goodbye, film industry? 👋

A little over a month ago, OpenAI released Sora to the public.

The model can generate realistic video clips based on only a text prompt. Some were so realistic that I couldn’t distinguish a Sora video from something that was shot with a real-life camera. The tool allowed me to create hyperrealistic 1080p, 20 second clips with only a short text prompt. Text-to-video had become a reality.

I texted my roommates with an example of one of them catching a touchdown in a crowded stadium, and the caption “goodbye, film industry 👋” One of my roommates is a CS major and film minor. To my surprise, he responded quite apprehensively.

As someone who appreciates film and makes an effort to watch movies regularly, I felt excited by Sora.

I went on to talk about how the film industry is one of notorious barrier to entry. I imagine there are many great screenwriters with many great scripts who were lost to the winds of time simply because they were not fortunate enough to get their idea in front of the right person. I mourn the great art that was never made because of someone’s bad luck.

When I typed “goodbye, film industry 👋,” I wasn’t saying “goodbye filmmakers.” I saw Sora as an alternative to the industry——one where it wouldn’t matter who’s kid you were or who you knew, and it certainly didn’t matter how much money your film would make. The film industry is a machine that turns scripts and talent into profit. Sometimes it inadvertently creates art as a byproduct. What if there was an another way?

My roommate seemed to feel personally attacked.

Our conversation quickly escalated to an argument. My roommate said AI was antithetical to the very idea of making a film. He cited examples of filmmakers using innovative methods to pioneer iconic styles and craft clever practical effects. He believed that using AI to make a film would make the filmmaking process too easy, sapping out any ounce of humanity.

He wasn’t wrong. It was one of those times when you assume you’re arguing about incompatible viewpoints, but you get so lost in your own argument that you stop listening——and fail to realize your perspectives aren’t mutually exclusive.

Some of my favorite movies were their director’s first: Bottle Rocket, Reservoir Dogs, 12 Angry Men, Pi, Eraserhead. All were notoriously low-budget, and all were genre-defining and iconic. For me, a large part of the charm of these directorial debuts is their scrappiness. AI wouldn’t have necessarily made these movies better.

But, it would have made them. Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs script changed hands 3 times before it serendipitously fell in the lap of actor Harvey Keitel, who secured funding and talent for the project. A simple twist of fate would have ended Tarantino’s career before it even began. With a hyperrealistic video generation model, he could’ve turned the idea into something tangible——something he could show people, with or without the help of an angel investor.

Film just doesn’t need to be an industry in the same way it used to be.

The way I see it, Sora——and AI in general——should be viewed as a tool that expands what’s possible in art. In 1962, Andy Warhol made waves with Campbell's Soup Cans. Infamously “painted” using a silk screen (a tool made for commercial mass production), it was contradictory to what art had previously been. As such, his studio was dubbed “The Factory.”

Warhol put a few tools together and made something he envisioned. Anyone could have done it, but no one else did. If we consider pieces like this to be art, then is art the process, or the idea?

For most of my life, I thought it was the former. Now I’m leaning towards the latter. If you lacked the skill to paint, but carried within you the vision of a masterpiece, would you not still be an artist if, with a snap of your fingers, you could bring that vision to life?

Part of me cherishes the scrappy, hands-on struggle that shapes so many incredible films. But another part believes that democratizing creation can only enrich the world of art, allowing brilliance to emerge from corners that Hollywood might never bother exploring. Maybe what truly matters is not how art comes into being, but whether it sparks something genuine in those who experience it.

And with tools like Sora, that spark could come from anywhere.