AI Can Assist Not Replace Existing Methods, Say Filmmakers On Kling Panel

Three international filmmakers – working in the U.S., China and South Korea – discussed how AI filmmaking can complement rather than replace existing production techniques on a Cannes Marche panel hosted by AI video generation platform Kling AI. 

All three filmmakers are currently working on projects that involve Kling AI tools. Wonder Project co-founder Jon Erwin has already had House Of David streaming on Prime Video and recently dropped the first episode of three-parter The Old Stories: Moses, starring Ben Kingsley, on the platform.

Chinese animation director Wei Li, who has conventional credits including Annecy title Jiang Ziya: Legend Of Deification (2021), is currently working on AI-driven feature Born Of The Tides, while Korea’s Eekjun Yang, co-founder of Mateo AI Studio, is producing AI sci-fi action feature Raphael, set for theatrical release in Korea later this year. 

In a week in which panel after panel at the Cannes Marche attempted to assuage industry fears about the impact of AI technology, Erwin may have offered some relief in describing the methods used by his production outfit Wonder Project, which combines AI video generation with existing technologies such as performance capture, virtual production and VFX. 

Expressing his frustration at previous projects being turned down by studios due to constraints of time and budget, Erwin said The Old Stories: Moses became possible when a short window opened in Kingsley’s schedule at the beginning of the year: “I had the idea in January, wrote it in February, Amazon greenlit it and we filmed in March, and the first episode just came out in the U.S.. So the velocity of this production is as important as the savings in cost.” 

Wei described how Born Of The Tides is also incorporating AI tools into conventional filmmaking methods, in this case in animation: “It’s not just an AI-created film; it’s not following the AI workflow only, we’re still using some traditional animation creation. But in using AI, we’ve shortened the production schedule to two thirds of the time, and similarly with the budget.”

Yang is leaning even more heavily on AI in the making of Raphael, saying a big chunk of the budget was spent on monthly subscriptions to around a dozen Kling AI tools. He also said the project wouldn’t have happened without AI. “If we’d filmed in real life, it would have required 150-300 people and a budget of up to $2M. But we had a team of just seven and much lower cost.” 

The feature-length film, about an android who escapes and embarks on a spiritual journey, is produced by Mateo AI Studio and MBC C&I AI Content Lab, owned by Korean broadcaster MBC. A Korean theatrical release is being lined up for later this year.

Later in the panel, Erwin explained that Moses was mostly shot on a VP stage and that Kingsley enjoyed the experience because it was more realistic than shooting against a green screen. The production used AI to create digital assets that could be output in a matter of hours rather than weeks: “We can generate new worlds on the same day as shooting and that enables the actors to step into a very real space. We were doing one scene with an ocean, and he joked that he thought he was going to get his feet wet even though it’s not real.”

Erwin also encouraged existing film technicians to learn how to use the new tools, saying that the technology will develop faster if the platforms receive feedback from users, and that the best AI artists are existing department heads – editors, cinematographers, production designers and costume designers – who have been retrained. 

“Ideally, I want to work with the crew members I’ve worked with for a very long time,” said Erwin. “But I want to work in this kind of real-time way, so all these phases of filmmaking that are bifurcated from each other – development, principal photography, editorial, post-production, visual effects – are no longer very far apart. You can create a scenario where they’re all happening on the same day.”

Speaking of challenges, the filmmakers agreed that scenes that are difficult to create in live action, such as battles, are much easier when using AI, but that the opposite is also true – AI can still be a work-in-progress when it comes to close-up emotional scenes. 

Yang said: “In the making of Raphael, one of the easiest things to create was the large-scale warfare military scenes, while one of the most difficult scenes was the intimate interaction of two characters. With emotional expression, it’s very important to ensure there’s good connection between the scenes. However, the AI production outputs would only be able to create around 15-second maximum length, so to connect the footages naturally and create and maintain that emotional connection was very difficult.”

Owned by Chinese tech giant Kuaishou, Kling AI operates a text-to-video image generation platform, which recently launched a version supporting native 4K video output. Launched in June 2024, and since upgraded more than 30 times, the platform has been used by around 60 million creators across 224 countries and regions.

Erwin’s Wonder Project has a multi-year relationship with Amazon MGM Studios and operates a subscription service on Prime Video, where it stream its originals. Wonder Project also recently teamed with AI startup Luma to launch a new company Innovative Dreams. 

In addition to Jiang Ziya, Wei’s credits include Big Fish & Begonia and Edge Of Time, a Golden Goblet nominee. Before working on Raphael, Yang produced AI shorts Mateo and Witness, which won Grand Prizes at KAIFF and BIAIF in 2024.