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 “You know, I was just talking to a 22-year-old Saudi, a very promising, smart young woman who is studying cinematography and she said, ‘Based on your talk, should I quit my programme and find something else to do?’” says the director, Ali Ali. “And I told her, ‘That’s a very difficult question for me to answer, but probably by the time you graduate, things will have changed even more.’”

 It’s not long since the co-founder of Good People stepped off stage at the Athar Festival, and already the shockwaves are beginning to be felt. According to his keynote address, AI will kill the production shoot, sets will become obsolete, and actors will be replaced by AI-generated superstars—and much sooner than anticipated. Those superstars will be able to appear in multiple movies at once, simply because studios can license their likenesses.

 For anyone working in the production industry and paralysed by an overbearing sense of AI-related dread, Ali is not the man to talk to. Obsolescence is at the doorstep, he insists, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.

 “I’m not a conspiracy theorist in any form. I’m not an anti-vaxxer or 911 denier. But I am pessimistic about AI. Because I love the craft in our industry. Maged [Nassar, Good People’s co-founder] and I built a cinema for du. Today, that would never happen. Not only would it be built using AI, it’s gonna give you 100 options to choose from, art deco cinemas, baroque cinemas, Art Nouveau cinemas, anything you could possibly think of.”

 So, no more shoots?

 “There will be the odd film set, the odd shoot, but it will be like Gen Zers walking around with Polaroids today. Just the pure nostalgia. ‘Oh, we shot it on set, and there were real people, and we had a cinematographer, and, oh, wow, it’s gonna be so cool.’ I have a 16mm camera that I use every now and then, and I go to Berlin and try to find a lab to develop the film. The whole process is lovely, but it’s obviously incredibly needless, because I can recreate that look in a second on Adobe Premiere. So people will do it for fun or for the nostalgia that’s involved.”

 Conversations around AI’s impact on production bear a striking resemblance to those that emerged with the arrival of the Arri Alexa in 2010, says Ali, who has a slew of D&AD Yellow Pencils and Cannes Lions to his name. One of the first digital cameras to rival film quality, the Alexa transformed the industry, accelerating the decline of traditional cameras. Initially, however, production houses and DOPs debated whether to continue shooting on film or adopt the Alexa, which could save considerable time and money.

 “The same conversations are happening today. Are we going to shoot this? Or do we create it using AI? Are we going to build the background? Or do we just shoot it on a blue screen and generate the Atlantic Ocean with seagulls? It’s incredibly powerful, and it’s incredibly good. And it’s very infant stages, right? I mean, anybody who understands anything about technology—and I studied computer science—understands the trajectory… and the more we use it, the better it gets, because it’s learning from you all the time.”

Where does this leave film directors, cinematographers, producers, production designers, boom operators, and the myriad other roles impacted by the advance of AI? In somewhat of a pickle. The industry is being reshaped at a pace few anticipated, and many of the skills that once defined these professions are being questioned, automated, or sidelined altogether.

 New roles have emerged, of course, and not all AI is created equal. There is considerable demand for skilled prompters and AI researchers, for example. Those who know that Runway excels at certain types of visual generation, that Midjourney struggles with precise typography, and how to navigate new tools such as Google’s Nano Banana. “Some people are really good at this, because it’s a process, and most probably a good AI video or image will have gone through several or multiple tools,” explains Ali. “So it’s triple distilled. Like good vodka.”

 It’s not only the physical act of production that is affected; most creative scripts and references are now generated by AI. Ali views this as a sign of a deeper issue within the advertising industry, expressing nostalgia for the golden era of Fallon London, Mother, Adam & Eve, and Publicis Paris under Erik Vervroegen.

 “One thing that’s very evident to me is the death of the agency, or the death of the creative firepower in an agency… Regionally, I haven’t seen compelling creative ideas in a long time. All briefs are AI-powered, all references as well, and everyone expects you to replicate those references. The thing with AI is it creates imagery that’s right up the client’s alley, right? Clients have always been asking for this crisp, pristine cast, and AI delivers that perfectly. There’s no dirt. None of the dirt that we bring to the table. So clients are very happy when they see decks with AI imagery, and it’s all polished and glossy.”

 In this dystopian world, the implications stretch beyond the industry itself, touching on the very future of creative work.

 “I’m happy it’s not happening in my time, you know? I’ve had a good run, but I’m also upset for my daughter. I wanted her to be a cinematographer or a film director. If she ends up being a film director, it will probably be from behind a desk.”

 In a small act of rebellion, Ali and his co-founders continue to run Good People like a 90s production house. “We’re getting scripts, we’re happy, we’re shooting old school. We have cinematographers, we do cast and wardrobe, and until someone pulls the plug, we’re gonna enjoy it.”

Is this the last hurrah?

 “Yeah,” he replies. “But the last hurrah could last five years. We’re gonna go out having fun.”