Jeff Desom knows a thing or two about bending reality. As the VFX wizard behind the kaleidoscopic masterpiece that was Everything Everywhere All at Once, he’s intimately familiar with the art of the impossible. But while the Daniels’ film explored the boundless possibilities of the multiverse, Desom is now grappling with a potentially even more disruptive force: artificial intelligence.
Currently serving jury duty at the Luxembourg City Film Festival (because even Oscar winners can’t escape civic responsibilities), Desom recently shared his thoughts on the rapidly approaching AI “tsunami.” And while he acknowledges its potential benefits, he also raises some serious ethical questions that should have everyone in Hollywood – and beyond – paying attention.
The success of Everything Everywhere was a game-changer for Desom. Before, VFX was a side hustle, a tool for his own directorial and writing ambitions. Then the Daniels called, assembling a lean, mean, VFX dream team composed of directors who understood the creative vision from the ground up. Five hundred shots, four people. You do the math (we did; it’s a lot).
The film’s unexpected success brought a deluge of offers. To manage the chaos, Desom and his colleagues formed Pretend VFX, a company dedicated to cherry-picking projects that align with their creative sensibilities and, crucially, their bandwidth. Two features already in the pipeline, shrouded in secrecy, naturally.
But the real conversation starter is AI. Desom admits that the traditional VFX pipeline remains the most reliable for now. Directors, those notoriously detail-oriented creatures, demand precise revisions. AI, in its current state, is still a bit… unpredictable. But the wave is coming. The tsunami, even.
AI promises to streamline tedious, uncreative tasks. Think rotoscoping but like, way faster. Sounds great, right? Except… where do you draw the line? When does AI start encroaching on actual creative work? And what happens when the technology is trained on the work of other artists, potentially without their consent or compensation? The ethical sourcing of AI-generated content is a Pandora’s Box, and Desom isn’t afraid to acknowledge the potential for misuse. Is it ethically sourced? Do I have any ownership of that?
Desom’s warning is stark: “At the end of the day, you might be robbing a bank, and you’re not realizing it.” You could be complicit in intellectual property theft, unknowingly benefiting from algorithms trained on stolen art. He advocates for a “considered approach,” urging caution in the face of hype. Easier said than done when venture capital is pouring into the AI space like a broken fire hydrant.
The truth is, nobody knows exactly how AI will reshape the creative landscape. Will it empower artists, freeing them from mundane tasks and enabling them to focus on the big picture? Or will it replace them, rendering years of skill and experience obsolete? Or, like all things, the truth likely lies somewhere in the uncanny valley between.
One thing is clear: the future of VFX, and indeed the entire entertainment industry, is about to get a whole lot weirder. And Jeff Desom, jury duty notwithstanding, is watching closely.
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