Prediction: A.I. Will Not Replace Hollywood Filmmaking

An Anti-Inflammatory

Still from a production with my CineDance class, at CalArts. Photo by Josh S. Rose, 2025.

I’m not a Hollywood insider, have never been in a union and you won’t find my name in the credits of any Hollywood production. So, what do my thoughts on A.I. and filmmaking have to do with anything? Well, I’m exactly the person who would make a movie on my own, given the opportunity. I’ve lived on the outskirts of filmmaking, known as “indie filmmaking,” as a teacher of dance filmmaking as well as a pretty busy cinematographer, working across everything from music videos to commercials to dance films. I also wrote and directed a short film that recently made it into the festival circuit.

With this outsider filmmaker as a backdrop, I’ve learned a good cross-section of skills. I can write a story, storyboard it out, direct, shoot, light and edit. And so the only limits to my ability to create a feature film appear to be exactly the things that A.I. provides: talent, location, production-heavy shots and effects.

But I’m also close enough to Hollywood filmmaking (fourth generation Los Angeleno) to know that while A.I. is incredibly impressive in what it can do, we spend far too little time talking about what it can’t do. Or, more specifically, what humans can do, that A.I. can’t.