4 min read
A haunting scene unfolds: a US stealth bomber cuts through a dusky sky toward Iran, while in Tehran, a lone woman distributes food to stray cats amid ruins left by Israeli airstrikes. Though it looks like polished documentary footage, it’s all synthetic and produced entirely by AI.
This striking “rough cut,” titled Midnight Drop, runs 12 minutes and was created by directors Samir Mallal and Bouha Kazmi. Based on snippets of news, namely, “a woman who walked the empty streets of Tehran feeding stray cats,” the filmmakers used artificial intelligence to craft a cinematic narrative that rivals Hollywood visuals.
A Paradigm Shift in Film Production
With lightning speed and cinematic flair, AI-generated videos like this are turning heads across the industry.
Veteran producer Richard Osman remarked:
“That’s the end of one part of entertainment history and the beginning of another.”
He added on The Rest is Entertainment podcast:
“TikTok, ads, trailers – anything like that – I will say will be majority AI-assisted by 2027.”
Mallal, known for projects for Samsung and Coca-Cola, labels his work “cinematic news.” Midnight Drop follows Spiders in the Sky, a film recreating a Ukrainian drone strike, all filmed and edited solo using AI.
He emphasizes, “Using AI, it should be possible to make things that we’ve never seen before… We’ve never seen a cinematic news piece before turned around in two weeks.”
The Tools Behind the Magic
The secret lies in Google’s film-making tool Flow, powered by the AI engine Veo3, which generates visuals, sound design, and ambient audio. Spiders in the Sky was built using Veo3 and other AI tools, with scripting, voiceover, music, and even ChatGPT-assisted interview editing rounding out the final output.
Mallal and Kazmi are now working on a longer version of Midnight Drop, expected to be released in August. They’re combining Veo3 with OpenAI’s Sora and Midjourney, aiming to challenge Hollywood’s traditional timelines.
Mallal has embraced what he calls “prompt craft,” fine-tuning AI-generated camera angles and lighting in moments.
“I’m deep into AI… I’ve never produced anything creative from that. Then Veo3 comes out, and I said, ‘OK, finally, we’re here.’”
As AI-generated content flourishes, copyright concerns intensify.
Mallal advocates for “a broadly accessible and easy-to-use programme where artists are compensated for their work.”
Meanwhile, critics like Beeban Kidron warn: tools built on creators’ work must ensure “Creators need equity in the new system or we lose something precious.”
YouTube, for its part, maintains that its terms permit using content to train AI, though it denies indiscriminate data usage.
Industry Impact: Marketing, Advertising, Entertainment
Generative AI tools such as Veo3 are poised to revolutionize advertising. David Jones, CEO of Brandtech Group, predicts:
“Today, less than 1% of all brand content is created using gen AI. It will be 100% that is fully or partly created using gen AI.”
Even giants like Netflix are experimenting, recently integrating AI into a TV show for the first time. Meanwhile, Richard Osman’s forecast suggests a rapid shift toward AI-assisted content, with the majority of fast-turnaround media projects embracing machine help by 2027.
The Road Ahead: Fast Culture vs. Slow Studios
Mallal captures the moment best:
“You can make really good stuff at a high level – but fast, at the speed of culture. Hollywood, especially, moves incredibly slowly.” With AI, “The creative process is all about making bad stuff to get to the good stuff. We have the best bad ideas faster. But the process is accelerated with AI.”
Summary
AI video tools like Veo3 and Flow are ushering in a new era of ultra-fast, high-quality content production. Whether it’s cinematic news, ads, or entertainment, they promise speed, creative flexibility, and democratization. But as AI becomes ubiquitous, the industry must address critical copyright and compensation challenges to protect creators.
