Video production is changing faster than it has in years.
A shot that once required a location, a crew, a camera package, a VFX artist, and several days of post-production can now begin with a sentence typed into a computer. Storyboards can appear in minutes. Backgrounds can change after the shoot. Voices can cross languages. Rough concepts can become moving images before the first production meeting has even happened.
As a filmmaker and founder of ARE FILM, I find that exciting.
I also think we are asking the wrong question when we ask whether AI will replace filmmakers.
The more interesting question is: what becomes valuable when making an image is no longer the difficult part?
My answer is storytelling, taste, trust, and the ability to understand why a human being should care.
THE CAMERA WAS NEVER THE STORY
Filmmaking has always changed with technology.
Cameras became smaller. Editing moved from physical film to software. Drones made shots accessible that once required helicopters. Virtual production changed what a location could be. None of those developments removed the need for filmmakers. They changed where filmmakers spent their time.
AI feels bigger because it does not only automate a technical process. It can participate in creative ones.
It can generate an image. Suggest an edit. Build a storyboard. Remove an object. Translate dialogue. Create variations. Extend a frame. Clean audio. Help organize footage.
And those capabilities are moving quickly.
Across the media industry, AI is increasingly being explored throughout the production pipeline, from ideation and storyboarding through post-production and localization.
That is useful.
But usefulness and storytelling are not the same thing.
FASTER DOES NOT MEAN BETTER
If everybody can create a beautiful image, a beautiful image becomes less remarkable.
That might be one of the biggest changes AI brings to our industry.
For years, part of the value of production came from access: access to cameras, specialists, locations, software, equipment, and the knowledge required to bring all of it together.
Those barriers are getting lower.
Generative AI can lower the cost and time required to create certain kinds of content. But as technically impressive content becomes easier to produce, differentiation becomes even more important.
I think that is good news for people who care about stories.
Because when execution becomes easier, the idea becomes harder to hide behind.
A perfectly generated commercial with nothing to say is still a commercial with nothing to say.
WHERE AI ACTUALLY HELPS US
At ARE FILM, I do not see AI as something we need to defend filmmaking from.
I see it as another part of the toolbox.
There are parts of production where technology can remove work that does not make the final story more human.
Early visual exploration can become faster. We can test directions before committing production resources. Treatments and storyboards can communicate an idea more clearly. Repetitive post-production tasks can become easier. Localization can make one production useful in more markets. Certain visual concepts that would previously have been outside a project’s budget can become possible.
Those are real advantages.
If AI saves us two hours doing something mechanical and gives us two more hours to think about the story, talk to the subject, refine the edit, or find a better idea, I am interested.
The goal should not be to remove humans from production.
The goal should be to remove friction from production.
SOME THINGS SHOULD STAY REAL
There is another side to this.
Sometimes the imperfection is the film.
The nervous pause before somebody answers an interview question. The weather changing halfway through a scene. The way somebody looks at another person when they have forgotten the camera is there. The unexpected thing that happens on location and becomes better than what was written in the treatment.
You cannot schedule those moments perfectly.
And I do not want to.
Documentary work especially depends on curiosity, trust, observation, and being present long enough for something real to happen.
A model can generate a face.
It cannot build a relationship with the person sitting across from the camera.
It can generate tears.
It does not know why somebody cried.
That difference matters.
THE VALUE OF TASTE
There is another skill I think becomes increasingly important: knowing when not to use the technology.
Just because we can generate something does not mean we should.
The future production company will need people who understand cameras, editing, design, sound, motion, and AI — but above all, people with taste.
People who can look at fifty possibilities and know which one belongs to the story.
People who can tell a client that the expensive idea is unnecessary.
Or that the AI-generated version feels wrong.
Or that the imperfect real shot has something the perfect synthetic one does not.
Creative direction is partly the ability to create options.
It is increasingly also the ability to reject them.
TRUST WILL BECOME PART OF PRODUCTION
AI also introduces questions that cannot be solved by better prompts.
Who owns an image? What was used to create it? Do we have permission to reproduce someone’s likeness or voice? When should an audience know that something is synthetic?
These are not theoretical questions anymore.
Rules around AI-generated material, copyright, likeness, and licensing are still developing internationally. Human creative authorship and control remain important considerations when AI tools are part of a production.
For production companies, that means AI literacy cannot only mean knowing which button creates the coolest image.
It also means understanding when a tool is appropriate, what rights are involved, and when transparency matters.
WHAT I WANT ARE FILM TO BECOME
I do not want ARE FILM to become an AI production company.
I also definitely do not want us to become a production company that ignores AI.
I want us to be a creative production company that uses whatever tools help us tell a stronger story.
Sometimes that will mean a full crew on location.
Sometimes it will mean a small camera setup and one honest conversation.
Sometimes motion design.
Sometimes an AI-assisted workflow.
And increasingly, it will probably mean combinations of all of them.
The technology underneath the work will keep changing.
The reason for making the work should not.
THE FUTURE IS NOT LESS HUMAN
AI will make more video possible.
Much more.
That also means audiences will have more video to ignore.
So I do not believe the winners of the next era will simply be the people who generate the most content or adopt every new tool first.
They will be the people who know what deserves to be made.
Who understand an audience.
Who recognize a real emotion when it appears.
Who know when technology makes an idea stronger and when it is only making it louder.
AI can help us imagine more.
It can help us move faster.
It can make previously impossible things possible.
But somebody still has to decide what matters.
That is the part of filmmaking I am most excited about.
— Andri Reiser, Founder, ARE FILM