Neill Blomkamp irks fans with his new AI-short film
Filmmaker Neill Blomkamp is facing significant backlash for his new 13-minute short film 'Nightborne,' which was created almost entirely using generative AI. Fans and critics have labeled the work 'soulless' and expressed disappointment in the director's shift toward AI-assisted production.
Why it matters
The negative reception highlights the growing tension between traditional creative industries and the adoption of generative AI in professional filmmaking.
Filmmaker Neill Blomkamp built his reputation on sci-fi films like the critically heralded District 9, and the divisive Chappie and Elysium. His latest, "Nightborne," a 13-minute short film generated almost entirely by artificial intelligence, is getting a largely negative reception.Loosely adapted from the 2006 hard sci-fi novel Echopraxia, "Nightborne" was built using ByteDance's Seed 2.0 video model, which animated the faces and voices of 32 real people who signed likeness agreements. Per the video's own description, human artists produced the concept art, presumably so it could then be fed into the machine.
YouTube reveals which AI slop videos can't make money
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in