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I would love to be wrong, but filmed entertainment seems to be facing its own equivalent of the robotic assembly line.

A little-reported but hugely significant white flag of surrender surfaced a few weeks ago when the producer and actor Tyler Perry suddenly canceled a planned expansion of his Atlanta studios. A dozen new sound stages were originally projected, but that was before he saw what he considered a “mind blowing” demonstration.

Perry changed his mind after he viewed a collection of short videos produced by an A.I. program called Sora. On just verbal prompts to Sora, the name of an image generator from Open AI, a fabricated scene emerged as an instant “video” that was difficult to distinguish from a sequence that a Hollywood production company might take days to set up. The crane shots in some of these fake videos are stunning. The characters look like they have been groomed for their parts. Shadows are mostly authentic. And the live action from people and animals look mostly “real.” As the Washington Post noted in an excellent must-see article, the images and actions are “shockingly realistic.” The article and its examples are best seen on a computer screen. Here’s a sample of one of the videos with its text prompt that is cited by the Post.

[Verbal Prompt: A cat waking up its sleeping owner demanding breakfast. The owner tries to ignore the cat, but the cat tries new tactics and finally the owner pulls out a secret stash of treats from under the pillow to hold the cat off a little longer. (OpenAI)]

We expect that most institutions will evolve incrementally: slow enough to allow for adjustments to new realities. That may not be the case here. Every trade in the film and video industry must be asking how they will fit into a world of narrative storytelling when anyone without experience with computer generated images can “create” stunning video effects.

To be sure, things aren’t perfect in this early generation of Sora. Look at a sample of an invented scene from a 1930s movie, also cited by The Post. It looks great, but Sora doesn’t know how to light a cigarette:

[Verbal Prompt: A person in a 1930s Hollywood movie sits at a desk. They pick up a cigarette case, remove a cigarette and light it with a lighter. The person takes a long drag from the cigarette and sits back in their chair. Golden age of Hollywood, black and white film style. (OpenAI)]

Hollywood is not alone in confronting technological advancement, but the ease of use of this technology makes it an existential threat to the film world as we know it. Producers and various content providers will love this tool. But it cannot be anything but a blow to artists and trades that usually make traditional film or video projects. No wonder actors were so concerned about achieving a new contract that would prohibit the use of their likenesses without their permission. I would love to be wrong, but the future of “filmed” entertainment seems to be facing its own equivalent of the robot revolution in the production of automobiles.

A colleague who knows about these things notes that crews have been dealing with Computer Generated sets and effects for years. As actor can now appear to be walking down a street in Prague while passing in front of a green screen in Burbank. And many are working these days. There’s also the example of recent films like Poor Things (2023), with actual Victorian sets on sound stages and the inventive use of crafts that go with a period piece. My colleague also wonders if many A.I. scenes aren’t essentially rip-offs of other location videos, slightly modified to seem more original than they are. Newer generations of this software should help clarify the charge of “mere copying”.

To be sure, the future appears bright at least for copyright lawyers. Then, too, actors in dense roles driven by dialogue construct screen personas carefully. Performances come from assumed motivations and hard-to-fake nuances. Can a fully integrated performance like Emma Stone’s in Poor Things really be put together from just from verbal directions? Even so, an upheaval is bound to happen as seemingly recognizable persons are placed in novel settings and given words that they never muttered.

A.I. appears to be a new and fearsome thing facing the film industry, but it is even more of a threat to the culture as a whole if journalists and public figures face an endless tangle of anger and confusion over real and fabricated words and images.

Here’s the thing about ambient sound: we tend to put it out of mind even when it is having its way with us.

There is always a scenic dimension to the various physical elements that limit or enhance our actions. The funny old aphorism that ‘everybody has to be someplace’ is a reminder that our lives must unfold in some particular space. Sonics are always a part of a scene, even if they are hardly noticed. Pure silence is almost never an option; even a “quiet” place is full of ambient sound that affects the qualities that shape any particular moment. For example, ambient sounds are what transform stilted film dialogue captured on a set into conversations that seem to be happening in real space. Like the visual cues of color and texture, aural cues define where we are: anywhere from a busy playground to a space deep in the woods. More than we might acknowledge, it is ambiance that defines a desert from a busy city street, a cathedral from a conference room, or a busy office from a bedroom.

I was reminded of the importance of ambiance several years ago, when I was working on a chapter about film sound design. Since mics can barely do more than capture dialogue, Foley artists and sound editors recreate sonics that were inadequately captured on location. They add the aural details that make a place real.

In crowded places like midtown Manhattan we often want to escape what has gone beyond ambience and become intense noise. The constant racket of the city is the number one complaint of its residents. And we know that heart rate, irritability and blood pressure rise in very noisy spaces. But I know from experience that some of those same folks transported to the quiet acres of rural forest may also find the stillness pretty creepy. Though not loud, small Eastern Screech Owls at night are dependable producers of the kinds of quiet cries we might expect from ghosts passing through the trees.

Here’s the thing about ambient sound: we tend to put it out of mind even while it is having its way with us, increasingly making us anxious, annoyed, impatient or—too infrequently—calmed. Our brains scan the information that we obtain from incidental sounds. And while our ears aren’t as sensitive as many other mammals, they are good enough to detect an oncoming car we still can’t see, or an air leak in a window that is supposedly sealed.

The films Blow Out (1981) and The Conversation (1974) are good explorations of how we rely on incidental sound to make sense of the world. Both show technicians using just ambient sound to solve crimes. More happily, Joni Mitchell subtly embeds one of her signature songs with the soothing ambience of summer crickets.

Sound anchors us to a scene. Experiencing a completely silent environment, as in an anechoic chamber, is unnatural and, for most, unpleasant. A quiet spot is one thing, but we are only too happy to be in the presence of enough sound to blot out the sounds of our own heartbeats.

Americans living near cities and traffic often live within what has become sewers of noise. Tokyo and Mumbai are also bad, but we have our own unique mix. Aircraft noise is often a constant presence. And American reliance on gas engines is even more prominent, with most towns falling short of reining in the constant din from sources ranging from souped up motorcycles and cars, to the horrible pollution of machines we use to manicure green spaces. A recording studio built in most towns must be built like a bank vault in order to keep all of that chaos at bay. One science writer has cleverly imagined that if noise pollution could be seen, its scale would produce a level of filth we would never tolerate.

But the basic point here is simpler. We need to give the tiny sensory organs behind our ears a break, and the chance to hear quieter ambient sounds. That was always a birthright of our species for millennia before the relatively recent mechanical and electrical ages.

The Perfect Response

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION IN A DISTRACTED AGE

Category Archives: Reviews

Sora Will be A Game Changer

Ambient Sound: the Presence We May Not Notice