The Tribeca Film Festival is back this year with a whole new edition that promises to be a game-changer for technology and AI enthusiasts. Dedicating an entire section to films created by OpenAI’s Sora, the film festival will feature 5 short films made with AI.
What Is Sora?
OpenAI certainly introduced the majority of the world to Artificial Intelligence (AI) through its ChatGPT models. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. The tech company has only been scaling its AI operations ever since including the invention of Sora: a text-to-video tool.
Sora is a new AI tool that can create realistic 60-second videos on the basis of text prompts. Translating to ‘sky‘ in Japanese, Sora can produce realistic videos after taking instructions from a user on the style and subject of the clip. The videos contain a watermark which shows that the clip is made by AI.
Additionally, videos generated by Sora can contain multiple shots, however, they don’t include audio of any kind, including dialogue. Sora reportedly has controls in place so that it cannot depict any act of sex or violence.
Sora Shorts
Last Friday, the Tribeca Film Festival announced that it would play host to Sora Shorts, a series of films created by the AI text-to-video-model. For this project, the festival tapped five filmmakers to make original films with the AI-based application that was announced in February. It has not been released yet. So far, only a handful of red teamers and visual artists have been given access, so this group of filmmakers joins a small group of insiders.
This latest cohort of filmmakers for the Tribeca Film Festival 2024 includes Nanny director Nikyatu Jusu and actress Bonnie Discepolo (of the Fire Country, Shazam! Fury of the Gods fame). Other filmmakers featured on the list are Ellie Foumbi (Our Father, the Devil), Reza Sixo Safai (The Mario Valdez Story), and Michaela Ternasky-Holland.
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Tribeca x Sora
On May 31, 2024, the Tribeca Film Festival and OpenAI announced a new addition to this year’s lineup: short films created using artificial intelligence. This ground-breaking collaboration aims to show the potential of Generative AI in filmmaking. The festival will feature text-to-video short films created with OpenAI’s innovative tool Sora for the first time ever!
“Tribeca is rooted in the foundational belief that storytelling inspires change. Humans need stories to thrive and make sense of our wonderful and broken world,” said Jane Rosenthal, Tribeca Enterprises’ co-founder and CEO. He further added, “Sometimes these stories come to us as a feature film, an immersive experience, a piece of art, or even an AI-generated short film. I can’t wait to see what this group of fiercely creative Tribeca alumni come up with.”
Why Do Filmmakers Like Sora?
Unlike other AI tools that produce quick, three-second clips, Sora goes above and beyond, combining multiple shots to improve the storytelling experience for filmmakers. Five talented filmmakers have been handpicked to create unique short films for the festival using Sora. Their creations will be screened on June 15, 2024, in the heart of New York City.
AI In Filmmaking
OpenAI strategically planned Sora’s introduction to the world. The tech giant began with rigorous internal testing before making it available to digital filmmakers. The collaboration with Tribeca Film Festival will prove to be an historic moment, as a larger audience witnesses the brilliance of Sora.
In addition, Adobe is working with OpenAI to integrate Sora into its Premiere Pro software. This exciting development has the potential to revolutionize how filmmakers edit videos by making it easier to create seamless B-rolls and extend clips directly within the editing timeline.
Ashton Kutcher x Sora
Actor, director and tech evangelist Ashton Kutcher was recently in conversation with ex-Google chairman Eric Schmidt. He spoke passionately about the AI-dominated future for the industry. Kutcher also shared his experience using the beta version of OpenAI’s AI video generator Sora.
“I’ve been playing around with Sora…and it’s pretty amazing,” he said. “There’s footage you could easily use in a major motion picture today.” Kutcher then goes on to explain that the technology is moving in leaps and bounds, and while today the results are good, “fast forward to thirty times more performant, you’ll be able to render a whole movie.”
What To Expect From Tribeca 2024?
“Welcome to New York!” NYC is hosting the Tribeca Film Festival 2024 from June 5 to June 16, 2024. This iconic festival is celebrated for its diverse offerings, like blockbuster movies, captivating TV series, soul-stirring music, gripping audio storytelling, immersive gaming experiences, and more. It’s a creative and cultural melting pot with everyone is bound to get entertained.
Have you bought your ticket to the Festival yet? Are you ready to join the excitement? Go buy your festival ticket now! Visit the official Tribeca Film Festival website for complete information on prices, perks, and everything else.
