford to achieve, but will the technology be able to convey real human emotions to the audience? We’re still in the transition phase, but right now, I don’t think so.”

Netflix’s Creative Asia day, which is aimed at local creatives and industry, also included masterclasses with The Blue Road director Han Jun-hee and Possible Love cinematographer Kim Ji-yong; an industry panel on New Voices in Filmmaking; and workshops on storytelling and understanding the perspective of buyers, among other sessions.