Generic AI will anger many Indian leaders. This week we're talking about it anyway.
The focus is a curious shelter, a global AI filmmaking education hub that is tied to all major AI software creators, paid for training studio film teams, and with students in over 150 countries. It is also a test case of how to cover a subject that moves very quickly and is causing such strong emotions, and skipping it is not an option.
I first met CEO Calebward, who was curiosity uge, in March 2024, in Nuart's lobby on Santa Monica Boulevard, when most people considered AI a baby buzzword. The theater was packed into the premiere of “Our T2 Remake,” a crowdsourced satire of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” and was sewn together from dozens of AI-generated scenes.
Our headline led in the news: this was not a good movie. I also wrote that the event had energy to remind me of Sundance in 1995. The readers were not satisfied. The response on Instagram was enormous, immediate and furious. (My favorites: “narcwire” and “fuck this shit off the cliff”)
My opinion on “Our T2 Remake” has not changed, but it is clear that to evaluate it only in artistic merit, it is like dismissing Lumière Brothers' 1896 “The Arrival of Trains at La Ciotat Station” as boring.
Dave Clark, one of the “T2” filmmakers, is the co-founder and chief creative officer of the Generative AI Studio Promise, supported by Andrew Chen, a partner at Peter Chernin's The North Road Company and Andreessen Horowitz. And the promised curiosity shelter that was acquired about a year after its screening represents a community of over 50,000 AI filmmakers.
Ward launched a curious shelter in May 2023 while riding the viral waves of VFX School Rebelway's marketing head and his AI Wes Anderson Sprofof's “The Galactic Menagerie.” Two months later, he was all in a strange shelter. The first course saw nearly 500 students in 18 hours, and had to sell very quickly and suspend registration.
“AI filmmaking was a very new concept at the time, and was very, very experimental,” he said. “I was caught off guard at first, but I really felt that this would be the future of filmmaking. We started doing everything from meetups to competitions right away.”
Today, Ward said Curious Revuge educates over 10,000 students from 172 countries. YouTube tutorial content offers over 5 million views per year. The school holds meetups from around the world. The one-month course costs $749. Bundles will receive discounts. And like any other company facing great AI, it's lean. Between full-time and freelance, Curious Refuge has 14 staff.
Ward wanted to talk to me on Zoom along with his spokesperson to dispel the idea that AI film education is a threat. When we met at Nuart, he said being online helps students protect their anonymity. Today he avoids making that claim.
“I was probably hesitating two years ago, but I felt the technology was very confused,” he said. “Now I think a lot of tools are easy to use, so I just want to appeal to a larger group of work professionals.”
perhaps. There is also a complete omnipresent. He hosts a weekly web show specializing in reviewing the latest generation AI tools. The latest episode featured eight episodes. “It's weird that you can even have a weekly web show. [to] Talk about new tools from the past seven days,” he said.
So, where does this leave us? As the name suggests, we are indiewire, part of which is the future of filmmaking. We have a century of evidence to prove that no one needs AI to make a film. Filmmakers I know are much more given to coming up with the way they produced and watched their films. But it is a height of delusion to believe that a 20th century version of making movies and television remains preserved in Amber.
I think “T2” was a stunt that I would never try again. Not only has the points been created (and continues to take place) at Runway's annual AI festival that will come to IMAX near you, but also the wrong message will be provided in the case of Ward. In our conversation, he relied on the idea that AI is not intended as an all-or-nothing concept.
“I really feel that these tools give artists as much empowering as they want to empower them through them,” he said. “If it's just helping you create storyboards in those early days to inform your physical production, that means creating an entire AI film that would otherwise not exist. It's great. The artists are in control.
For now, filmmaking AI remains a test of Rorschach. Some people are watching the tools, some are watching the threat, and there are many distractions from the already cruel work of making a film. Curious lub-rich shelters bet that more filmmakers will see it as a valuable skill to have, even if they don't intend to make “AI films.”
What's certain is that technology is not gone and debate will not go away. The Lumière Brothers train was drawn into the station. Whether you choose to ride or not is up to you.
Then again, I asked Julian Sol Jordan, a 24-year-old filmmaker I profiled last week about how he had adopted AI. verdict? “I still think it's gross.”
✉✉️ Do you have an idea, compliment or complaint?
dana@indiewire.com; (323) 435-7690.
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