The AI Chair at the HFF was founded in May 2022. In this time some people could not imagine that AI could be used in films. Even if insiders were able to generate texts and images, the topic had not yet reached the public. This changed suddenly with the release of ChatGPT. The fact that our chair was set up at an early stage was possible thanks to the Bavarian High-Tech Agenda, which created numerous AI chairs at Bavarian universities.
AI can be used in many areas of film production and there are many tools, which are interesting for film students. In addition, many AI areas are relevant: text and image generation, additionally generation of videos, 3D and audio. Also, data analysis is important in the film industry. In addition to teaching, we work on research projects that are located between technology and media professionals and evaluate AI tools in the area of media production.
In our talk, we would like to present our experiences of two years of AI teaching and research at a film university, the tools that we use in teaching and additionally some results that the students achieved with them. Nevertheless, disruptions in the cinema are not only caused by AI but also by other technologies such as virtual production, volumetric recording and playback, cloud-based workflows or new archiving and distribution formats. To address these challenges, HFF founded the CreatiF Centre in 2023. We want to present how we managed to set up this unique institution as a result of the federal competition “Innovative Hochschule”. We discuss how we will test and develop new technologies for film and film education in a real lab.
