Recently, when I scroll through my social media feed, my thoughts often go beyond my heart. “Is the content I’m watching? Or is it ai?” I proudly call myself a tech head, but it’s getting hard for me to identify both. The incredible quality of AI-generated videos such as Tiktok, Instagram, YouTube and more has really changed the meaning of “user-generated content”. It’s not just about volatile phone footage and amateur animation anymore. It becomes very surreal and is made in a fantastic world made only from your text prompts. The line between the real thing and AI is no longer just blurry. They are virtually indistinguishable – well, hey.
This democratization of this visual production of fidelity is phenomenal. People with smartphones and AI tools subscriptions (some are free, but I know) can create content that only a few years ago required a dedicated studio, expensive software and a team of highly skilled professionals. My own attempts are still far from blockbusters, but a few years before I could have produced them manually. This accessibility has a great deal of meaning not only to individual content creators, but also to the entire media that exists today.
When the average Tiktoker can mix visuals that could almost pass a big-budget commercial, what does that mean for the very definition of “studio production”? It forces us to reevaluate what we perceive as professional quality. And perhaps more importantly, how to verify the reliability of what you consume.
And it’s not just everyday users who use this power. Mainstream filmmaking is quiet, and sometimes not so quiet, integrating AI into your workflow for many years. The results are often subtle, sometimes groundbreaking, and almost always designed to improve the film experience, proving that AI is an essential tool for Hollywood’s weapons now.
Mainstream films using AI in film production
Below is the most prominent example of AI footprint in mainstream filmmaking.
Emilia Perez (2024) – Audio Integration
In this musical film, AI Voice Cloning Software, particularly Reseecher, was used to fine-tune and enhance the singing voice of lead actress Karla Sofía Gascón. This technology allowed her to blend with the voice of French singer-competitors, allowing her to slap certain high notes and maintain music accuracy without compromising her performance. The application highlights how AI works as a vocal enhancement tool, pushing up the boundaries that actors can achieve loudly on the screen, ensuring seamless, pitch-optimized delivery of music numbers.
The Brutalist (2024) – Audio Enhancement
As for “Brutal Man,” AI played a key role in refinement of actors Adrian Brody and Felicity Jones’ Hungarian dialogue. The production team used Respiers to subtly adjust the pronunciation, aiming for a native, authentic sound. This is not to completely replace their voices, but to reinforce the nuances of the language and ensure that the performance of the foreign language is as compelling as possible, indicating the film’s ability to achieve the complex linguistic integrity.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) – Aging
The latest “Indiana Jones” installment famously used AI and cutting-edge visual effects to Harrison Ford’s escape from age for the extended opening sequence set in 1944. Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) has used a complex process that scans Ford’s extensive footage from a young age and combines it with on-set performance capture. This allowed for a highly compelling digital recreation of young Indy, allowing seamless integration of past and present versions of iconic characters, maintaining the continuity of the story without recasting.
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Top Gun: Maverick (2022) – Voice Recreation
The touching moments in “Top Gun: Maverick” accompanied Val Kilmer’s return as Iceman. The fight against throat cancer caused Kilmer to lose his ability to speak. However, the AI technology of a company called Sonantic was used to replicate his voice by analyzing the time of past audio recordings. This allowed Kilmer to “speak” his lines in the film, providing a deep emotional and authentic continuity of his character, demonstrating the AI’s ability to restore and preserve the actor’s unique vocal identity.
Shang-chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) – Face Exchange
“Shang-chi” was adopted to exchange advanced faces in machine learning-rich martial arts sequences. Rather than simply using traditional CGI overlays, the AI algorithm was trained to the faces of key actors and mapped to stunt doubles. This technique ensured that even in complex, fast-paced action shots, the audience would always see the facial expressions and likeness of the main actors and create a more immersive, reliable fight choreography without compromising their performance.
The Irishman (2019) – Unsuccessful
Martin Scorsese’s epic crime drama, The Irishman, has pioneered advanced de-system techniques for the roles of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesti for decades. Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) has developed a custom “Three Monster” camera rig that captures the volume data of the actors’ faces. This data, combined with a vast library of past performances, allows AI to digitally “season” them, allowing them to pass on the story over the years with the original cast, a feat previously unimaginable in filmmaking.
Beyond these specific examples, AI is quietly revolutionizing other aspects of filmmaking, from helping with script analysis and pre-visualization to automating boring editing tasks and even creating music scores. By analyzing audience data, filmmakers help make more informed decisions about casting and optimizing distribution strategies.
Just like our social media feed, the future of filmmaking is undoubtedly intertwined with AI. Progress is thrilling and opens up unprecedented creative possibilities, but also sparks important conversations about ethics, employment displacement, and the very definition of a creative writer. As the line between “user generation” and “studio production” powered by increasingly sophisticated AI continues to blur, we enter a new era of exciting and complexity in visual storytelling. It’s a world where anyone can become a filmmaker, and the only limitation is the imagination, or perhaps the ability to have the next AI update.
