AInterview: Michaela Ternasky-Holland
For me, every project is unique, so in turn the approach and considerations are unique.
What was your first point of contact with AI?
In 2019, I produced interviews that utilized A.I. to match the interviewee’s answer with an audience’s question. The question could be either in a typed format or in a verbal question utilizing natural language processing.
Can you provide examples where AI has significantly impacted your directing process?
As a Tribeca alumni, I was invited to participate in the SORA Shorts program, which gave me and four other filmmakers first access to SORA to create short films that utilized generative A.I. After thoughtful discussions with industry colleagues and my representative team, I decided this would be a strategic and exciting opportunity for me, especially because my past projects and creative focus have been within emerging technology.
You are described as a director who specializes in creating socially impactful stories using immersive and interactive technology. How can AI be used to create stories with social impact?
A.I. like any tool can be used for positive and negative impacts. For me, I have seen voice recognition A.I. software allows people to have more fluid conversations with people that they may not feel as connected to. I have also seen it be used in photo recognition mobile apps that allow people to monitor their crops to better recognize disease and malnutrition. Recently, I have been exploring the use of generative A.I. to imagine elements of culture and history that are missing.
What ethical considerations do you think are important when using AI in film production?
I think it is important to distinguish the difference between a general A.I. tool in film production and generative A.I. tool. A general A.I. tool supports the steps in the process of filmmaking, such as autofocus, background remover, automatic plating, intuitive clip sorting, and automated rotoscoping. This is different then generative A.I. which is generating images and videos from text based prompts or pre-existing assets.
I think it is important to always consider the impact of any tool or medium utilized within the process but more specifically ethics should be constantly discussed when it comes to generative imagery. A few ethical considerations are generative A.I.’s training data through platform scraping, portraying generative people in a documentary, and building and creating a film without noting that the imagery is made with generative A.I.
How do you ensure that the use of AI aligns with your creative vision and values?
For me, every project is unique, so in turn the approach and considerations are unique. I utilize technology that feels most appropriate to tell the story.
For Kapwa, the A.I. is creating an imaginative visual representation for what has been lost to cultural erasure. In this way, the generative A.I. itself is a metaphor for the process of imagination.
For Thank you, mom the generative imagery is layered by hand drawn artwork made by animators. This is to create this duality of the character’s journals as she is growing up. One reality is what you are physically writing in the journal, while the other reality is this mindseye representation of what you are writing in the journal itself.
Moving forward, my goal would be to use generative A.I. as a rapid prototyping platform, especially in the development phase when funding is limited. Within production, generative A.I. would be treated as a tool amongst many that may or may not be suited for the overall narrative or art style of the project. It would not require less people but rather specialized people including the cast and crew we already have within the project.
What specific applications of AI have you used or considered in your project Kapwa?
Kapwa is a series of video installations that trace an outline around what is missing from the history of our people. It foregrounds a sense of loss–a disconnect from our ancestry–and creates a space to explore the grief that follows.
In Kapwa, we utilized Stable Diffusion for our renders. Kapwa is not only a visceral representation of our struggle to understand what is truly Filipino culture but also a demonstration of the inquiry itself.
The installation uses generative AI to imagine elements of culture and history that are missing. Kapwa shows us images that feel familiar, but are ultimately false: prosthetic versions of irretrievable lost artifacts.
What potential developments in AI technology are you most excited about for the future of filmmaking?
Outside of generative AI, there are a lot of AI tools currently being developed. I am especially interested in AI tools that support in the more tedious area of the editing process, such as intuitive clip organizing and rotoscoping.
Cool instagram accounts or directors/photographers using AI?
