Martin Scorsese is the latest filmmaker to give his blessing towards the use of AI in the filmmaking process, becoming an adviser to the company Black Forest Labs and revealing that he is using artificial intelligence to help him with his pre-visualization and storyboarding process.
“Cinema is a young medium, only around 125 years old, so we have to be open to how it can evolve,” Scorsese said in a statement posted to the BFL website. “I utilized 3D with ‘Hugo’ and de-aging technology for ‘The Irishman.’ Now, with this tool, I can share what I’m visualizing more clearly and efficiently to my creative team — the production designer, art designer and cinematographer — for them to build on to enrich cinematic intelligence.”
The Oscar winner also shot a video at his New York office, describing a shot in his mind of a “gnarled, old, almost medieval town in the Caucuses” that was entered into Black Forest’s FLUX generative AI software. As seen in the clip, Scorsese described the appearance of the driver to their designers, getting a result that fit his description.
Scorsese further notes that AI storyboarding and pre-viz can save productions time and money and make it easier for the director to convey his vision to his team, resulting in “less wear and tear on the crew.”
“The idea would be to make a film in your private room, in a way, and you create the picture … and it is finally translated to 50 people on the crew, a 100 people on the crew,” he said. “This conveys a cinematic intelligence.”
According to The New York Times, Scorsese was introduced to the Germany-based Black Forest through the investment firm BroadLight Capital, which was co-founded by the director’s manager, Rick Yorn. While Scorsese has expressed his support for the technology, it is unclear whether he used it in the pre-production process for his next movie, “What Happens at Night,” which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence and is co-produced by Apple and Studiocanal.
The advent of AI in filmmaking has sharply divided many of the world’s most notable filmmakers. James Cameron is a member of the board for Stability AI, the developers of the popular text-to-image generative AI model Stable Diffusion, though his latest film, “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” came with an introductory reel from the filmmaker assuring audiences that AI was not used in any capacity.
Meanwhile, at last month’s Cannes Film Festival, “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson expressed concern that AI would “destroy the world,” but said that when it came to its use in filmmaking, “I don’t dislike it at all.” On the flipside, “The Shape of Water” director Guillermo del Toro pulled no punches in his hatred of AI in filmmaking, calling out those who believe “art can be done with a f–king app.”
TheWrap has reached out to Scorsese’s reps for further comment.
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