What Film Fund From AI Startup Runway Means for Content’s Future
Runway is continuing its effort to democratize filmmaking with AI, most recently launching The Hundred Film Fund, which will offer funding grants ranging from $5,000 to $1 million to as many as 100 filmmakers who use AI in their productions.
The AI innovator — which has raised about $250 million since its 2018 founding and was recently valued at $1.5 billion — is also giving up to $2 million in credits to use Runway’s gen AI system.
The move to create the new film fund was explored during a panel at last week’s Variety Entertainment & Technology Summit, with speakers asserting it could help democratize filmmaking and introduce new types of content.
“They’re probably trying to inspire creators to do new types of things that are kind of enabled, uh, uniquely by the technology or wouldn’t have happened otherwise,” said Eli Collins, VP of Google DeepMind. “And that’s important that we also seed that sort of work as well.”
Universal CTO Michael Wise seconded the notion of new forms of content. “What does AI enable in terms of dynamic storytelling or new forms of storytelling that are more personalized, more emotive and help[s] really bring stories to life?”
Filmmaker and creative technologist Victoria Bousis, who disclosed that she is currently working on a location-based museum experience and in-headset experience using AI tools, echoed Collins.
“We're gonna get a lot more of that content out to people to also change the narrative of how AI is being perceived,” she said. “This democratization of AI versus this fear toward it as ruining creativity and doing all these horrible, bad things.”
But in Hollywood, will this change or fuel those concerns? The dual strikes in 2023, recent IATSE deals and current Animation Guild negotiations underscore widespread job security concerns.
In preparation for its negotiations, the Animation Guild commissioned CVL Economics to conduct a survey on the impact of gen AI on entertainment industry jobs, which forecast that about 21.4% of film, television and animation jobs (or approximately 118,500 positions) are likely to have a sufficient number of tasks affected for either consolidating, replacement or elimination by gen AI in the U.S. by 2026.
Runway, which earlier this month announced an AI partnership with Lionsgate, is also aiming to work with filmmakers through initiatives such as its AI Film Festival and Gen:48 48-hour AI film contest.
“It's really important that the people building the technology work with the creative community,” Collins added. “So I think it’s another example of that, which I think is a really positive trend. And I think we’ll see more of that. I think it’s representative of something that’s happening more broadly.”
Expedia Group’s Abi Ashok said, “What's actually happening is, if you think about it, creators are being democratized not just from the perspective of channel of distribution but from the perspective of tools. You can be a one-person shop building everything from pre-production to creation to post-production at a scale you haven't thought about in the past. I think that’s a big, big deal, and Runway's ability to do that, I think, is pretty smart.”
The AI innovator — which has raised about $250 million since its 2018 founding and was recently valued at $1.5 billion — is also giving up to $2 million in credits to use Runway’s gen AI system.
The move to create the new film fund was explored during a panel at last week’s Variety Entertainment & Technology Summit, with speakers asserting it could help democratize filmmaking and introduce new types of content.
“They’re probably trying to inspire creators to do new types of things that are kind of enabled, uh, uniquely by the technology or wouldn’t have happened otherwise,” said Eli Collins, VP of Google DeepMind. “And that’s important that we also seed that sort of work as well.”
Universal CTO Michael Wise seconded the notion of new forms of content. “What does AI enable in terms of dynamic storytelling or new forms of storytelling that are more personalized, more emotive and help[s] really bring stories to life?”
Filmmaker and creative technologist Victoria Bousis, who disclosed that she is currently working on a location-based museum experience and in-headset experience using AI tools, echoed Collins.
“We're gonna get a lot more of that content out to people to also change the narrative of how AI is being perceived,” she said. “This democratization of AI versus this fear toward it as ruining creativity and doing all these horrible, bad things.”
But in Hollywood, will this change or fuel those concerns? The dual strikes in 2023, recent IATSE deals and current Animation Guild negotiations underscore widespread job security concerns.
In preparation for its negotiations, the Animation Guild commissioned CVL Economics to conduct a survey on the impact of gen AI on entertainment industry jobs, which forecast that about 21.4% of film, television and animation jobs (or approximately 118,500 positions) are likely to have a sufficient number of tasks affected for either consolidating, replacement or elimination by gen AI in the U.S. by 2026.
Runway, which earlier this month announced an AI partnership with Lionsgate, is also aiming to work with filmmakers through initiatives such as its AI Film Festival and Gen:48 48-hour AI film contest.
“It's really important that the people building the technology work with the creative community,” Collins added. “So I think it’s another example of that, which I think is a really positive trend. And I think we’ll see more of that. I think it’s representative of something that’s happening more broadly.”
Expedia Group’s Abi Ashok said, “What's actually happening is, if you think about it, creators are being democratized not just from the perspective of channel of distribution but from the perspective of tools. You can be a one-person shop building everything from pre-production to creation to post-production at a scale you haven't thought about in the past. I think that’s a big, big deal, and Runway's ability to do that, I think, is pretty smart.”