‘Iron Man’ Cinematographer Matthew Libatique Says AI ‘Could Replace Marvel’ VFX, but They’ll Never ‘Use AI Actors’

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Stepping outside the airport in Mallorca, three-time Oscar-nominee cinematographer Matthew Libatique was taken aback by the light. He briefly delayed greetings so he could take it all in: the way the autumnal sun kissed baby-pink buildings and glistened against the island’s shores before setting behind the mountains.

This is an experience the veteran DP shared while speaking at Evolution Mallorca, the Spanish island’s leading film festival, where he is this year’s recipient of the Cinematography Icon Award.

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When taking into consideration how passionate Libatique seems to be about the natural, how is he dealing with the fast-paced changes brought by artificial intelligence? The matter seems even more pertinent to the cinematographer, whose longest creative collaborator is “Black Swan” director Darren Aronofsky. The “Noah” filmmaker launched AI studio Primordial Soup last year in collaboration with Google DeepMind and is currently heavily invested in understanding how the technology might shape the future of cinema.

Asked by Variety whether or not he and Aronofsky have spoken about how AI might affect their collaboration, Libatique says they are currently “testing” the technology ahead of shooting their next film together. “We’ve discussed it,” he says. “We’re doing a test soon. I have a belief that the more you give to the system, the more it’s gonna have what you’re looking for. He wants to see how little you can do; we both want to learn more about it.”

The “Iron Man” cinematographer adds that AI “won’t replace cinema.” “What it could replace is Marvel,” he adds, clarifying that the major studio and others like DC “make these giant films and technology is clearly a part of it.” “They make their movies for so much money, I can understand why, through visual effects, they are going to have to employ AI to curb some of their costs,” he goes on, noting how he doesn’t think, however, that Marvel “will ever use AI actors.”

“They’ve always been able to get a personality into the characters, whether it’s Chris Evans or Robert Downey Jr.; these people become these characters people fall in love with,” he says. “I don’t think there’s going to be a Tilly Norwood Batwoman or Black Widow. You can’t tell me you’re going to make an AI character that can do what Robert Pattinson does. You can’t.”

Libatique brings up Zach Snyder’s “300” as an example of a film that could become an AI product in today’s day and age. The 2006 epic was filmed almost entirely against green screens in a massive warehouse, with the creative team constructing almost all landscapes digitally. “It was basically our early AI movie. If you want your movie to look that way, go for it. But, again, how do we connect [to it] as humans? The audience for some of these films is really limited. It’s limited by age, gender, and also by social interaction.”

“Nobody’s going to make ‘Sentimental Value’ with AI,” he emphasizes. “So I would pump the brakes on the idea that it is going to replace us all, because I don’t think there is going to be a time when we as a society turn our backs on cinema because we need it.”

Returning to Aronofsky, while Libatique can’t reveal further details on their next project and the full extent AI will be used in it, he is adamant the film will remain “human.” “We’re gonna make it like a movie. We’re gonna stand on set. Darren is gonna get on his knees, and he’s gonna move everything around with his fingers, and he’ll do what he usually does. But it’s a different thing, the AI. I don’t think it’s replacing what he does, but he’s interested.”

The cinematographer says one of the things the duo is discussing is “using the camera the way we use the camera and then see what this technology can do.” “[Aronofsky] has been given money to be able to explore this, so I applaud him for that. I feel I need to understand it better. I think you have to.”

While Libatique is “annoyed” by conversations around the technology, he can also see its benefits. The maestro DP says he has used AI in post-production and can see it being helpful to his craft when it comes to correcting glare, for example. “The machine learning how to do that is helpful to me, rather than sending it to another country so that some people who are getting $2 an hour can do it,” he adds.

When prodded as to how the technology is stripping away jobs from post-production experts, Libatique is quick to recognize the harsh reality of that situation. “I feel for them,” he says. “It’s insensitive for me to revel in the fact that I can do some of the things in a room that we can do now because it definitely took some work away. But that work was taken away from people in our industry anyway, and it was given to basically sweatshops in other countries. I guess the question is when does it end? When does it start really replacing people? It’s a mental exercise to try to figure that out: when is the next shoe that’s going to drop that’s going to affect everyone?”

The cinematographer recently had a parallel experience with AI usage in filmmaking when he shot Dustin Yellin’s “Goodbye Lamby.” The short film sees the director use artificial intelligence to imagine a world within one of his most famous sculptures. “In the old days, if you wanted to do it, you could do it with stop motion animation,” says Libatique. “But because we now have this thing that everybody is so enamored of, they made it in AI. And it was relatively successful because you’re not dealing with reality there.”

Libatique was surprised when the person responsible for the AI prompting asked him to physically light a space for a scene before she could move on with her work. “I talked to the person doing the prompting; there were things that she needed physically from me for her to create a shortcut for prompting,” he notes. “It was easier to place a light in the hole in the roof than it is for her to try to convince [the machine] to do what she wants.”

The “A Star Is Born” cinematographer is also concerned with how AI “pulls its references” and issues of creative copyright. “On two occasions, someone has sent me AI videos where the machine was told to shoot in the style of Matthew Libatique,” he recalls. “How come everything I do is out for grabs? That’s absolutely offensive. I mean, I am flattered that somebody sent me this video, but it’s horrible.”

“I don’t have a distinctive style. I always try to find a story in what I do,” he goes on. “I don’t try to impose myself on a movie. I only impose myself in the sense that I’m trying to understand who the director I’m working with is so that I can use my skills to help that vision, whether it’s Olivia Wilde or Jodie Foster or Jon Favreau. AI is all the same; it’s so plastic. To take everything I’ve done and distill it into a style that is uniquely mine is completely incorrect.”

“The other thing is: who is in charge of prompting? Who has taste? The human element is what makes all films different,” he adds. “I already have a problem with how everything kind of looks the same [today]. Lighting has become homogeneous in films. Everything is like a Temu David Fincher. I see him over and over again because he’s such a visual reference for many of us. For me, what matters is the end result, and I haven’t seen anything created by AI that’s really impressed me – and I am not sure I will.”