Towards a Renewed Understanding of Screen and Audiovisual Education: A Mapping of the Relationship Between Ai and the Film Industry

Since its first breakthroughs with the software MASSIVE used in the 2000s in The Lord of the Rings trilogy to simulate crowd battles, the film industry has made great strides in applying AI throughout its production system. Scriptwriting, location scouting, set design, casting, visual effects, audience analysis, and box-office predictions, have all been affected on some scale. The introduction of AI does not simply question the role of humans in the filmmaking industry (the introduction of any new technology throughout history has raised such worries), but it sets new frontiers for creativity, and it challenges the ways we understand and teach about audiovisual media. Starting from a mapping of the ways in which the film industry has been incorporating AI in its production practices, this paper aims to reflect on how such technology is both changing our understanding of moving images and forcing us to rethink some of the theoretical approaches that have thus far guided screen and audiovisual education.