A few years ago, lip-syncing one minute of animation used to take about four hours. Now it can be done in 15 minutes. That’s just one of the dramatic time-saving features of AI when it comes to animation, but what’s most interesting about these tools in the world of Hollywood is just how quickly they are being implemented specifically for animation. Unlike much of the rest of the film industry that can occasionally be tech-averse–animation has been computer assisted for decades.
This fact is making the field of animation and cartoon development ground zero for seeing the vast time savings and creative shifts happening in the process of getting shows from production to air. Contrary to what some fear, the future likely won’t include complete displacement–as one executive shared:
“Our goal is for A.I. to get it 70 percent there. A.I. just gives you the base, it’s our job as artists to add a personality — a visual personality — because animation has historically been very expensive and taken a long time to do, a lot of talent has been kept out — particularly young talent. We don’t think animation should be a private club. And with A.I., it’s not going to be.”
As with many early embracers of AI, the future painted in this quote is perhaps overly optimistic. The other fact from the story linked above is that a production which used to take 500 people can now be done by about 50 … so clearly there are some roles which will no longer be needed. The big question is whether the increase in productions will create enough opportunity to offset those losses.
