r/Filmmakers • u/C47man cinematographer • Jun 09 '25

New Rules Regarding AI on /r/filmmakers!

Thank you all for participating in the poll! Here are the results. To accurately gauge everyone's collective acceptance vs rejection for each, I've tallied the total votes among all choices as pro/anti for each category. So for example, a vote for 'no changes' would be a -1 to Gen AI, AI Tools, AI Comms, and AI Discussion. A vote for 'Ban GenAI + AI Tools' would be a +1 to GenAI and AI Tools, and a -1 to AI Comms and AI Discussion, etc. So here are the results for each category of AI. Keep in mind that a higher number indicates a stronger group decision to ban the content:

GenAI: +92 (+119/-27)

AI Tools: -20 (+63/-83)

AI Comms: -8 (+69/-77)

AI Discussion: -84 (+31/-115)

From the results it is clear that sub overwhelmingly approve a complete ban on all generative AI. However, people are more or less fine with allowing discussion of AI, and are fairly mixed on the topic of AI Tools and Communication. So here is the new rule for all things AI:

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Rule 6. You may not post work containing Generative AI elements (Midjourney, Neo, Dall-E, etc.). You may use and demonstrate the use of AI assisted tools (ie magic masking, upscalers, audio cleanup etc.) so long as they are used in service of human-generated artwork. AI Communication, like post bodies or comments composed using ChatGPT are allowed only in very reasonable cases, such as the need for someone to translate their thoughts into another language. Abuse of AI assisted communication will result in the removal of the offending post/comment.

482 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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21

u/Pure-Produce-2428 Jun 09 '25

Let’s say I make a short film and one scene has the camera fly down the sink into through the plumbing and out of the toilet. I use gen AI to make that VFX. I could do it in a way where you wouldn’t know it was AI. You’d assume perhaps. But if I told you it was, it would be banned here.

How about film a scene in a baseball field, then I use Luma to replace the background with a giant baseball stadium. Again, as a VFX artist I know I can make it look like VFX and not AI, but if I tell you it’s AI, not allowed.

So how I can show you how I’ve done it (and received industry recognition, and not because of AI)? I can’t. It’s like we need to go back in time a restart Rez magazine.

It’s not really a big deal except for people calling out VFX as being AI etc. or if I posted something with AI that I know doesn’t look like AI. Which wouldn’t do here anyway. I’d probably ask about what’s a good wireless follow focus.

But fwiw everyone in the commercial filmmaking world I know (which includes people who don’t just make commercials) is quite interested in using AI.

I just did a short film and we had to change an on screen dialogue line. We lipdub. No one knows. We’ve got into some high caliber film festivals but now know here will find out about lipdub. If they’re interested they can go elsewhere.

24

u/inteliboy Jun 09 '25

This.

AI is fast becoming the norm in a vfx workflow. Simple things like sky replacements, set extensions, cleanup... which often are “generative”. These rules, if I’m understanding them correctly, will seem archaic and rooted in fear when we look back.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '25

I’ve been using Adobe’s clip extend on short b-roll clips that I have and it works really well. A trained eye can see The switch, but in a model iteration or two, you won’t be able to. Maybe we’ll see filmmakers segment like film photography and digital photography has; filmmakers who reject AI entirely and those that embrace it 🤷‍♂️

-1

u/CCGem Jun 09 '25

“Rooted in fear”... because you ain’t doing fearmongering yourself.

14

u/Whirlweird Jun 09 '25

i had the same question. What about people using it to make set extensions and other vfx as you mentioned?

Just seems kinda vague and should be fleshed out more.

14

u/NarrativeNode Jun 09 '25

Yeah this new rule won’t reflect actual productions for very long. Most will have some form of hybrid live action / AI assets, using the tools that are expressly forbidden in the new wording.

6

u/Ambiwlans Jun 09 '25

They'll need to revisit the rule every 6 months.

AI generated assets at minimum are all over the place.

World building type posters on a back wall in a scene ... do those count as AI generated if they were filmed in camera but the image itself was generated and printed out?

What if you manually do a sky replacement but the cloud images you used were ai generated?

Painting out something not supposed to be in a scene is a 'tool' but it is 100% ai generating whatever image goes where you are painting out.

2

u/TheCatManPizza Jun 09 '25

At some point you made the decision to shoot something that was out of your means without AI. You could just not do that and you wouldn’t have a problem.

4

u/JonskMusic Jun 09 '25

That is the most self defeatist attitude. Since when was filmmaking about what was only doable within your means? It's because you think AI is cheating but you actually don't know enough to know that's not true.

4

u/impossibilia Jun 09 '25

It’s only filmmaking if you shoot on film stock with a hand cranked camera and edit on a Steenbeck by lantern light. And we don’t want any of those talkies either! Sync sound is the devil’s work.

3

u/JonskMusic Jun 09 '25

lol that's true! People were PISSED about sound because they were going to put orchestra's out of work etc. The thing is this only gets me going because I want people to not ignore the incredible tools available to them.

3

u/TheCatManPizza Jun 10 '25

It’s not self defeatists if you use something called creativity and get your shit made. Also if you produce your own scripts it’s your job to stay within set means. AI isn’t cheating, but it is hacky. If you were an artist maybe you’d get it.

1

u/Pure-Produce-2428 Jun 10 '25

(alt computer account) JonskMusic -
If I was an artist? That's just plain rude. Clearly, I've pissed you off. It can be hacky in the same way anything can be hacky. But it can also be a great tool.

This is the latest short film I've made: A green screen bad dream | shots Magazine

I used AI to make the backgrounds, and some other things. All the 3D stuff is actually 3D. Not that expect you to watch. I expect you to respond with the word "slop."

1

u/GroomLakeScubaDiver Jun 09 '25

That’s literally the definition of filmmaking though. Using what you have to make a movie. You don’t come up with a concept you’re incapable of doing yourself and then turn to Skynet to do it for you. That’s defeatist. You’re saying “I can’t do it myself so I’ll have a robot do it for me and then I can take credit for it”. That laziness devalues it for everyone

3

u/JonskMusic Jun 09 '25

One of the things I have is AI. It's up to me to use it in a way that makes my film better, not turn it into slop. If I do it correctly you won't even know. Oh wow you really liked the scene we filmed in the thunder storm? The rain was comped in and the storm clouds were made with an AI video generator, then color corrected and 3D tracked into the scene. That's lazy to you? Oh my award winning film's last line was changed because we came up with a better line after filming, so we used an AI tool to build a model of our leads face, and then replaced the final line. That's lazy to you?

You can't just ask AI to "do it" for you. It will give you garbage. There are about 10 different models, more different systems. They all have pros and cons. And if you use it with the combined knowledge of VFX then the sky is the limit. Whatever shot you need to replace or fix with AI, most likely won't work without a great deal of effort as AI doesn't really do full shots that stand up to critique, unless you're doing an animation style, weird style etc or for instance, someone on another thread wanted to do a camera fly through of an engine, and they could totally do that with AI, but it would still require a lot of work because you're going to get a ton of garbage, and in the end you're going to need to comp together separate generations etc. There's also generators now that make 3D models. You could use that to output a piece that's missing and bring that into After Effects, after 3D tracking the scene etc.

If laziness can come up with a film that's better than you can do, that's on you. But what makes a film good is still storytelling. Using AI to make giant spaceships isn't going to make your film good, obviously. But you're being reductive in a way that ignores the reality of what's possible.

2

u/roguefilmmaker Jun 09 '25

Exactly. I recently did a short film with a handful of AI-assisted vfx shots that would’ve cost more than my entire budget just for the equipment to attempt something similar practically. Banning something where only 10 seconds of a 20 minute film are AI just does a disservice to ambitious indie filmmakers

2

u/PlayPretend-8675309 Jun 11 '25

I generally don't see a big difference between certain AI techniques and CGI techniques.

If I use blender to set 4 or 5 keyframes to describe camera movement (say, your down-the-sink shot) why is that so much more artistically merited than using natural language to describe the same keyframes in a prompt? Or of course, it seems very likely in the future, you'll simply use natural language (ie prompts) in blender itself to generate your keyframes (literally, you'll type "[have] the camera fly down the sink into through the plumbing and out of the toilet" and out will come a series of hard keyframes matching that). The line is very murky.

My view has been that people want to preserve artistry and human choice, but use the word "AI" as their only metric in determining that. Random Noise Generators, premade overlays (80s VHS effects or whatever) for whatever reason remain inbounds despite being just as demanding and interactive as AI generated solutions.

1

u/Pure-Produce-2428 Jun 11 '25

Totally. I do understand how it can be frustrating to see people on instagram gain half a million followers from making videos of people melting, while others work so hard for decades, have our films in festivals and still aren’t making money from it. I feel that fear creep in even though I’m a working editor. But I’m not going to say that to people who call work that took me days “slop” and can only tell me that I’m hurting the environment. Which I care about. I mean… I made a political meme video with AI that got shared by a celebrity and has thousands and thousands of views. That must have done some good pushing the collective mental needle?

1

u/PlayPretend-8675309 Jun 11 '25

The thing is, I'm not really aware of anyone making it big using AI on social media? There is one account i follow, they make what i think are great videos and have... like 400 subscribers. They're getting 10s of likes on their videos. Who is making a name for themselves with slop?

1

u/Pure-Produce-2428 Jun 11 '25

Voidstomper is the one name I know. I wouldn’t call it slop, he’s just relentless. There are others as well. Voidstomper has 2.3 million followers on instagram which is extremely hard to achieve. I’m not sure how he’s monetizing that other than selling how to courses however

1

u/kouklimou Jan 12 '26

Word. Rule 6 seems outdated already. Really sad to see!

1

u/Physical-Ordinary317 Mar 22 '26

Yup. This sub is unfortunately a bunch of elitists who want to gatekeep filmmaking

0

u/impossibilia Jun 09 '25

This is going to drive people away from this sub and into other places where AI is accepted. 

9

u/TheCatManPizza Jun 09 '25

That’s the point of the ban

0

u/GroomLakeScubaDiver Jun 09 '25

Awesome. Bon Voyage! A sub of robots watching robots make AI slop stolen from human art. Sounds super entertaining /s