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Exploring the Future of Filmmaking with AI
Some days, Aleksi Hyvärinen feels excited about the possibilities that artificial intelligence brings to the world of filmmaking. Other days, he finds himself questioning whether these advancements are truly beneficial. This mix of optimism and concern was central to a two-day workshop at this year’s Amman International Film Festival, where Hyvärinen led a session titled “AI and Filmmaking: A Grounded Guide.” As a producer and co-founder of The Alchemist, a Nordic creative studio that merges storytelling with AI to create emotionally intelligent content for film, TV, and branded media, Hyvärinen focused on the broader implications of AI rather than technical details.
The workshop aimed to foster meaningful discussions about the role of AI in storytelling, rather than diving into coding or software demonstrations. “It turned into two days of discussion,” Hyvärinen recalls. “We didn’t focus on generating videos or learning software. That’s not where the real urgency lies. What people needed was context, grounding, and space to reflect.”
Hyvärinen has conducted similar sessions across Europe, including in Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, the Netherlands, and now Jordan. While each group brings different cultural perspectives, the reactions tend to be consistent: some are eager to embrace AI, others are skeptical, and most fall into the grey zone, trying to navigate the uncertainty.
One key takeaway from the workshop is that participants consistently express a desire to learn more about AI. Whether they love it or fear it, they recognize that it is here to stay. Anwaar Al-Shawabkeh, a Jordanian filmmaker, shared her experience: “Before the workshop, I had a medium level of familiarity with AI tools, mostly out of curiosity. But those two days truly shifted my perception! After going through the tools with Aleksi, I felt it had become true and there is no way to avoid it.”
Al-Shawabkeh was particularly struck by how casually participants referred to AI as “he.” “It made me reflect on how this technology might evolve, and how our kids may see it entirely differently. No one asked us if we wanted this change and no one will. It’s coming!”
Despite her ethical concerns, especially around the lack of clear terms in creative industries, Al-Shawabkeh sees AI as a natural next step. She compares it to past technological shifts, such as the transition from red editing rooms to digital workflows. “What used to take hours will soon be done with one click. I plan to use AI in my future work. With careful thought and experience, I believe it will enhance the creative process in powerful ways.”
Her advice to fellow indie filmmakers is simple: “Don’t panic. AI is just a new tool. We need to explore both its strengths and limitations to truly understand its place in our work, and in the world to come.”
How AI Is Reshaping Workflow
One of the workshop’s main goals was to demystify how AI is being used in filmmaking and to distinguish between what is possible now and what remains hype. Participants explored tools like Google Veo and Google Flow, as well as 4D Gaussian Splatting, which allows filmmakers to create 3D environments from just a few flat images. “You can shoot a simple 2D scene,” Hyvärinen explains, “and later reframe it, change the camera angle, zoom in. It becomes a full 3D model.”
But it wasn’t just the flashy tools that captured attention. A significant part of the workshop focused on non-generative AI, which helps organize and accelerate existing workflows rather than creating new media. For example, AI can assist in de-rushing 300 hours of raw documentary footage or automatically cataloging dialogue and scenes. “It’s often overlooked in the ethical conversation,” Hyvärinen says. “While non-generative AI tools aren’t free from ethical or copyright concerns, they typically don’t carry the same weight or creative implications as generative AI.”
However, Hyvärinen acknowledges that AI could impact entry-level jobs, such as assistant editors, by making certain tasks cheaper and faster. “It’s not necessarily better, it’s just cheaper and faster. And that’s usually how the world works.”
Authorship and Control in the Age of AI
The question of authorship also resonated with participants, especially regarding control over the creative process. Mohammed AlQaq, a Palestinian-Jordanian artist and filmmaker, initially believed he would only use AI to save time, not creativity. “I wanted to use it only to save time, but not to save my creativity,” he said. However, by the end of the workshop, his perspective had shifted slightly. “I still hold that opinion, but I’ve also changed. I realized that even in creative work, I can still be in control.”
AlQaq pushed back against those who feared AI’s role in filmmaking, calling their concerns dramatic. “There’s no need to be afraid. This is a tool, not a threat.” Still, he acknowledged ongoing concerns about copyright and the potential for AI to deceive users. “I’ll continue to have concerns about copyright, and I’ll always have questions filled with fear: Will I truly own all the rights? Will these tools one day deceive me and say I have to pay huge sums to obtain them?”
His takeaway was clear: “AI is just another tool, an assistant, and I will always be the director.”
AI as a Cost-Cutter in Budget-Constrained Industries
When asked where he draws the line between assistance and authorship, Hyvärinen cited Finnish writer Katri Manninen, who compares AI to having a human assistant in a Hollywood writers’ room. “If you’d credit a human for that level of input, then AI shouldn’t be doing it either,” he says. “You can’t let it cross that creative line.”
That said, he uses AI often as a brainstorming partner. “It’s amazing at surfacing ideas quickly. But once you dig in, you see it’s generic. There’s no voice. No point of view. Storytelling is all about point of view.”
Coming from Finland, Hyvärinen is no stranger to budget constraints. He believes indie filmmakers might benefit the most from AI, provided they approach it strategically. “There are stories we never even pitched because we knew we couldn’t afford them,” he says. “Now? Maybe we can. Maybe we don’t need $10 million. Maybe we can make it for $500K and still pull it off.”
Looking ahead to 2029, Hyvärinen envisions a split in the industry: high-end, handcrafted cinema on one end, and fast-turnaround, AI-enhanced content on the other. “We might be shooting actors in green screen studios, generating environments, tweaking wardrobe, faces, dialogue, even camera angles. All of that in post-production.”
Still, he believes core creative work—acting, direction, and story—will remain human. “But the rest? Location scouting, production design, maybe even some editing, that’s going to shift.”
While he compares the shift to past transformations like digital cinematography and nonlinear editing, he admits it won’t be smooth. “It’s going to be partly great and partly painful. Like the internet in the 2000s, or electricity in the early 1900s, we can guess a few things, but we have no idea what’s really coming.”
