Kling AI Panels Cannes on Faster, Cheaper Film Making
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- Kling AI hosted a Cannes Marche panel where three filmmakers from the U.S., China and South Korea discussed AI‑assisted filmmaking.
- Jon Erwin of Wonder Project explained that his series The Old Stories: Moses went from concept in January to filming in March and the first episode released in the U.S., using AI video generation with performance capture, virtual production and VFX to cut production time and cost.
- Wei Li described that his animated feature Born Of The Tides combines AI tools with traditional animation, shortening the schedule to two‑thirds of a conventional timeline while still using conventional methods.
- Eekjun Yang said his sci‑fi action feature Raphael relies on about a dozen Kling AI tools, allowing a seven‑person team to produce a film that would otherwise need 150‑300 crew members and a budget up to $2 million.
- Kling AI owned by Chinese tech giant Kuaishou, operates a text‑to‑video platform launched in June 2024, upgraded more than 30 times, now supporting native 4K output and used by roughly 60 million creators in 224 countries.
- Wonder Project maintains a multi‑year partnership with Amazon MGM Studios, streams originals on Prime Video, and recently partnered with AI startup Luma to launch Innovative Dreams.
- The panel noted that while AI eases large‑scale scenes such as battles, it still struggles with close‑up emotional moments, with AI‑generated clips limited to about 15 seconds for such scenes.
Why it matters: AI tools let filmmakers produce feature‑length content in weeks with a fraction of the crew and budget, as shown by Wonder Project’s three‑person team and Raphael’s seven‑person crew versus traditional hundreds‑person, multi‑million‑dollar productions. This reshapes film economics, expanding access for creators while reducing demand for large production staffs.
