Fight Club filmmaker David Fincher is interested in how AI filmmaking advances, but isn’t concerned about technology replacing human directors.
Fincher has always embraced new filmmaking tools whether it was digital photography in Zodiac or de-aging in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. However, when it comes to the AI revolution that threatens to ruin Hollywood, he is only waiting and observing.
Fincher discussed the creative possibilities of AI in a new interview with British GQ, he said, “I think AI’s a really powerful tool. And for my money, I have not heard an AI Beatles song that compares to ‘Eleanor Rigby.’ So until somebody plays an AI song that knocks me out… maybe that’s just where we’re at now, and I may be eating my words in a year, but I think ultimately, the thing that we respond to in poetry, and writing, and songwriting, and photography, is the personal bent.”
“I have friends who are photographic geniuses playing with AI,” he said. “And you look at it, and it always looks like sort of a low-rent version of Roger Deakins. And I understand what AI is pulling from in order to make this.”
Fincher did not entirely dismiss the possibility of AI being utilized to create captivating art. However, the director currently believes that the most effective use of the technology is in projects that do not endeavor to conceal the artificial nature of the medium. He has also witnessed short films created by people who embrace the inherent inefficacy and artificial qualities of AI, resulting in short films that are genuinely emotionally resonant and intriguing, even though their AI origin is quite apparent.
He said, “Until the point of time that somebody shows me something that I go ‘Oh my god, that breaks my heart,’ and then they say, ‘Oh, well, as it turns out, this was somebody talking into a microphone, and this is the film that came out,’ I’m not that worried about it.”
