Martin Scorsese

[Maltic]

What is Charli's username on Criterionforum?

[Noiretirc]

Shout out to Scorsese appearing in both the new Star Wars movie and the cover of Charli XCX’s new album

But will these both suck?

[Self]

Scorsese partners with AI

[domino harvey]

I need a drink

[Never Cursed]

Please God let all his recent bullshit be him stacking cash to fund his Jesus movie or World Cinema Project vol. 12 or something.

[beamish14]

It’s amazing how loyal he still is to Michael Ovitz, who got him involved with this

[black&huge]

I'm not sorry to say but if they mmanaged to wrangle Scorsese to supporting AI then the film industry is completely fucked for the very forseeable future. Unless this emerging wave of Gen Z/youtubers starts a movement to produce films "the old way" then we got not chance. This is just fucking depressing.

[hearthesilence]

He says it's just for storyboarding, but the implications are still terrible from a labor perspective. Not really surprising either, it's probably the most commonly predicted and widely feared scenario within the film industry: the above-the-line personnel will be just fine, nothing will happen to them, but everyone else is fucked. Crews are going to be a lot smaller, and with labor costs shrinking, the above-the-line personnel can celebrate that overall costs are down, meaning productions are either cheaper or free to spend the money elsewhere (epics are back, we can afford them again!) but people who made their living further down the ladder will have to find new careers. I guess that's kind of a reflection of the American economy over the past 45 years: almost all of the money is going to people at the top, but the middle is going to be thinned out and they'll have to settle for low-paying work on low-budget films or get forced out of the business/that part of the economy altogether.

[Matt]

I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. He's always been open to new technology and is probably very isolated from the AI discourse. He sees this merely as a time-saving tool, not as something that's going to put artists out of work. But the bitter irony is that this is someone who, at 11 years old, imagined and beautifully storyboarded a Cinemascope epic.

[beamish14]

He says it's just for storyboarding, but the implications are still terrible from a labor perspective. Not really surprising either, it's probably the most commonly predicted and widely feared scenario within the film industry: the above-the-line personnel will be just fine, nothing will happen to them, but everyone else is fucked. Crews are going to be a lot smaller, and with labor costs shrinking, the above-the-line personnel can celebrate that overall costs are down, meaning productions are either cheaper or free to spend the money elsewhere (epics are back, we can afford them again!) but people who made their living further down the ladder will have to find new careers. I guess that's kind of a reflection of the American economy over the past 45 years: almost all of the money is going to people at the top, but the middle is going to be thinned out and they'll have to settle for low-paying work on low-budget films or get forced out of the business/that part of the economy altogether.

Storyboarding is still a job, and cutting those positions will snowball to concept artists, pre-vis artists, production designers, art directors, etc. It won’t end, and it’s so disheartening to see him acquiesce like this and sell his soul

[Stefan]

Terrible news. Like black&huge said ... This was that.
If MS goes THAT FAR, he's an agent for his own demise.

[Zot!]

Agreed, this is a terrible precedent, and nothing good can come of it. The support for AI from elderly people especially is really disheartening...they think it's a fun toy or something. Where is the "back in my day..." and "kids these days...?" Do you really think what civilization needs to get back on track is more distractions and shortcuts? Do I really have to go to church to find some common ground? If you are looking for any uplift the video of Hayao Miyazaki shitting on some AI generated zombies in a boardroom is heartening. Otherwise I think we're seeing the last gasps of creativity. Get off my lawn.

[Stefan]

All power to @ Zot!

[DimitriL]

I’m fine with his stated reason that he’s using it for his own personal storyboarding, especially since it’s probably saving him time, which is an increasingly rare resource for him. (Also, if he has arthritis at his age, doodling may even be painful for him.)

What I don’t love is him getting into business with the AI companies. That’s an entirely different and unnecessary thing.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. He's always been open to new technology and is probably very isolated from the AI discourse. He sees this merely as a time-saving tool, not as something that's going to put artists out of work. But the bitter irony is that this is someone who, at 11 years old, imagined and beautifully storyboarded a Cinemascope epic.

Right? He even mentions DeMille in that ad on his IG account which was quite a bit of whiplash. This happening a few days after Marcia Lucas's passing let alone a few weeks after Tony Stella's really struck me as quite sad.

[Zot!]

I’m fine with his stated reason that he’s using it for his own personal storyboarding, especially since it’s probably saving him time, which is an increasingly rare resource for him. (Also, if he has arthritis at his age, doodling may even be painful for him.)

What I don’t love is him getting into business with the AI companies. That’s an entirely different and unnecessary thing.

I can see this thread going in the wrong direction already, but alright....
Scorsese can afford to hire an artist to sit with him and sketch scenes if he's ailing. That can result in a artistic collaboration between humans. The main issue, among many others is that storyboards are often very decisive in determining the blocking, pacing, and cinematography of the resultant film. If you want an algorithm influencing these decisions, the game is up....because we all know the algorithm will just regurgitate what it knows...which is what is what we've already seen.

[DimitriL]

I’m fine with his stated reason that he’s using it for his own personal storyboarding, especially since it’s probably saving him time, which is an increasingly rare resource for him. (Also, if he has arthritis at his age, doodling may even be painful for him.)

What I don’t love is him getting into business with the AI companies. That’s an entirely different and unnecessary thing.

Scorsese can afford to hire an artist to sit with him and sketch scenes if he's ailing. That can result in a artistic collaboration between humans. The main issue, among many others is that storyboards are often very decisive in determining the blocking, pacing, and cinematography of the resultant film. If you want an algorithm influencing these decisions, the game is up....because we all know the algorithm will just regurgitate what it knows...which is what is what we've already seen.

As a director, I would never spit out my first notion of anything to another human with hopes they'd capture it. It's getting something out quick and dirty to eventually communicate the general sense of something to a collaborator. This is not a storyboard. This is just getting something out of your head as a starting point. A storyboard artist would never say, "oh, I have to capture the tone of Marty's stick figure."

Now me, I'd never stop doodling. I'd rather not make the film if that was taken away from me. But also, this is a pretty private act where the director is sussing out their own ideas to themselves.

[hearthesilence]

I haven't looked at his storyboards in a long time, but IIRC Scorsese's tended to be very rudimentary. In the commentary for Taxi Driver (produced by Criterion but later used for Sony's releases), Michael Chapman said there were actually two different sets of storyboards but he eventually just used Scorsese's which seemed more helpful and to the point in terms of how to compose the shot whereas the "professional" storyboard was more like "a comic book" (his words) given the amount of work put into it. I know the ones for GoodFellas were very much like the ones Scorsese did for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull (all on the DVD supplements, I may have seen them at MoMI's Scorsese exhibit too) and as late as Hugo, it doesn't seem like that's changed. So it is surprising he'd suddenly want to do things this way.