2024/07/17 12:40
Sanxingdui meets the near future, how does AI expand the new territory of short dramas?
2024/07/17 12:40
Author | Punpeng Editor | Editorial Department of Simcere
Technology companies have entered the game with AI, and skits have obviously reached the next level.
Recently, the country's first continuous narrative sci-fi short drama "Sanxingdui: Future Apocalypse" was launched on Douyin, and more than half of it has been updated. In the seven episodes that have been updated so far, Isabella, Wu Xingyan, and Jiang Cheng, the three protagonists have all appeared, and the character arc has gradually become complete, and an adventure related to human civilization is about to start.
In the latest episode, the three of them went deep into the central computer room of the quantum computer at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, and officially began to use Jiang Cheng's memories of the Zongmu Book to quantum-deduce the digital ancient Shu Kingdom, and the ancient Shu Kingdom in the eyes of AI is about to be unveiled.
With the launch of "Sanxingdui: Future Apocalypse" as scheduled, domestic audiences also have a very real sense of AIGC. With the help of 10 AIGC technologies, including AIGC script writing, concept and storyboard design, image-to-video conversion, video editing and media content enhancement, small short dramas can also build a grand world view.
It can be said that through "Sanxingdui: Future Apocalypse", AI-empowered short dramas are developing new imagination.
How to create a differentiated sci-fi work?
Liu Cixin once said that science fiction works mainly lie in two aspects. The first is the image of the population, science fiction works should describe multiple civilizations other than human beings, and give different images and personalities to the populations of each civilization; The second is the image of the world, and science fiction works should shape different worldviews, which can be different planets and galaxies, or branches of parallel worlds.
Judging from the five episodes that have been launched so far, the highlight of the short drama "Sanxingdui: Future Apocalypse" is that the image of the population and the image of the world are condensed into the genre of the short drama.
In the dimension of population image, this short drama portrays different characters of the three forces. One is Isabella, an overseas agent representing the Starsur Global Intelligence Group, and the other is Wu Xingyan, a dragon warrior who represents the mechanical transformation of No. 34 Xi'an Road, whose duel with Isabella is constantly gaining momentum, and is beginning to show signs in the latest episode of the car chase scene. The third is the archaeologist Jiang Cheng, who is the "think tank" for the other two forces.
Each character is endowed with a rich backstory and distinct personality traits, and their interactions and conflicts form the core driving force of the series. But "Sanxingdui: Future Apocalypse" did not prematurely present their relationship due to the size of the short drama, but instead created layers of suspense and constantly reversed.
For example, in the sixth episode, I thought that Wu Xingyan and Jiang Cheng would represent China and fight against international forces together. However, at the end, there is a monologue by Jiang Cheng, "If I had known that he had such a terrible secret, I would not have boarded that helicopter at all." "The audience's sense of anti-expectation has gone to another level.
In the latest episode, when the quantum computer reads Jiang Cheng's memories, many childhood memories of his father pop up in his mind, and the quantum computer then announces that the book has been destroyed. How many secrets does Jiang Cheng's father still have? How does he swing among the three forces?
Almost every episode leaves a cliffhanger that draws viewers into the adventure together.
Looking at the image of the world, "Sanxingdui: Future Apocalypse" opens with three world lines that traverse ancient and modern times, namely the ancient Shu Kingdom, the sixteenth era in 2134, and the seventeenth era in 2079. As the plot unfolds, how the three world lines will end has become the biggest suspense.
In the process, they not only have to face various challenges from nature and man-made, but also solve the mysteries hidden behind the Sanxingdui civilization. The protagonist group will find the code to save the civilization crisis and complete a feat that transcends time and space.
Embedding AIGC technology in the sci-fi theme, "Sanxingdui: Future Apocalypse" shows a high degree of adaptability in visual presentation. On the screen, the series uses AIGC technology to realize the intelligent generation of pictures and scenes, and perfectly integrates the mystery of the ancient Shu Kingdom with the sense of science and technology in the near future.
For the creation of different spatio-temporal scenes, it is undoubtedly a powerful tool for AIGC technology. This drama not only gradually restores the bronze statue, Shang bronze god tree, Shang bronze longitudinal mask, etc., but also connects the three periods of time and space together through flashbacks with a sense of science and technology, intertwining ancient and modern, and strong collision between technology and history.
Although Sanxingdui: Future Apocalypse has made remarkable achievements in the application of AI technology, it is undeniable that there are still some limitations in current AI technology. In terms of micro-expression processing, AI technology has not yet reached the level of human actors, and it is difficult for digital human expressions to fluctuate with the change of tone, and body movements are not coordinated and natural.
Of course, these limitations do not represent the end of AI technology, but the breakthrough point of future technology development. With the continuous advancement and iteration of technology, we have reason to believe that AI technology will achieve greater breakthroughs in the future.
In the comment area of "Sanxingdui: Future Apocalypse", a netizen's comment received tens of thousands of likes, "I'm afraid that the protagonist will take out the ditch and start gnawing the chicken in the next second."
It seems to be a joke, in which it subtly touches on the audience's intuitive perception of the uncontrollable nature of AIGC's works. Recently, many users have been trying to use AI to turn old photos into videos, often getting ridiculous results, and everyone is ridiculing that they never know what the AI wants to do next.
As Qu Ji Xiaojiang, production director of Bona Films, said frankly in an in-depth interview, "In fact, the biggest difficulty of AI is the consistency of the emotions of the characters. The hardest part of the real shot is the easiest part of the AI, and the easiest part of the live shot is the hardest part of the AI. ”
For example, if the real shooting of the apocalyptic landscape of the collapse of human civilization in 2134 in the first episode of "Sanxingdui: Future Apocalypse" undoubtedly requires extremely high manpower and material resources, but AIGC only needs a very low cost to achieve a good look and feel, and if you want a dialogue with the protagonist, you say a word, there is almost no technical difficulty in real shooting, but there is extremely high technical difficulty in using AI.
In order to prevent the "derailed" performance of AI, the production team Bona Film AIGMS has made great efforts in every link.
Judging from the news released by Bona Film AIGMS, the customized workflow covers more than ten popular AI models, which are fully integrated into the whole process and cycle of film and television production such as text creativity, storyboard design, picture generation, picture quality enhancement, and film and television soundtrack.
After completing the entire production cycle, Bona Film condensed the gist of the cooperation with AI. "The team is actually a collaborator with AI, rather than using AI as a tool," the production team said in an interview.
For example, when creating the script, the team combined real archaeological data with the inspiration provided by AI to study and understand a large number of interpretations of Sanxingdui and the myths related to the ancient Shu Kingdom of Sanxingdui in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas". The creative spark of AI blends into the emotional depth of human creators, ensuring that the story is both forward-thinking and warm.
Another example is the storyboard design, the production team also took the lead in creating the ancient Shu Kingdom, and trained a set of picture generation models that are strongly related to this drama. However, the image is not generated and can be used, and each shot needs to be delayed and controlled according to the actual language scheduling.
In other words, it is the director's artistic intuition and emotional expression that really determine the language of the shot, and AI plays the role of an efficient "assistant" to help the team quickly select and optimize the design plan.
Therefore, the most valuable part of "Sanxingdui: Future Apocalypse" is that the behind-the-scenes team is doing the content of the series while doing the research and development of technology.
To this end, Bona Film AIGMS has launched an in-depth cooperation with Douyin's generative AI platform, i.e. Dream AI. In the production journey of this AIGC short drama, Dream AI, as the chief technical support platform, has continuously upgraded its "video generation" function to better serve film and television producers and creators, making it a powerful tool in the production process.
In the video generation stage, that is, through deep learning and computer vision technology, Dream AI provides three generation modes, namely single image generation, first and last frame generation, and text generation, which can effectively transform ideas into vivid video clips, and also ensure the consistency of the scene and the coherence of the plot to the greatest extent.
In addition, Jimeng AI has also undergone countless polishing and optimization, constantly reducing the uncontrollability of AI works and better capturing and presenting every subtle imagination of creators.
In terms of lens control, Dream AI has added horizontal movement, up-and-down movement, and supports direction and amplitude control, providing creators with more diverse and richer camera movement options. At the same time, after generating content in standard mode and smooth mode, Dream AI also supports text instructions for continuing to write extended content, and supports 24fps, 30fps, 60fps supplementary frames, and the ability to double the super-resolution.
More emphasis is placed on close cooperation with creators, that is, the continuous product iteration of Dream AI is also more accurate and efficient, helping creators cross the boundaries of technology and imagination and stimulate unprecedented creative potential.
For a long time, the density of information that the short drama format could carry was very limited.
Looking back at the development process of the short drama industry, the early short dramas represented by "Dick Silk Man" are known for their humorous and witty joke collages, often opening up the market quickly with light and humor, and the content is relatively simple and direct. With the development of the industry, the following short dramas have attracted the attention of the audience with the Mary Sue style of the "Bazong Series" and the earthy plot of "Revenge Shuangwen".
In the past few years, the micro-short drama industry has experienced a rapid development of "rapid rise, involution at the speed of light". On the one hand, the influx of a large amount of capital and the support of platforms have led to a surge in the number of short dramas; On the other hand, the homogeneity of content and uneven quality have also become bottlenecks in the development of the industry.
With the acceleration of the industrialization and large-scale process of short dramas and the active guidance of policies, the production of short dramas has officially entered the "deep water area". The industry began to pursue refined and high-quality production standards, and strive to achieve breakthroughs in content depth and production quality to meet the audience's more diverse aesthetic needs.
In this context, "Sanxingdui: Future Apocalypse" is already of symbolic significance.
On the one hand, a professional film and television production team like Bona Film AIGMS entered the game and became the helmsman of the short drama level. Coupled with the rise of domestic technical teams such as Jimeng AI, the emergency cooperation between the two has not only achieved a qualitative leap in visual effects, but also demonstrated the potential for deep integration of AI technology and traditional film and television production.
On the other hand, the short drama boldly adopts the theme of science fiction, which not only broadens the boundaries of the theme of the micro-short drama, but also finds a benign landing scene for the current AIGC video, proving that the micro-short drama can also carry complex and diverse storylines and grand narrative structures. By integrating the multiple issues of people, technology and ancient cultural relics, it presents the thinking and temperature of "people" outside the dimension of technology, breaks the audience's inherent impression of micro-short dramas, and successfully expands the audience circle of micro-short dramas.
This short drama is a microcosm of AIGC's continuous innovation in the content industry.
As Plato left a proverb: art is imitation. AI uses AI to replace a large number of basic creations by inductively learning and deducting thousands of human works, introducing new rules to the industry and creating new styles and genres.
And the more we are biased against the genre of short dramas, the stronger we feel the impact of AIGC technology. Through the rapid extension of the application side, AIGC is also gradually impacting the traditional aesthetic concept of human beings.
In summary, AI is not truly creative at the moment, but it has opened up more possibilities for creators' imaginations. In the future, AIGC will serve as an important driving force to put the development of short dramas and even traditional film and television dramas on the "fast track".
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