Will Sora Destroy Hollywood?

AI news is buzzing with OpenAI's announcement that it's set to release Sora soon. Sora is an AI model that creates imaginative, realistic scenes from text prompts. It's a text-to-video generator, and the early signs are that it can produce incredible videos. You've probably seen the demos online, and might be wondering, "Will Sora destroy Hollywood?"

If you're intrigued by Sora and the idea of generating video from text prompts, you'll love Part 2, where we'll talk about prompt engineering to get the best out of Sora or other text-to-video tools.

Part 1: What Can Sora Do Right Now, and How Will It Affect Hollywood?

Is Sora AI available to the public?

At the time of writing, March 2024, Sora isn't available to the public. OpenAI's most recent update says that "Sora is becoming available to red teamers to assess critical areas for harms or risks." It's expected that the wider release will happen in 2024.

What Is Sora Capable Of?

First up, if you're not familiar with Sora, take a quick look at OpenAI's demo video to see what it can do:

Right now, Sora can create high-quality videos, up to a minute long, in response to a user's prompt.

There's no doubt that this technology is incredibly powerful.

Creatives will love enhancing storytelling with video, without the usual budget constraints. A tool like this could lower the barrier to entry for filmmakers, making the industry more accessible. It will also change the writing process itself, allowing users to test elements of scripts visually before proceeding.

Sora's role in movie-making

Traditionally, movies require huge numbers of people and a lengthy process to move from idea to finished product.

Sora seems set to disrupt that way of doing things.

A frame in the video made by Sora

As we've seen, Sora can create realistic, high-quality video footage from simple text prompts. However, will Sora destroy Hollywood?

That seems unlikely at this stage.

AI can assist with many of the steps involved in creating films, and it will help make processes more efficient, but it can't yet replace humans.

Apart from anything else, it's limited to one-minute videos, and even a string of those isn't going to make an engaging film.

AI can assist in idea generation, providing a sounding board much like a human brainstorming partner. It can create short videos to test concepts and help users visualize how something might look in a finished movie.

But we're still in the early stages.

Human input here is crucial, and it is the interaction between humans and AI that produces the best results. It's a process of iteration, testing a prompt, checking the results, and tweaking. Just the same as when you're trying to get ChatGPT to write a brochure for your cleaning services, or a job description to hire a new receptionist.

Human creativity makes movies work, and Sora won't change that.

Sora's impact on the movie industry

Here's what is likely to change once Sora goes mainstream, and once other tools start to catch up.

• Increased Accessibility - Sora will lower the barrier to entry. Filmmaking could become more accessible to marginalized people. We may see an increase in the diversity of voices among new filmmakers.
• Increased Speed - making video in response to short prompts means Sora makes storyboarding easy. It will speed up pre-production. Faster production times will allow people to make more films at less cost.
• Innovation in Storytelling - any new technology creates new ways of doing, and new ways of thinking, that can enhance creativity. Sora allows a unique back-and-forth process, leading to new storytelling approaches. It's easy to tweak prompts and get immediate feedback.
• Ethical Considerations - there are natural concerns about AI's ability to reduce the need for human creators, and potential job loss as a result. People are also concerned about the idea of 'deep fake' content, particularly surrounding elections. These are all things that OpenAI will be considering in this current phase of safety testing.

Will Sora destroy Hollywood?

No, but it is set to have an earth-shattering impact on Hollywood and the movie industry as a whole … eventually.

Sora, along with other AI tools, will alter roles within production teams. It will blur the lines between writers, directors, and visual artists. Sora offers potential for partnerships between humans and AI, opening the door to new and innovative film experiences.

It's difficult to say how movie production in Hollywood will be affected. It seems likely that Ai in general will help streamline many processes, making movie production faster, and more efficient. However, the production pipeline as a whole is a complex beast, with many moving parts.

Bindu Reddy, CEO of Abacus.AI, said, "Sora won't be replacing motion pictures… All this tech will likely help make movies much better. There may be more and more AI-generated clips, and AI will be used to enhance different scenes."

Is there a risk of market saturation caused by the relative ease and speed of content creation using Sora? That seems unlikely. Perhaps in terms of short advertising clips, but for full-length movies there are too many complex components for a single tool to rock the boat too much.

A positive future

Let's celebrate the opening up of a previously closed world. Let's welcome Sora on behalf of the disadvantaged, marginalized filmmakers who will have chances most of us never dreamed of.

"Artificial intelligence is not a substitute for human intelligence; it is a tool to amplify human creativity and ingenuity." -  Fei-Fei Li, Co-Director of Stanford's Human-Centered AI Institute.

Part 2: Sora and UPDF AI - Short-Form Content's Power Duo

So, we've seen how Sora works to create short films based on user-provided text prompts. We've also looked at its limitations as far as Hollywood and the filmmaking industry as a whole are concerned.

Sora is unlikely to destroy Hollywood any time soon, nor is it likely to put people out of jobs in its current form.

Now let's take a look at how most of us will be using it - combining it with other tools to create short-form content.

That's where UPDF AI comes in.

Sora can create amazing video content, but it's only as good as the prompts you feed it, and that's a skill all on its own. If you're using AI for short-form storytelling by converting text to video with AI, such as TikToks, Reels, or advertising content, you'll find UPDF AI a crucial addition - it offers a free trial and users can click the download button below to get.

5 Benefits of using UPDF AI to create video with Sora

How can you use UPDF AI every step of the way to help you create better, more effective short-form content, faster?

1. Brainstorming - use the Chat tool at the idea generation stage to brainstorm story ideas, dialogue prompts, and character suggestions.
   
   In short-form content, you need to capture attention in seconds. Bouncing ideas back and forth with UPDF AI can help you distill your ideas and create concise, striking concepts.

2. Writing - getting the initial idea sorted is the first step, but then you need to write a script compressing all your key ideas into a 90-second TikTok or Reel.
   
   As anyone who's ever tried to cut words out of an essay to make it fit the required word count knows, writing concisely is hard. UPDF AI can help here too.
   
   Start with a simple prompt and see what it comes up with. You could download UPDF right now and play with this for yourself.

3. Content refinement - getting that first draft out feels like a pretty big milestone, but there's still plenty of work beyond this point.
   
   UPDF AI can write dialogue variations, include references to products, and adjust script length as desired.
   
   Using an AI tool like this lets you create the best version of your script before moving onto the next stage. It also speeds up the iteration process, shortening the feedback loop between different versions of the script.
4. Tailoring content for different platforms - another way UPDF AI helps with short-form film content is in helping you tweak the basic version to better suit different platforms.
   
   Whether you want to adjust the tone of your script, making it funnier, more serious, or more appropriate for children, UPDF AI can help. You can also use it to write captions or suggest hashtags - tasks which always take longer than you think.

5. Speed and efficiency - the combination of UPDF AI and Sora allows for faster pre-production and scripting, which lets you focus on the more creative aspects of short-form content creation such as the directing and editing. Let AI tools free you up to do the tasks that need that human touch.
   
   Instead of making one video and blasting it across your social media, you'll use the same time to produce videos that target different platforms. Doing this could help you reach new audiences without additional effort or cost.

Final Words on Sora

Hopefully we've addressed the question of "Will Sora destroy Hollywood?"

We don't think Hollywood needs to worry too much about Sora right now. It isn't capable of replacing any of the people involved at any stage of movie production or pre-production.

What it will do is make it much easier for people to create short-form video content. Combined with other tools, such as UPDF AI, Sora can make this process easier, more efficient, and less costly than it currently is.

While you're waiting for Sora's public release, why not pick up UPDF AI and start building your brainstorming and scriptwriting skills?