I recently attended an AI filmmaking summit called The Bionic Awards, launched by creatives and sponsored by Adobe. This awards scheme celebrates AI-powered filmmaking across a diverse range of disciplines, from animation to advertising and showcasing drama, suspense, humour, sci-fi and more. I'll be honest, I went in with some trepidation. AI filmmaking is divisive for a range of reasons, not least because creatives fear it will dramatically reshape their industries and cost jobs in the process.
But what I encountered was far more nuanced than that – even though the films were predominantly made with a mix of generative AI tools rather than being traditionally made with some AI integration. Even so, it isn't nearly as simple as "AI filmmaking = slop" or "AI is killing the creative process". In fact, in some respects, I found the complete opposite to be true.
