“Cinema is the most technological of the arts, so much so that its history is closely linked to the development of the film industry. And more or less every 10 years technological innovations and big changes arrive – he explained Domenico De Gaetano, director of the National Museum of Cinema in Turin – In the face of these transformations, which also bring challenges to face, the museum can put problems and innovations into a museum, to try to give them a context and ask the right questions”.
This is the reasoning behind the show The future of cinema, the cinema of the futureinstallation on the spiral ramp of the Mole Antonelliana in Turin, which can be visited and interacted with until 7 September.
In the age of ChatGPT, the fulcrum of reflection is artificial intelligence and its possible applications in the world of cinema. Many are already realities, from the production stage to distribution, to the so-called face deaging (which is explained here)as demonstrated by the protests in Hollywood, where screenwriters are on a war footing, demanding guarantees against the possibility that new technologies will replace them.
At the top of the ramp going up along the walls of the Temple Hall you will have the possibility to co-write a script using GPT-4 (the technology behind ChatGPT).
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The AI as co-writer
On a large touch screen on the wall, the visitor can set a number of parameters, which the generative AI will use to write a text of about 3,000 characters, halfway between a screenplay and a generic script. The place of action is by default the Mole Antonelliana, which houses the museum. However, you can choose the genre, the decade in which the action takes place, the director to whom to entrust the making of the film and the 3 main characters. In a few moments, the AI returns the text and a poster, complete with the title of the work. At the end of the experience, edited by Synestesia, the visitor will be guided, by answering 3 questions, to a reflection on the authorship of the content produced. In particular, he is asked to reveal whether or not he feels he is the author of the text and whether the result reflects his expectations.
What could be a further step in the project? “We are examining some hypotheses – De Gaetano replied – We could make one publication with the 10 best texts or select one to make it into a short film”. Further steps, in this case from the point of view of artificial intelligence development, would also be willingly taken by Synestesia: “For this experimentation we limited ourselves to building two prompts, the first with OpenAI to explain to the AI that it should have written a screenplay and the second with Stable Diffusion (things?) to have him create the poster – said the president and founder, Francesco Ronchi – It would be nice to move on to the fine-tuning phase, that additional and targeted training to obtain a more professional result. Many scripts should be fed to the artificial intelligence, explaining them the differences by genre and author. The more numerous and structured the data available, the more appreciable the final result becomes”.
120 years of innovation
In addition to direct experience, the visitor can also appreciate 3 cases of short films made using new generative artificial intelligence software. In the room dedicated to the Post Cinema, 3 works selected by Simone Arcagni are screened: Zone Out, Another Life e The Mass.
Somehow, the post cinema represents the arrival point of a long journey of innovation, which has marked the history of cinema since its birth. Some of the main milestones were the transition to sound, the advent of color, the role of television and home video, then digital and streaming. Each change represented a moment of rupture, with those for and against the novelties. To retrace these stages, the museum has chosen 24 sentences from as many directors who photographed those moments. Sometimes with unexpected visionary ability, others undergoing resounding denials. It goes like this from famous “Cinema is an invention without a future” by the Lumière brothers to a prophetic David Wark Griffith, who in 1915 foresaw a little in advance that “there will come a day, in less than 10 years, when children in school will learn practically everything thanks to the movies”.
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The script with GPT-4
Once the writing work is finished, the text and the poster come sent via email to the visitor and co-author. In our collaboration with GPT-4 we have chosen as a genre a thriller set in the future and directed by Orson Welles, with somewhat particular characters: Tom, the mysterious and ridiculous hero; Lea, the athletic and comedic co-star, and the supporting actor Pino, silly and goliardic.
It was born Molone. The poster is quite impactful, even if it can be perfected, the text needs some revision. One of the highlights goes like this: “Tom and Lea approach the entrance guarded by the grumpy Pino. Tom and Lea make a deep bow and present a parchment to Pino, who checks their documents and then leads them into a cavernous gallery inside the Mole”. Also on the dialogues, it can be improved. At one point, Tom exclaims, “Research aside, I would like to learn the art of being a hero”.
“When creativity is needed, at the moment generative AI cannot replace human beings. It is an excellent tool for developing existing ideas, not for producing new ideas – underlined Francesco Ronchi of Synestesia – They can work as a support tool, alongside the screenwriter”.
To complete the digital experience, there are large screens under the Aula del Tempio 3 monitor interactive, where you can answer a survey on the preferences of the public, created by Robin Studio, with the aim of intercepting trends, tastes and expectations of new visitors. And if you were wondering, yes: the movie Molone it has a happy ending. Which is this: Tom takes a piece of paper from the box that reveals the truth, upsetting Lea, Pino (silly and goliardic) asks “What did you find?” And Tom replies, determined. “We found a way to save the city”.