Indonesia’s film industry is rapidly adopting generative AI tools to create high-quality productions at a fraction of traditional costs. Filmmakers use technologies like Sora, Runway, Midjourney, and ChatGPT to streamline labor-intensive tasks, Linda Yulisman reports for Rest of World.
The country’s film sector generated over $400 million in box office sales in 2023, making it Southeast Asia’s fastest growing market. About 40,000 people worked in the industry in 2020, and many now use AI for scripting, image generation, and video editing.
VFX artist Amilio Garcia Leonard says AI tools cut his draft editing time by 70%. “We should not avoid AI. We befriend AI to maximize our basic skills, to speed up and augment our work,” he says. His colleague Maximillian Budihardjo uses AI for first edits before manually refining the results.
The Indonesian Film Producer Association supports AI adoption to emulate Hollywood quality. Indonesian films typically cost 10 billion rupiah ($602,500), less than 1% of major Hollywood productions. Industry leaders say AI will help bridge this gap.
However, the technology is displacing workers. Storyboarders, scriptwriters, and visual effects artists are losing jobs as studios reduce hiring. VFX artist Ignatius Krismawan has cut his team after switching to AI, particularly for tasks like rotoscoping.
Scriptwriter Bayu Kurnia Prasetya uses AI for brainstorming and structure but refuses to let it write his scripts. “Film is an art. It should have the raw side, emotions expressed by a human being,” he says.
The Bali AI International Festival showcased 86 AI film submissions this year, up from 25 just months earlier.
