Generative AI Make many IndieWire readers crazy. This week we still talk about it.
Focus is Curious Refuge, a Global AI Filmmaking Education Hub that has ties to all major AI software creators, is paid for training studio film Team and have students in more than 150 countries. It is also a test case in how to cover a topic that moves so quickly and provokes such strong emotions, to skip it is not an option.
I first met curious refuge Caleb Ward in the lobby Nuart at Santa Monica Boulevard in March 2024, back when most saw AI as a Baby -Buzzword. The theater was packed for the premiere of “Our T2 -Ermake,” A crowdsourced satire of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” was sewn together from dozens of aI-generated scenes.
Our heading led with the news: This was not a good movie. I also wrote that the event had an energy that recalled Sundance in 1995, which it did. The readers were not satisfied; The instagram response was extensive, immediately and blowing. (My favorites: “Narcwire” and “Fuck This Shit Off A Cliff.”)
My opinion about “Our T2 -Ermake” remains unchanged, but it is clear that it is only to judge it on artistic merits Lumière Brothers 1896 “The arrival of a train at La Ciotat Station” Like boring.
One of the “T2” movie creators, Dave Clark, is now co -founder and Chief Creative Officer at General AI Studio Promise, with support from Peter Chernins North Road Company and Andreessen Horowitz partner Andrew Chen. And curious refuge, which promises acquired about a year after that show, represents a society of more than 50,000 AI film creators.
Ward launched Curious Refuge in May 2023 while he is still head of marketing at VFX School Rebelway and went on the viral wave of his AI Wes Anderson falsifies “The Galactic Menagerie.” Two months later, he was completely curious. The first course saw almost 500 students in 18 hours and sold so quickly that he had to turn off the registration.
“AI movie creation was a very new concept at that time, and it was very, very experimental,” he said. “It caught us in the beginning, but we really felt that this was going to be the future of filmmaking. We started doing everything from meetings to competitions quickly.”
Today, Ward said, Curious Refuge has trained over 10,000 students from 172 countries. Its tutorial content on Youtube looks up to 5 million views per year. The school hosts meetings around the world. A month -long course is $ 749; bundles get discounts. And, like all good AI face companies, it’s lean. Between full -time and freelance, curious refuge has a staff of 14.
Ward, who spoke to me over Zoom with his publicist, was anxious to pass the idea that AI film education is a threat. When we met at Nuart, he said to be online helped students protect their anonymity. Today he avoids making this statement.
“I would say that while it was doubt two years ago, technology felt very confusing,” he said. “Now I think many of the tools are easier to use, and so it only appeals to a larger group of working professionals.”
Perhaps. There is also the full omnipherality. He hosts a weekly web show devoted to reviewing the latest generative AI tools; The last episode contained eight. “It’s crazy that you can even have a weekly web show (to) talk about the new tools from the last seven days,” he said. (Current favorite: He ranks the just launched seed over Google’s VEO 3.)
So where does this leave us? As the name says we are indieview, but part of it is Film Framtime. We have a century of evidence that proves that no one needs AI to make a movie; The filmmakers that I know are much more occurred in finding out how to have their films produced and seen. It would, however, be the height of the illusion to believe that the 20th century version of Making Movies and TV will remain preserved in Amber.
I can imagine that “T2” was a stunt that will not be attempted again. The score has not only been made (and continues to be made, with Runway’s annual AI festival that comes to an IMAX near you), but for Ward it also delivers the wrong message. In our conversation, he leaned to the idea that AI is not intended as an all-or-nothing concept.
“These tools, we really know Empower artists as much as they want to be substantiated through them,” he said. “If it is just to help you create storyboards during the first few days to inform your physical production, good. If it means creating an entire AI movie that would not have existed otherwise, good. The artist is in control, and we ultimately want to support the artist in which creative journey they want to go down.”
At the moment, AI in filmmaking remains a rorschach test: some see a tool, others a threat and many a distraction from the already brutal work on getting films done. Curious refuge is investing that more filmmakers will see it as a skill that is worthy of, even if they never intend to make an “AI movie.”
What is certain is that the technology does not disappear and is not the arguments. Lumière -Brothers Train has entered the station; Whether you choose to board is up to you.
Again I asked Julian Sol Jordan, The 24-year-old filmmaker I profiled last weekFor his hold of AI. Judgment? “I still think it’s rough.”
✉ Do you have an idea, compliment or complaint?
dana@indiewire.com; (323) 435-7690.
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