(Yichai) July 19 — Chinese short video platform Douyin and Kuaishou Technology recently released mini-dramas created with the help of artificial intelligence technology.
Douyin and Bona Film Group premiered “Sanzhingdui: Future Apocalypse” at the Sanxingdui Cultural Heritage Exhibition held at the Beijing Grand Canal Museum on July 10. The mini-drama is made up of 13 episodes, each lasting three to four minutes.
AI is evolving quickly, a manager at Dreamina, an AI production platform under Douyin, told Yicai, adding that AI-generated content will become more mature and stable in the future.
According to the manager, in producing “Sanzhi: Future Apocalypse,” Dreamina improved its AI technology by enhancing video generation capabilities, adding horizontal and vertical lens movement, and supporting control of the direction and amplitude of lens movement.
Although AI will have a major impact on the entertainment industry's operations, cost structure and production cycles, the technology is not yet mature as it still requires human workers, sources told Yicai.
On July 13, Kuaishou released “The Mirror of the Mountains and Seas: Journey of the Waves,” a five-episode mini-drama adapted by AI from the Chinese mythological text “Shan Hai Jing.” Since its release, the series has already garnered nearly 7.5 million views.
At the 2024 World Artificial Intelligence Conference earlier this month, Kuaishou unveiled a comprehensive matrix of AI models, including image generation model Kolors and video generation model Kling.
According to director Chen Kun, the production team for “The Mirror of the Mountains and Seas” signed a contract with Kuaishou and began production in the first half of this year, adding that the production cost of the mini-drama was less than a quarter of that of the traditional production process.
Chen pointed out that AI technology has not done everything, and mini-dramas still need human writers for scriptwriting and post-production editing. AI can greatly improve the efficiency of specific areas such as filming, costumes, makeup, props design, lighting, and stage design.
Chen explained that “The Mirror of the Mountains and Seas” used text-to-image and image-to-video conversion technology, rather than text-to-video conversion. Film and drama production requires consistent characters, scenes and style, but current text-to-video conversion technology cannot guarantee this, Chen pointed out.
Chen believes that AI-produced movies and dramas are not much better than traditional ones in terms of visual effects. He hopes that AI-native technology development can achieve highly controllable and precise production effects, but it will take time.
Editor: Futura Costaglione
