As we mentioned when the news broke yesterday of OpenAI’s new AI text-to-video model Sora being released, this is kind of the least surprising news ever.

We’ve known that AI was going to be able to eventually reach the levels demonstrated by Sora in those viral clips making their way around the internet (and undoubtedly in your group chats with fellow filmmakers and video friends).

The question was never if, but simply when, and it looks like that time is now.

But what of it? It already feels like AI has been around forever and its various uses have already begun to seep into pretty much every part of the film and video production process. From scripting and pre-pro tools to AI-powered cameras to a whole host of post-production applications, AI is very much already here.

Maybe it’s the copium speaking, but let's at least try to explore how Sora’s generative AI video capabilities might not be the end… and could actually be beneficial to film and video pros.

OpenAI Sora Generative Video

By now you’ve probably already seen the clips, but for a quick refresher, let’s once again marvel at how insanely powerful OpenAI’s new Sora model is when it comes to generative AI video.

As you can see in the examples below, a simple text prompt can give users up to 60 seconds of fully rendered footage that looks so much more lifelike and cinematic than anything we’ve ever seen before from AI.

OpenAI seemingly solved every issue that other models have struggled with in the past, decreasing all of the weird waviness that you’d see, refining skin and faces, and even providing complex camera movements that we just simply hadn’t seen before.

Ways to Use AI Video for Good

We’ve wrestled with this subject in the past, but there are arguments to be made that AI—and in particular, generative video AI—can be a helpful tool for filmmakers and video professionals looking to streamline their production processes.

Some of the first major examples of this come from the world of pre-visualization and storyboarding. Yes, there are artists out there who provide these services for directors and studios, so AI could certainly be cutting into these jobs.

However, from an optimization of workflows perspective, even if you do work in storyboard art design then you could undoubtedly use AI to help speed up your work and perhaps even make it more dynamic and impressive.

Who Will Actually Use Sora’s Video AI?

The other big question here isn’t about how AI video will work going forward, but more precisely who will actually be using it? From the looks of the technology demonstrated by OpenAI, it kind of seems like they’re targeting indie filmmakers and content creators, but the results look like they’d be more appealing to bigger studios and post-production companies.

As impressive as Sora is so far, it still might be a slight stretch to imagine that it would be that much easier to render an entire project out completely through 60-second clips from OpenAI. While quite advanced, this text-to-video prompt method is not perfect and often requires quite a bit of trial and error until the results you actually want are received.

If you compare Sora’s revolution of video to ChatGPT’s revolution of text and writing then you’ll also see that despite its phenomenal power, there’s still something missing from the endless possibilities now available at your fingertips..

All that being said, we certainly get the doom-and-gloom being shared across the film and video industry. We can’t say with any certainty how any of this will shake out, but we can hope that those pushing the industry forward will do so with the understanding that AI is ultimately not a replacement itself, but a tool for creators.

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