AI in Film Production
On June 1, Ivan Zhurko led a webinar with the University of Houston’s HPE Data Science Institute to discuss Filmustage, a new software program that aims to make the process of film production more efficient with the use of AI. The webinar was hosted by The Society of High Performance Computing (HPC) Professionals. The HPC Society is a non-profit organization that aids professionals and companies within HPC programs through areas of data science, quantum computing, energy and AI.
Zhurko is an entrepreneur focused on AI-driven projects as Head of Product at Filmustage and he specializes in digital marketing and emerging technologies. He has been working with Filmustage development to market the program to both small and large production companies.
According to Zhurko, the creation of a film from idea to big screen is organized into five main steps: script creation, pre-production, production, post-production and distribution. Post-production and distribution are already largely executed by AI, but pre-production continues to be handled by individuals who use industry standard software developed in the 1970s.
Pre-production is the process of organizing all aspects of a script and planning the production of elements from text to film. Specifically, pre-production involves organizing and finding casts, props, costumes, locations and extras. The scene-by-scene is organized in this manner. After this, a schedule is made for the production. This can often take weeks when pulling from a script of 100 pages or more.
Using Filmustage, pre-production workers can drag and drop the finished script into the program, and a schedule is created within a matter of minutes. In fact, Zhurko claims that the program can read and organize a 120-page script in under two minutes.
Zhurko backed his claim by conducting a demonstration, using a copy of the script from Todd Phillips’ Joker. Zhurko placed the 128-page script into the program and within 60 seconds, the program organized every aspect of the script from cast to copyright risks to their respective, individual scenes. The software appeared to be easy to navigate with a streamlined interface accessible to a wide variety of users.
But the Hollywood robot isn’t done yet. Filmustage plans to add many more features into the software during 2023, including stunt risk detection, scene synopsis script revisions, production calendar, budget estimation and a film location finder using Google Maps. Filmustage is designed to make the process of pre-production less time consuming, in order to meet the growing demands of entertainment.