Monday, September 22, 2025
AI and Screenwriting at DePaul University
Filmmaker Magazine: Sometime last year, Matt Quinn took an excerpt from a script he’d written and put it into an AI image generator to create a character. The associate professor of screenwriting, who also serves as associate dean for student affairs and director of L.A. programs at DePaul University’s School of Cinematic Arts, feels that it is his job to stay current with new technologies.
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4 comments:
I really have mixed feelings about this article, I think that while AI can provide useful information, specifically for these creative fields it should be centered around the self and the thought process associated with that. This is what makes work unique. While this can get the brain moving, it is important to remember that AI is simply spitting back out what has been recorded and plugged into it, so it is ideas that are recycled back out into the algorithm once more. Of course I understand why certain programs are trying to move forward with this (I can understand coming from a heavy tech based school, specifically in the innovation of AI) and the integration aspects of it all, but still I really don’t believe that this has any place in film brainstorming and script creation. That is what makes the industry difficult, that's what makes writing difficult. That's what a writers room is, collaboration.
I agree and disagree with the comments and sentiment this article conveys in a few different ways. I think it is important to understand how and where AI can and (key word) should be used in fusion in our industry. It feels ignorant to completely turn a blind eye to it as it will become another standard tool in every industry and if you don’t know how to make it adaptable in your job I think people will find a way to have it take over your job instead (as much as I hate that). What I don't think that applies to is the creative aspects of the industry, you do not need AI to populate a character picture, find an artist or draw them as all the AI is doing is stealing from artists and populating something that is soulless and not very accurate anatomically. But I do think there are applications for good that it can be used by, and the only way to find those out are to try it out.
TAKE A DRAWING CLASS. I mean… Hey… what if we consider the environmental impact of the technology we’re using and perhaps use different tools to better ensure artistic integrity… Just an idea. To an extent I understand the ise of AI as exclusivley a tool, but an uneccisary one in my book. As someone attending a University that was basically the birthplace of AI, I don’t agree that it is a tool we need to be using for the arts. If you can’t visualise a character you created and draw it yourself then work on that. If you make the robots do it then the work is not your own anymore. Perhaps I’m biased because I was also rejected from DePaul the same day I got accepted into CMU but I truly don’t think AI is the answer, I don’t think there’s any way to integrate AI in a way that maintains 100% authentic creative liberty to the user. Granted, I haven't taken an AI class and don’t plan on it so I don’t know for sure, but I can assume that everything we are taught to communicate to AI technology is something we could also learn to do ourselves.
While I personally disagree with the use of artificial intelligence and generative AI in creative endeavors, I am not blind to the need to keep up with the new and everchanging technologies and services that will come out following the growing accessibility of generative artificial intelligence. I think the push to use generative artificial intelligence in the arts speaks to the larger conflict of arts, entertainment, and capitalism at hand. I think there is a lot of grey area when it comes to what we do in theater and how we stay authentic to the different purposes of art as both a creative and expressive medium as well as a form of mass entertainment. I often feel conflicted about the work I do in theater, as I find myself trying to balance my ideas of expression as a designer and managing budgets and making sure the content I produce is able to sell well and break even. I don’t like what DePaul is doing, however I see how it is necessary in this ever-changing landscape of technology.
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