The AI Film Soloist #03_25

The Brutalist AI controversy, angry artists, PikAdditions, and OmniHumans!

Rafa TV
February 13, 2025

Good Thursday, my fellow soloists!

Coolest AI video tool of the week

PikAdditions—No green screen required!

Pika's groundbreaking AI technology just revolutionized (again) video production by instantly transforming 2D images into seamlessly integrated 3D elements.

Whether you're working with objects or characters, the system can convert them into dynamic 3D assets that blend naturally into your footage.

Trying to recreate the results of these videos with conventional VFX tools would take anybody at least days of painstaking work. Now you can do it in minutes.

This dramatic reduction in production time and technical complexity will reshape the entire VFX industry, democratizing high-end visual effects for creators at all levels.

Crazy stuff, my friends.How Sora's Artist Program Is Redefining Filmmaking—and Disrupting an Industry

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My mini survAIval insight of the week:

The Brutalist AI controversy

The growing tension around AI use in filmmaking comes with a recent controversy surrounding Brady Corbet's film The Brutalist, with Adrien Brody as the main protagonist, where AI was used to refine certain Hungarian dialogues in the movie.

Despite the minimal AI usage and the actor's proven talent, the film is facing significant criticism, with some arguing that using AI in a film about artistic freedom is hypocritical.

This “AI art witch hunt,” as I call it in my video about this new hate episode against AI tool use in artistic endeavors, will only get more accentuated in the near future. In 2025, we are facing three big shifts in three areas that will contribute to increasing anxiety within the creative community:

The rapid advancement of AI video generation technology, particularly in areas like camera control and element manipulation, as we just saw with PikAdditions.
The recent US Copyright Office's report allows copyright for AI-assisted creations with significant human input. Check here for more information.
The emergence of AI agents will shake entire industries and surely change our relationship with any endeavor in our lives.

The key to thriving in the AI-film era is positioning yourself as a value-adding creator.

Keep working on finding what makes you valuable in your industry or profession and focus on how AI tools can enhance your talents instead of replacing them.

Image and video generation technologies weekly recap

AI Art Technology and Tools

‼️ MUST WATCH ‼️ ByteDance Reveals AI to create Avatars from Images.

Luma AI launched new image-to-video capabilities for its next-gen Ray2 model, showcasing impressive realism and natural motion.
ElevenLabs Studio’s long-form text-to-audio editor for creators and storytellers is now open to everyone.
ByteDance unveils Goku AI image and video creation that can generate realistic product videos without human actors
Topaz Labs Unveils Project Starlight, First AI Model for Video Restoration
Krea officially launched its previously teased chat tool in open beta, allowing users to generate and edit images via a natural language chat interface.

Market trends and Industry Impact

Hollywood writers say AI is ripping off their work. They want studios to sue
How Sora's Artist Program Is Redefining Filmmaking—and Disrupting an Industry
Christie's announces AI art auction, and not everyone is pleased

My Broader AI News pics so you’re in the loop

Tech Companies, Product Launches & Innovations, and LLM stuff

Gemini 2.0 was released to all users last week, available in Google's AI Studio and in the Gemini App.
Perplexity now offers file and image uploads for free users too (with a 1M token context window).
Andrej Karpathy drops 3+ Hour LLM comprehensive review (video)

I hope that these news, tools, and insights help you prepare for the future!

Have a really nice end of the week and weekend.

Stay kind.

Rafa Tirado