Screenland的核心正在拥抱人工智能。Culver Steps的开放空间通常用于举办社区活动和电影之夜。但周三，它变成了为寻求招聘AI工作室人才的公司举办的招聘会。公司们展示了他们栩栩如生的AI视频，鼓励新兴人才 — — 以及失业的创意工作者 — — 加入他们，因为他们正致力于重塑传统电影制作。“这是这项新电影制作的绝佳温床，”AI电影制作工作室Promise的联合创始人Dave Clark谈到Culver City时说。
The heart of Screenland is cozying up to artificial intelligence. The open space in Culver Steps typically hosts community events and movie nights. But on Wednesday, it turned into a job fair for companies looking to hire talent for AI studios. Companies showed off their life-like AI videos, urging emerging talent — and out-of-work creatives — to join them as they worked to reinvent traditional filmmaking. “It’s a great breeding ground for this new filmmaking,” Dave Clark, cofounder of AI film production studio Promise, said about Culver City.
“在这里的独立电影制作人，是时候夺回权力了。”此次活动是LA Tech Week的一部分，这是一项由风险投资公司Andreessen Horowitz组织的全市性活动。Culver City已经是好莱坞和科技领域大牌的所在地，如Amazon MGM Studios、TikTok、Apple和索尼影视娱乐。最近，一个包括Promise、TrueShort、Native Foreign和PhantomX在内的AI工作室集群正在该地区不断扩张。
“To the independent filmmakers here, it’s time to take back power.”The event was part of LA Tech Week, a citywide event organized by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Culver City is already home to big names in Hollywood and technology like Amazon MGM Studios, TikTok, Apple, and Sony Pictures Entertainment. Recently, a growing cluster of AI studios, including Promise, TrueShort, Native Foreign, and PhantomX, are expanding in the neighborhood.
Luma AI是一家总部位于帕洛阿尔托、估值达40亿美元的初创公司，专门生产生成式AI视频软件，去年在Culver City开设了一个设施。该公司的Dream Lab占地7000平方英尺，雇佣了13人团队。“Culver City是AI和电影制作的未来，”Luma AI首席运营官Caroline Ingeborn在一份声明中表示。这些公司表示，他们被他们希望竞争对手的传统制片厂所吸引。
Luma AI, a $4-billion Palo Alto startup that makes generative AI video software, opened a facility in Culver City last year. The company's Dream Lab occupies a 7,000 square feet space and employs a team of 13. "Culver City is the future of AI and filmmaking," Caroline Ingeborn, Luma AI's chief operating officer, said in a statement. The companies said they are drawn by the legacy studios they hope to rival.
由于洛杉矶娱乐业的整体衰退，空间的可得性和可负担性也起到了帮助作用。AI的支持者认为它是高昂制作成本的解药，并表示它使创意工作者能够制作否则永远不会被制作出来的电影。然而，好莱坞、其工会以及广大公众中许多人对AI使用的激增持怀疑态度，担心它正在夺走人类创意工作者的工作并夺走人们的工作。
The fact that space is available and affordable thanks to the general decline of the entertainment business in L.A. also helps. Proponents of AI see it as an antidote to high production costs and say it allows creatives to make films that otherwise would never be made. However, many in Hollywood, its unions, and the public at large are suspicious of the surge in AI use, worried it is stealing the work of human creatives and taking people's jobs.
新一波的AI电影制作人已经接受了AI兴起的必然性，并正在前进，而且越来越多地选择在Culver City发展。
The new wave of AI filmmakers have accepted the rise of AI as inevitable, and are forging ahead, increasingly in Culver City.
该市并不反对。“我们是一个持续演进的创意经济中心，”卡尔弗市助理市长亚当·特罗伊在一份声明中表示。“我们期待看到这个领域接下来会发生什么，以及哪些企业会在这里看到他们在卡尔弗市的未来。”TrueShort上个月搬进了卡尔弗市，接管了亚马逊影棚附近的大部分5000平方英尺办公空间。该AI工作室已筹集1700万美元，雇佣约45人。
The city is not opposed to it. “We’re a hub for the creative economy that is continuing to evolve," said Adam Troy, Culver City assistant city manager, in a statement. "We look forward to what’s next in the space and what businesses see their future here in Culver City.”TrueShort moved into Culver City last month, taking over most of a 5,000-square-foot office space near Amazon’s studio. The AI studio has raised $17 million and employs about 45 people.
其中约75%是创意人员：电影制作人、剪辑师、声音设计师和作曲家。其流媒体应用托管着完全由AI生成的短篇真实犯罪音视频节目。平均而言，制作一集10分钟的节目成本约为1万美元，从构思到发布大约需要10天。“这一次，下一个Netflix或下一个迪士尼将来自AI，”TrueShort联合创始人内特·特珀表示。“而且在某种程度上，它需要成为一家初创公司，因为大型老牌企业不会动作那么快。他们会害怕反弹。”
Around 75% of them are creatives: filmmakers, editors, sound designers and composers. Its streaming app hosts short-form true crime audio and video shows that are fully AI-generated. On average, a 10-minute episode costs about $10,000 to make and takes about 10 days to go from idea to release. “The next Netflix or the next Disney is going to come out of AI this time,” said Nate Tepper, cofounder of TrueShort. “And, in a way, it kind of needs to be a startup because the big incumbents are not going to move as fast. They’re going to be afraid of backlash.”
该公司已经超出了其圣莫尼卡办公室的容量，如今位于卡尔弗剧院附近。“能和索尼、亚马逊这些更大的制片厂为邻真的很酷，仅仅因为这很有启发性，”特珀说。“我们想要这片土地。我们想成为一家大型制片厂。”总部位于卡尔弗市的创意工作室Native Foreign为那些在AI使用方面比好莱坞更开放的品牌制作AI广告。
The company outgrew its Santa Monica office and is now located near Culver Theater. “It is cool being next to the other bigger lots like Sony and Amazon, only because it's inspiring,” Tepper said. “We want the lot. We want to become the big studio.”Culver City-based creative studio Native Foreign makes AI commercials for brands that are more open than Hollywood about AI use.
它曾为维珍和玩具反斗城制作广告。它曾使用OpenAI的软件制作了首批AI动画短片之一《Critterz》，并计划基于此制作一部电影，但OpenAI后来退出了该项目并取消了其视频生成AI模型。“我们没有一些巨型工作室和公司可能拥有的那种机会，所以我们能够借助这些工具，以弱胜强，”该公司联合创始人尼克·克勒沃夫在LA Tech Week的一个小组讨论中说道。
It has done ads for Virgin and Toys R Us. It made one of the first AI-animated shorts, "Critterz," using OpenAI's software and planned to help make a movie based on it, but OpenAI pulled out of the project and canceled its video-making AI model. “We don’t have the kind of opportunities that maybe some huge huge studios and companies have, so we are able to bag above our weight with these tools,” Nik Kleverov, co-founder of the company, said on a panel at LA Tech Week.
谷歌支持的Promise是另一家位于卡尔弗城附近、主张混合制作的AI工作室，在这种制作模式中，人类演员与AI专家协作。该公司利用AI生成背景、视觉效果和合成人类，用于其电影片单，但许多表演仍在洛杉矶各地的录音棚中由真人演员完成拍摄。2024年底，该工作室收购了Curious Refuge，这是一所教授传统艺术家和新手使用生成式AI工具进行电影制作的在线AI学校。
Google-backed Promise is another Culver City-adjacent AI studio that's a proponent of hybrid productions, where human actors work with AI specialists. The company uses AI to generate backgrounds, visual effects, and synthetic humans for its slate of films, but a lot of the performances are shot on soundstages across L.A. using actors. In late 2024, the studio acquired Curious Refuge, an online AI school that teaches traditional artists and newbies to use generative AI tools for filmmaking.
Promise于今年6月从威尼斯搬至卡尔弗城附近。尽管行业正在设立防护栏以控制AI的发展，但人们对AI的兴趣依然在增长。演员工会SAG-AFTRA已在今年签署的工会合同中争取到针对完全合成表演者的特殊保护。然而，一些好莱坞资深人士指出，行业曾经为技术问题展开过争论。亚历克斯·坎卡多曾多年从事视觉效果工作，参与过80多部电影的制作，如今他在亚马逊米高梅影业的AI Studios部门工作。
Promise moved close to Culver from Venice in June. Excitement about AI grows even as the industry puts up guardrails to contain it. The actors’ guild SAG-AFTRA has secured special protection against fully synthetic performers in the union contract signed this year. However, some Hollywood veterans point out that the industry has fought over technology before. Alex Cancado, who spent years in visual effects and has worked on over 80 movies, now works in the AI Studios division of Amazon MGM Studios.
周三，他在向一群创意人士推介时表示，从实际特效向计算机图形的过渡同样充满挑战。“让导演和制片人接受CG是一个挑战，”坎卡多说道。围绕AI在大型制作中应用的热议，始于2023年在卡尔弗城举办的一场名为“AI on the Lot”的会议。此后，该活动规模已扩大至数千名参与者。该组织还赞助了卡尔弗台阶的招聘会，以及卡尔弗城媒体AI公司的社交欢乐时光。
Pitching the crowd of creatives on Wednesday, he said the transition from practical effects to computer graphics was equally fraught. “It was a challenge getting CG to be accepted by directors and producers,” Cancado said. Much of the buzz around AI use for big productions started with a conference in Culver City called "AI on the Lot," which started in 2023. It has since grown to thousands of attendees. The organization also sponsored the job fair on Culver Steps and a networking happy hour for media AI companies in Culver City.
它估计，拥有20亿美元支持的AI媒体公司已汇聚于此城。AI on the Lot的创始人之一迈克·乔伊亚参加市政厅会议，并试图围绕“卡尔弗集群”这一概念建立势头——即吸引更多从事AI工作的公司和个人来到该社区。“我们希望让卡尔弗城成为AI媒体之都，”乔伊亚说。
It estimates that AI media companies with $2 billion in backing have converged on the city. Mike Gioia, a founder of AI on the Lot, attends City Hall meetings and is trying to build momentum around the concept of a “Culver cluster” — bringing more companies and individuals working in AI to the neighborhood. “We want to make Culver City the capital of AI media,” said Gioia.