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🎬 The Film Industry’s Smartest (and Strangest) New Intern: AI

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Hey readers,

Let me pull back the curtain for a second.

You know that fresh-out-of-film-school intern in the writers' room? The one who never sleeps, has watched every movie ever made, and somehow knows how every single story ends before it starts?

Well, meet the industry’s weirdest and most powerful new addition: AI.

Except this intern doesn’t make coffee. It rewrites scenes. It analyses plot arcs. It even suggests dialogue.

And the thing most people don’t realise is that this isn’t coming — it’s already happening.

Let’s dig into what this actually looks like from inside the industry.

🧠 How exactly is AI "learning" film?

Imagine feeding thousands of screenplays into a machine.

Every Quentin Tarantino monologue. Every Marvel set piece. Every awkward rom-com meet-cute. And the machine doesn’t just memorise it, it learns patterns.

AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini have been trained on massive screenplay datasets.

They’ve studied genre structures, emotional pacing, character archetypes, and even the vibes (yes, “vibe” is starting to get quantifiable).

And it’s not just text.

Tools like Runway or Pika now let you generate shots from simple prompts.

Think: “dark alley, neon lights, character smoking with regret” and boom, your visual mood board is done. This isn’t a pitch deck anymore. It’s halfway to post-production.

📚 Real-world example: The Last Screenwriter

There’s this 2024 Swiss film called 'The Last Screenwriter'.

It’s not just a story about AI — it was written by AI.

The team fed ChatGPT prompts, scenes, character bios, and let it build the screenplay. They edited for pacing and clarity, sure, but most of the raw material came from a machine.

Now, is it perfect cinema? Nah. But it proves a point: AI doesn’t need to know what makes a good story — it just needs to mimic what’s worked before.

And that’s often all a studio wants.

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🎞️ Behind the scenes: where AI is really being used

Most of the industry isn’t talking about it publicly, but here’s what’s actually happening inside content studios and production houses:

AI script coverage: Execs are using tools to break down incoming screenplays and analyse market fit — faster and more objectively than human readers. Storyboarding: Directors use AI to auto-generate visual frames based on scene descriptions, saving weeks in pre-production. Localisation: Streaming platforms use AI to tweak dialogue or visual jokes to suit different regions, not just subtitle translation, but culturally adaptive edits. Character breakdowns: Tools like Filmustage (https://filmustage.com) help with script breakdowns — scenes, locations, props, dialogue — in minutes.

None of this is hypothetical. It's live.

And if you’ve ever wondered how your favorite Netflix thriller suddenly dropped in your feed with uncanny timing, you can bet AI helped get it there.

🌍 Not just a Hollywood story

This isn’t just happening in L.A.

I recently spoke with an indie director in Mumbai who used ChatGPT to workshop character arcs for a Kannada-language film.

Not to write the dialogue, but to simulate how different characters would react in morally messy situations.

For a writer working solo without a traditional writers' room, that’s a game-changer.

There’s also a growing wave in Europe and Latin America where filmmakers are using AI tools to storyboard, block scenes, and even generate music scores without needing huge budgets.

This is where it gets interesting: AI isn’t just making big studios more efficient.

It’s making the entire idea of filmmaking more accessible and a bit more unpredictable.

😬 But it’s not all smooth sailing

Now for the part nobody wants to talk about: the fear.

Writers' rooms are tense.

Creatives are (rightfully) nervous.

During the WGA strike, one of the core demands was restricting how studios can use AI.

People aren’t just afraid of being replaced - they’re afraid of the flattening of creative voice.

There’s a real difference between learning from stories... and reducing storytelling to a formula. And as much as AI loves a clean arc, not every good film fits the beat sheet.

The vibe in the industry right now? A mix of excitement and existential dread.

🤖 So what’s next?

Here’s what I think:

AI is going to become your co-writer, your co-director, your co-producer.

It’s going to handle the grunt work — breaking down scenes, generating pitch decks, organising shot lists — and some studios will ask it to write entire scripts.

But the best creators? They’ll use AI to expand their vision, not shrink it.

We’re already seeing creators who prompt AI with absurd setups, then riff off the responses. The best filmmakers will treat AI not like a threat, but like a tool to play with.

In closing...

If you work in media, storytelling, or film, don’t ignore this shift. Don’t fear it either.

Get curious. Start prompting. Play around.

Because love it or hate it, that intern is already in the room. And they’re very good at taking notes.

See you in the credits.

Until next time,

Vipul Agrawal.

Leeds1888

P.S. Want me to break down how specific studios or indie filmmakers are using AI tools next? Hit reply and let me know. I’ve got stories.

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