Scorsese

Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese is joining the ranks of entertainment industry power players embracing generative AI.

Black Forest Labs, the German AI startup behind the text-to-image model Flux, announced Tuesday that Scorsese is joining the company as an advisor.

The company unveiled the collaboration on its website with a video of the auteur using Flux to storyboard scenes, which involves mocking up shots before filming.

“This conveys a cinematic intelligence,” he said in the video, discussing the program’s uses with Black Forest Labs co-founder and Chief Executive Robin Rombach and Creative Artists Agency co-founder Michael Ovitz. According to the New York Times, Ovitz, an investor in Black Forest Labs, helped bring Scorsese aboard, along with Rick Yorn, Scorsese’s talent manager, whose investment firm BroadLight Capital is also an investor.

In a statement, Scorsese emphasized the potential for AI to transform the storyboarding process.

“For 70 years, I’ve been creating my own storyboards. There’s always been this problem of how do you communicate what you see in your head to your cast and crew. There are some things you have to see and feel,” he said. “I’m interested in the intersection of technology and storytelling, and seeing how that can push the bounds of creativity to create deeper and richer experiences for audiences.”

Traditionally, storyboarding is done by hand or digital illustration through a collaboration between directors and storyboard artists.

Scorsese’s public espousal of this technology marks the latest shift in attitude about AI from powerful Hollywood creatives. Since generative AI became widely accessible in 2022, Hollywood has struggled to navigate its power to rapidly upend industry norms.

Scorsese is not the first decorated filmmaker to embrace AI. James Cameron, the Oscar-winning “Avatar” director, is on the board of directors for Stability AI, where Rombach worked before launching Black Forest Labs. In his keynote address at the AI on the Lot conference last week, director and screenwriter Paul Schrader expressed a mixture of admiration and caution toward the technology.

“AI does not create — it combines,” Shrader said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

Not everybody is on board with generative AI’s potential transformations. Guillermo del Toro and Seth Rogen spoke out against the technology at Cannes last month, and below-the-line wokers, screenwriters and actors have continued to express apprehension and even horror at the prospect of being replaced by generative AI.

Scorsese’s entry into the AI field might especially shock fans given his traditionalist approach to filmmaking. In 2019, he famously criticized Marvel movies, calling them “theme parks” and “not cinema.”

“It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being,” he said in a 2019 interview with Empire Magazine.

Even if his filmmaking centers humanity, Scorsese’s partnership with Black Forest Labs demonstrates his willingness to incorporate non-human assistance.

“Remember, cinema is a young medium, only around 125 years old, so we have to be open to how it can evolve,” he said in the statement on Black Forest Labs’ website.

Some believe it was ignored when the Oscar awards were handed out that year

A favourite of an Oscar winning filmmaker can now be streamed on Netflix.

In the latest update of the streaming platform’s library, a 2024 horror fantasy title said to become a generation’s favourite cult movie. I Saw The TV Glow is now available to users of the platform.

The film stars Justice Smith and Jack Haven as Owen and Maddy, two dispirited teenagers who bond over a late night Buffy The Vampire style show called The Pink Opaque, which offers up a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. However, following traumatic events, the lines between the show and reality soon begin to crack.

It boasts an impressive 85% on website Rotten Tomatoes and earned many rave reviews although it was overlooked on the awards circuit. Something which lead to one critic claiming that “the Oscars and Golden Globes criminally overlooked” the film. However it did manage to receive praise from Hollywood royalty.

Acclaimed director Martin Scorsese singled it out as one of his favourite films of that year. In an interview with AP in late 2024, the maker of Goodfellas and The Wolf of Wall Street, said: “There was one film I liked a great deal I saw two weeks ago called I Saw the TV Glow.

“It really was emotionally and psychologically powerful and very moving. It builds on you, in a way. I didn’t know who made it. It’s this Jane Schoenbrun.”

Scorsese was not alone in his praise as Rolling Stone magazine declared it is ‘Gen Z’s new favourite cult movie.’ Many fans also joined in with their recommendation.

Most admitted to feeling deeply affected by the film, as one said: “This movie hit me hard. Resonated with me so deeply I had to cry through the credits, ruminating on my own life. I think anyone who grew up as an outcast/weird kid, especially in a suburb will relate to the film and characters struggles.”

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Another added: “This film reminded me of the first time I saw Donnie Darko. It left me thinking and needing to watch it again. This film is entirely metaphorical and does not follow an obvious straight forward plot line. It will make you think and try to discern what every scene means and I enjoy that style of filmmaking.”

While another predicted its future status: “A future cult classic that deserves to be seen on the big screen, but it was fitting I saw this with a smattering of others in a matinee. It’s a movie that can change your life if you let it, and is somehow also about the danger of letting media change your life. It walks a delicate balance and is a wholly original work of pastiche filmmaking.”

Someone else stated: “The first time I watched this movie, I couldn’t take my eyes off of the screen. I was mesmerised. while it may not be a movie for everyone, I Saw the TV Glow really touched me in a deep personal space. I Saw the TV Glow is, for me, truly a masterpiece.”

While some disagreed the film should not be considered pure horror, others claimed it was in the right territory. As one person said: “Some REALLY like REALLY good plot twists. It was actually disturbing, I have not gotten creeped out or disturbed at a movie for a while until I saw this. This movie by far has to be THE BEST horror movie of 2024. One more thing this is my opinion but the plot twist was WAY better than The Sixth Sense.”

I Saw The TV Glow is streaming on Netflix.