Our meeting on Thursday 7 March was a ‘scary’ eyeopener into the impact on the film industry of artificial intelligence, plus a timely informative practical lesson in scripting writing for screen plays.
We had 19 people in attendance – 16 members and three visitors. We were pleased to welcome Eric a graphic artist/cyberpunk enthusiast who is keen to turn his stories into films; Michael a retired Anglican priest, pilot of motorised parachutes, hovercraft and drones who uses all of these vehicles for his filming adventures, and Herman a video maker from way back who is also an awesome sculptor in wood and stone. Each of our guests could be the subject of really interesting personal documentaries and we hope to see you back at the club very soon.
The evening started with an update from David on developments out of the Eleven Tomorrows project including his participation along with Jonathon, Michael Major and Maddie in a podcast, and a request for a one-page article on the project.
David introduced a YouTube video on Siora, Artificial Intelligence presented by Andrei Jikh with the message “It will change the global economy forever”. But not just the global economy, he says it has the potential to have a dramatic impact on film making, effectively making creatives such as writers, camera operators, editors etc redundant. In David’s words “it’s scary”. The video stimulated considerable discussion on where AI is heading, its impact and how it can be used and abused. On a positive note, Neal gave a personal experience where he successfully used AI to create the image and voice of an actor who was suddenly unable to complete a film he was making. Murray strongly cautioned that AI had serious implications for security especially the increased risk of criminals using it as yet another tool to scam innocent victims.
After that session, a strong cup of tea and biscuits was certainly a welcome break.
Following the break, Peter introduced a discussion on script writing for screen plays and challenged members to identify why script writing was so important to the process. Members identified it was the foundation for the story, provided synopsis, dialogue, action, acts, facts, feeling, emotions and settings. Peter suggested a good script also identified location, time of day/night and mood. He then provided members with a scenario for a film called ‘Coming Out”… a 25 year old woman attempting to tell her widowed father that she is gay, little does she know the news that her father will share. Members divided into five groups to write the start of the script for the screen play using all the elements of script writing including scene setting, directions and dialogue. The results were diverse, interesting and entertaining as well as enlightening.
The next meeting is on Thursday 21 March - Glenn will present another “film bite” which are proving to be both entertaining and informative. The main feature will be the UGG competition “slow motion or timelapse/hyper lapse, Maximum two minutes, plus film reviews.
N.B. A reminder that the $2 attendance fee applies to EVERYONE attending our club meetings… members, guests and visitors. This is not a BMM levy but goes direct to Indooroopilly Activities Hub towards the cost of the use of the premises and consumables (electricity, supper etc).
