Artificial intelligence at the service of local series

Long demonized, artificial intelligence is put at the service of Quebec TV series. Fictions like The emperor, A criminal case And Indefensible are already using it. For all kinds of reasons.

This is what we learned on Wednesday 24^e annual congress of the Association québécoise des productions medias (AQPM), organized in Saint-Hyacinthe. During a panel discussion, producers Sophie Deschênes and Laurence Deschênes-Tremblay, from Sovimage (Before the crash, Miscellaneous facts), presented their observations after testing various artificial intelligence (AI)-based tools.

The pair had undertaken the same exercise the previous year, using ChatGPT to arrange filming schedules, an often complex and laborious task, resembling a puzzle, due to the availability of actors and technicians, locations , etc. The results, however, turned out to be inconclusive. The calendars had several errors.

Twelve months later, the new experiments gave more convincing results. On A criminal case, an anthology detective series broadcast on Noovo, artificial intelligence came to save the furniture in post-production, to “clean” the ambient noises of an important scene. The sequence was filmed at the water’s edge, during a particularly busy day for maritime traffic. Consequence: we could hear the boats rumbling when the actors delivered their lines.

After trying to fix the problem in different ways, the team used an AI plugin, and a few minutes later, it was done. . “This thing saved the whole scene,” commented Sophie Deschênes.

“If we had had artificial intelligence when we were filming The countries above, it would have made our lives easier, added the producer. Every time a plane passed, we had to stop everything. Because in a vintage series, you’re not supposed to hear a plane flying! »

AI has also proven useful on The emperor, to correct, in post-production, a scene in which a character pronounced a fictitious business name that had to be changed, since it had not passed the lawyer’s test, because it already existed. In 30 seconds, ChatGPT generated five valid substitution options, which respected the number of syllables of the term initially entered (a prerequisite, since it was a close-up and we could see the lips of the term). actress move).

Episode summaries

Taking care to obtain authorization from the people concerned, Sovimage also carried out tests to concoct summaries of episodes ofBefore the crash with generative AI. After a few unsuccessful attempts, Laurence Deschênes-Tremblay found a paid program capable of synthesizing an hour of series in a few sentences.

Sovimage is not the only production company interested in artificial intelligence. Pixcom (Alerts) already uses it to generate summaries of episodes ofIndefensible, confirms its first vice-president, content and creation, Charles Lafortune. The company also uses it to transcribe and synthesize brainstorming sessions, an experiment that Sovimage has attempted with varying degrees of success using the programs MeetGeek, Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

Upcoming training

The use of artificial intelligence should gain ground in television in the coming months, since the National Institute of Image and Sound (INIS) will offer in a few weeks a first training course to “demystify” this technology , Did we learn.

“Given the questions that artificial intelligence generates in our environment, we wish to show, in general, what types of uses we can make of it,” specifies the general director of the educational establishment, Jean Hamel, attached on the phone.

For the INIS, this is a first step in anticipation of more specialized workshops which will be given next fall. “We have the mandate to develop training that can be useful to several players in the audiovisual sector: producers, screenwriters, technicians, directors,” indicates Jean Hamel.

The initiative is already generating a lot of interest, notably at KOTV (Zenith, The eye of the storm). The company’s general director, Louis-Philippe Drolet, plans to include a few people, not to “replace humans”, but to “accelerate and optimize certain processes”.

Bad press

Artificial intelligence has not always had good press in recent years. It also found itself at the heart of the strikes in Hollywood in 2023. On the side of the screenwriters as well as on the side of the actors, there were fears that it would be used abusively and that it would endanger jobs.

The INIS believes it has a role to play in this discussion. “It’s a tool with which we will have to work,” emphasizes Jean Hamel. We want to show the best practices to adopt. »

Despite some conclusive experiments, producer Sophie Deschênes admits to still fearing artificial intelligence today. “I remain cautious,” says the president of Sovimage in an interview. It can help us in certain situations. It can give us ideas for perfecting our methods and saving time, but I think that humans will always have to go back to it. And for anything related to creation, I say no thanks.

“Our authors are talented. They have good ideas. »

The hosting costs for this report were paid by the AQPM, which had no right to review the content of this article.