Well, I acknowledge that the above first three responses have good points, but I do not agree with the conclusions: I do not think what I have in mind will be impossible in the future. But perhaps I need to be clearer about what I have in mind. And, in fact, the above first three answers are helpful anyway, as they have made me focus on exactly what kind of process I am imagining.
I would now modify my original description of who might make such a film and say that the creator of the film would be be like an original screenwriter or a novelist,. I acknowledge that AI would create the film initially—or rather the scenes. But I think the way this would work is that the novelist would describe the scenery and action and characters (describe them either in writing or orally to the voice recognizable AI), as well as their character’s voices, as they would ordinarily in writing a novel, but might, even initially, be rather more descriptive than is usual in a novel. Then the AI program—with a more advanced voice-recognition capability, probably, than today—would create the scenes, characters, and voices only generically, to begin with. The novelist or screenwriter (lets just say novelist from here on, to make it shorter to refer to) would then elaborate or refine their description.
The process, conceptually, would be like when a witness describes to a police sketch artist a person involved in a crime that the witness was able to remember. The witness cannot draw in most cases, but when the sketch artist shows them what they have drawn so far, based upon the witnesses initial description, the witness might say that the subject’s mouth should be wider, or teeth were crooked, or hair or skin color was a different shade, or the person had a more narrow face, etc., etc.
The process would be like some people normally write, like I write, in fact, for any purpose in those cases where I ultimately want to make what is read look well, well composed, or make it clearer, for instance. ( I am not doing this much here, by the way: I likely won’t review this that much but mainly to just check for acceptable grammar and fix typos.) This method of writing is called—at least by me—“writing by iteration”. In other words you make a first attempt, you read what you wrote, then you change it. And you repeat this process over and over until you have as close to what you want as you think you can manage You do not have to be that good a writer, as long as you are a good critical reader. (So it’s the opposite to how, for example, Jane Austen was reported to have written—if I remember correctly—for supposedly she wrote whole novels straight off with little need for revision.)
In the case of the novelist converting their words into film, they would look and listen to what the AI generated on the screen, and then they would (probably orally) correct parts, perhaps just one detail at a time. They would then look at what the AI came up with in revision, after their correction—much as the witness to the crime looks at the sketch of the subject that the police artist drew and corrects it.
So, after many many “iterations”, i.e., after many cycles of correcting and presenting, by the novelist and the AI program, respectively, the film, including the scenery, the characters—how they look and sound and move—will start to conform more and more closely to what the novelist has in mind. At the end of the process, what is on the screen will be pretty much exactly what the novelist had—or then has—in mind,
For the novelist does not even have to have fleshed out completely everything in their mind at the beginning: They may decide (once they have viewed what the program produces) even decide that one look, of a character and scene, or the sound of voice, etc., would be better a different way than they might originally have imagined in their mind.
So, I repeat my question—but in particular for some who might have knowledge of the present state of computer technology or CGI, or animation in films, or voice synthesis, or whatever other technologies would be involved—and particularly if you agree with me that it should be possible some day in the future. Because, my interest is not in being told that it is impossible. (I appreciate, though, those opinions.) My interest is in hearing estimates—and the reasons for the particular estimate—from persons who think that this process is in principle possible and who may have the technical knowledge, in one or more of the above technologies, to give an estimate, as to how may years off we are from where this will be done successfully enough so that films as good as todays, and as realistic-looking as todays, could at least theory be made by a novelist.
A final explanation of why I am asking this question: When I watch films or situation series on TV, in the back (and sometimes even closer towards the front) of my mind, I still know that these are actors who are really, in most cases, completely different in character than the characters they are portraying. And the director, casting director, producer, or whoever, who hired these actors after many auditions assessing how each person looked and sounded and how closely they came to what they wanted to portray in the film, had to settle for one of the actors who was available.
Now this process is perfectly fine for film makers who want to make a collaborative production, who want their actors to give their interpretations and for their directors to add their own spin and creativity to the production. I am not knocking that process. It has made very many successful, enjoyable, important, and influential films. But it is not so ideal for a novelist who would like their exact conception to be expressed on the screen,.
For, in the past and in the present day, a novelist who sees their novel converted into a film, has to make the most compromises with the film’s producers, for so many reasons, e.g., to accept what a screenwriter and director think can be made into a marketable film, what the budget is to hire the actors they want, how the script needs to differ (in the producer’s or director’s opinion) from the (let’s suppose even especially successful) novel, etc. But if the novelist could express their story to begin with as a film, by talking to a (sketch-artist-like) AI program that would directly produce the needed CGI and sound/voices, and if they could, by the iteration process I have described, simply keep telling the AI how to change a bit this voice or that appearance or to tweak some action, over and over, through many cycles of iteration, then there would be an entirely renewed profession: the novelist-film maker. And I just happen to think that will happen someday!
But I would like, especially from those technically in the know—but also from anyone with the imagination—to receive some idea of how many years, or decades—or centuries (if that’s really what they think: my guess, as a layperson, is that it’ll be more like a decade or two)—it will take—based upon how advanced the relevant technologies are today, and upon how fast the expert things they might advance over the years
‘So, thanks, in advance, to anyone who would like to try to answer (guesstimate and answer to) this question.
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