An AI filmmaking production value gap is forming and widening with each new model

This post kind of echoes another recent post by u/BradClarkAI.

A production value gap in AI filmmaking has been forming and is unfortunately getting wider as the field develops.

What do I mean by production value gap? This is the idea that the more money a film has behind it, the higher its production value (perceived quality). That is, budget often manifests as perceived visual quality. This gap helps us see a visual distinction between a Hollywood film and an independent film. I picked up this term from Youtuber/filmmaker Luc Forsyth (jump to 5:52 to get a better explanation).

However, Forsyth argues that AI is closing the production value gap that exists between Hollywood and independent filmmaking. This is a common sentiment. When I first got into AI filmmaking the general assumption was that AI was "democratizing" visual storytelling by allowing people outside the corporate financing structure to tell visual stories.

But what we're seeing is that AI filmmaking's own production value gap if forming. The newer models that allow people to create higher quality work are becoming more and more expensive. Even if you budget your own money to invest in a higher-quality project, the models are not affordable enough for regular middle-to-low-income people to sustain. Therefore, we are seeing creators get "picked up" by studios, platforms and creative partnership program and then given credit or budget subsidies to create higher quality projects.

This is good for the creators, but I think it also has a downside, devolving into the same structure that exists in corporatized filmmaking. What ends up happening is that those who can afford to create what I call "ticket projects" (It means expensive, high-quality projects you invest in in order to have access to wider audiences and opportunities, but probably can't afford to sustain long term), especially consistently, are the ones who catch the eyes of benefactors, who then invest in bigger and better projects, which makes the creators and their projects stand out even more, creating a sort of feedback loop.

This crushes the "AI democratizes" assumption. The same thing happened with the early web. People assumed "Web 2.0" would "democratize the internet," but what ended up happening was that something now known as the "digital production gap" formed, in which content creators who can afford to create high-quality content outshine others and attract more investment.

Unfortunately, we are now witnessing in real time this thing happening with AI filmmaking. So many workflows are tied to corporate platforms that when new models are released, only those with the right investments and support will be able to afford them. When they do and create things, they raise the bar higher and higher, creating a gap that people in lower tiers may not be able to reach. To make matters worse, I don't see a lot of investors/benefactors (CPP programs, platforms, etc.) making efforts to take a chance on creators who do not show proof of value with visually appealing work and the audiences to match.

While I'm excited for newer and better models I know that they will only widen the gap and make smaller creators' work less valuable.

If this truly is the future of AI filmmaking, I'd suggest more corporate entities make an effort to invest in creators who may lack proof of visual value (and the things that come from that, like audience, recognition, partnerships, etc.), but show promise in vision, storytelling, writing, technique, and other more attainable/achievable signals.