AI’s promise to indie filmmakers: Faster, cheaper, lonelier
Courtesy of TechCrunch: Still image from indie filmmaker Brad Tangonan's short film "Murmuray."
By Rebecca Bellan
AI expands access to filmmaking for resource-constrained creators. But as efficiency becomes the industry’s north star, creativity risks being overwhelmed by a deluge of low-effort, AI-generated content.
A Filipino man walks through the backyard of his childhood home in rural Hawai’i, his footsteps swooshing through the grass. Birds chirp, contributing to the tropical din, as he approaches a shrine at the base of a starfruit tree. He bends to inspect a framed black-and-white photograph of a woman, her hair in a 1950s side part.
Suddenly, a gust of wind shakes the tree’s branches, knocking over the contents of the shrine. The man steps back, trips on a root, and hits his head. When he awakens, he’s in a dark, misty forest, a woman wearing a clay mask standing over him, brandishing a sword.
“Who are you who dares to sleep under the sacred tree?” she asks in Ilocano, a Philippine language widely spoken in Hawaii’s Filipino community, while holding the sword at his throat. He replies that he’s lost and turns to flee. She chases, alternating between running and floating through the air. He falls again. She advances, sword held high. He throws a rock at her, shattering the clay mask and revealing half her face.
