by echelon | 2026-01-05 18:02:06+00:00
AI music models are a tool. They're only as good as the person doing the steering and curation.

I am a filmmaker. I have made photons-on-glass films for decades.

I have always wanted to make big-budget sci-fi and fantasy films, as have my friends and colleges who went to film school. The barrier to entry is almost impossible to climb. Most of my friends wound up in IATSE or doing commercial work, but never had the chance to follow through on their passion projects.

Ten thousand kids go to film school every year. Very few of them will wind up being able to make what they dream to create. It's a fucking tragedy that all of this ambition withers on the vine.

Getting a large film budget requires connections. You see a lot of nepotism. Sometimes a director who was in the right place at the right time with the right ideas will make it, but that's such a survivor's bias problem. There are orders of magnitude more people that didn't make it. Talented people full of dreams. And that's a tragedy - imagine how many Martin Scorseses, Hayao Miyazakis, Yorgos Lanthimoses, Denis Villeneuves, and Chloe Zhaos we're losing.

AI is the first tool that will level the playing field for truly driven individuals. I mean this with my full heart - this is a great tool for creative and driven people. It's the arrival of the printing press for us.

But the news of this gift has been twisted and soured by the media and by popular influencers who push only a fear agenda.

By trying to make AI films, I have been doxed, sent death threats, insulted, called thousands of names. Every day! People pour out hatred, racist comments, sexist comments - they literally want me (all of us) to DIE because they've been taught to hate this.

I can't even begin to tell you how exhausting this is. Instead, let me focus on the good.

Here's a list of (what I think) are really good AI films. Each of them takes 10+ hours of work:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tii9uF0nAx4 - Made by a film school grad as a demo of real filmmaking combined with AI VFX.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAQWRBCt_5E - Created by a Hollywood TV writer for an FX show you've probably seen. Not the best animation or voicing, but you can see how it gives a writer more than just a blank page to convey their thoughts.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWZYP5jn5w4 - Music video. Slightly MAGA-coded, but made by a Hollywood VFX person.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAAiiKteM-U - Made by a film school grad as a Robot Chicken homage. If you're going to tell them "don't use AI", then are you going to get them a job at Disney? Also, all the pieces are hand-rotoscoped, the mouth animations are hand-animated, and every voice is from a hired (and paid) voice actor.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4NFXGMuwpY - Made by a film school grad as a Robot Chicken homage. See previous comment.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_KXYpaTe_8 - Another slightly MAGA-coded music video. Made by the same Hollywood VFX person.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hlx5Rslrzk - Amazing Spider-Man vs. Carnage anime created with ComfyUI and other models.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqoCWdOwr2U - Christmas Grinch anime. It's really funny if you like Jojo and get the references.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKYeDIiqiHs - Totally 100% cursed. Made by a teenager following the comic book's plot. Instead of this teenager spending 100 hours on Fortnite, they made this.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps5Dhc3Lh8U - A Pixar-like short film

These tools do not remove the need for editing, compositing, rotoscoping. You still have to understand film language, character arcs, story, pacing. The human ingredients still have to be there.

By using these models and tools, directors and editors can finally pursue projects that would require many people and potentially very large budgets. Like the Red vs. Blue creators sitting down and making machinima, they can create vivid sci-fi worlds or whatever genre or mood they want to evoke.

AI is a tool. In the hands of an artist, you can make art with AI.

Yes, people are using AI to make slop. Cameras also make slop - selfies, food pics. Your own camera roll is full of garbage.

People are posting slop AI because it's novel. If we'd gone from "no cameras at all" to "smartphones" overnight, you would see so much smartphone camera slop it would be unbearable. We, as a society, had time to develop filters and curation around cameras. That'll eventually happen for AI too.

Cameras can make incredible art in the hands of an artist. They can also make a lot of shit. But we don't demonize the cameras. Soon, our feelings towards AI will become equivalent.

But right now, it's extremely painful to be a creative person using AI.

I -

ABSOLUTELY HATE

ABSOLUTELY DETEST

THE "ALL AI IS BAD" MEME

IT IS MIMETIC VITRIOL

People have let this stupid meme boil over to the point of sending death threats and doxxing creators. And that is beyond unacceptable.

We need to stop adopting angry slogans of hate and start thinking on a case by case basis with nuance.

This entire conversation needs way more humanity and humility.

And we need to accept that there are good things being created with AI too.