Imperfect Paradise: Meet the filmmakers who love AI

Norco 80

LAist Studios

True Crime

4.2 • 887 Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s hard to find people in Hollywood who are willing to speak publicly about their enthusiasm for AI, for fear of being seen as “siding with the machines.” And yet, many people are quietly using the technology already. In this episode, we interview two enthusiastic early adopters of AI in filmmaking about how they’re using it, its strengths and limitations, and how they respond to people who say AI is going to ruin Hollywood.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Larry Mantle. This year marks the 40th anniversary of my program Airt Talk.
0:05.4	On the show, we've discussed the biggest topics and events of the day from earthquakes to elections.
0:10.6	Please join me for the biggest conversation in Southern California for 40 years.
0:15.6	Our event series, What Get Lit, continues in the new year at the Crawford in Pasadena.
0:20.5	Join us for an evening of spoken award performance, featuring some of LA's best young poets.
0:25.4	It's the Prozbo, March 21st. Tickets at LAS.com slash events.
0:32.5	You're listening to Imperfect Paradise. Iia Sevehido.
0:46.4	So, Emily, when you first started reporting on AI in Hollywood, what did you know about it?
0:51.1	You know, I'd heard all the doomsday stuff, the labor concerns, the copyright concerns.
0:55.1	And at a certain point in my reporting, I just realized that I hadn't actually talked to anyone who really liked or had let alone used AI and filmmaking. And I really
1:01.3	wanted to. This is my colleague Emily Garon, who's been looking into how AI in Hollywood is
1:06.9	actually being used. Was it hard to find people who loved it?
1:12.1	I was anticipating it would be difficult because I had interviewed this reporter,
1:16.6	Devin Gordon, who writes for the New York Times Magazine.
1:19.1	And he told me that all these people would cancel on him.
1:22.0	Like people he wanted to talk to because they used AI at the last minute would get cold feet
1:26.3	or their publicists would be like,
1:27.7	no way, you can't talk to the New York Times Magazine about this. So I was surprised when I reached out
1:32.6	to these two filmmakers who both used AI in really different ways, and they were both down to talk.
1:41.6	For a lot of people in Hollywood, AI is an existential threat.
1:46.0	So now you have stolen from me and you are looking to deprive me of my ability to, you
1:51.2	know, pay my mortgage, feed my kid.
	...

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