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Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese is joining the ranks of entertainment industry power players embracing generative AI.<\/p>\n
Black Forest Labs, the German AI startup behind the text-to-image model Flux, announced Tuesday that Scorsese is joining the company as an advisor. <\/p>\n
The company unveiled the collaboration on its website <\/u><\/a> with a video of the auteur using Flux to storyboard scenes, which involves mocking up shots before filming.<\/p>\n \u201cThis conveys a cinematic intelligence,\u201d he said in the video, discussing the program\u2019s uses with Black Forest Labs co-founder and Chief Executive Robin Rombach and Creative Artists Agency co-founder Michael Ovitz. According to the New York Times<\/u><\/a>, Ovitz, an investor in Black Forest Labs, helped bring Scorsese aboard, along with Rick Yorn, Scorsese\u2019s talent manager, whose investment firm BroadLight Capital is also an investor.<\/p>\n In a statement, Scorsese emphasized the potential for AI to transform the storyboarding process.<\/p>\n \u201cFor 70 years, I\u2019ve been creating my own storyboards. There\u2019s always been this problem of how do you communicate what you see in your head to your cast and crew. There are some things you have to see and feel,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m interested in the intersection of technology and storytelling, and seeing how that can push the bounds of creativity to create deeper and richer experiences for audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n Traditionally, storyboarding is done by hand or digital illustration through a collaboration between directors and storyboard artists. <\/p>\n Scorsese\u2019s public espousal of this technology marks the latest shift in attitude about AI from powerful Hollywood creatives. Since generative AI became widely accessible in 2022, Hollywood has struggled to navigate its power to rapidly upend industry norms.<\/p>\n Scorsese is not the first decorated filmmaker to embrace AI. James Cameron, the Oscar-winning \u201cAvatar\u201d director, is on the board of directors for Stability AI, where Rombach worked before launching Black Forest Labs. In his keynote address at the AI on the Lot conference last week, director and screenwriter Paul S<\/u>c<\/u>hrader<\/u><\/a> expressed a mixture of admiration and caution toward the technology.<\/p>\n \u201cAI does not create \u2014 it combines,\u201d Shrader said. \u201cIf AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that\u2019s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that\u2019s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.\u201d<\/p>\n Not everybody is on board with generative AI\u2019s potential transformations. Guillermo del Toro and Seth Rogen spoke out against the technology at Cannes last month, and below-the-line <\/u>wokers<\/u><\/a>, screenwriters<\/u><\/a> and actors<\/u><\/a> have continued to express apprehension and even horror at the prospect of being replaced by generative AI.<\/p>\n Scorsese\u2019s entry into the AI field might especially shock fans given his traditionalist approach to filmmaking. In 2019, he famously criticized Marvel movies, calling them \u201ctheme parks\u201d and \u201cnot cinema.\u201d<\/p>\n