Russian Film Industry Discusses AI's Growing Role in Production, From Crowd Scenes to Script Breakdowns

At the annual Cinema Night event, Russian film studios and AI companies convened for an open session on generative AI's expanding role in production. Speakers from Soyuzmultfilm, AP Entertainment, Forge Cinema AI, and Magic Studio described practical applications including AI-generated backgrounds, crowd scenes, and character prototypes, as well as automated script breakdowns that can parse a screenplay into shot-level parameters in under two seconds. The hybrid production series Kaifsk. City of Gnomes was cited as a case study, combining live-action footage of human characters with fully generated gnome environments to ease audience acceptance of AI content.

Across the panel, speakers consistently framed AI as a collaborative tool rather than a creative replacement. Sergey Ryabov of AI Lab argued that generative cinema still demands filmmaking expertise, warning that access to AI tools alone cannot substitute for traditional production knowledge. Magic Studio co-founder Yulia Lipatova noted that while their software automates routine shot-breakdown work, human directors, screenwriters, and storyboard artists actively supervise every stage. Forge Cinema AI co-founders flagged the resource intensity of AI-assisted production, noting that up to 1,000 minutes of generated video may be needed to yield a single usable minute for an action scene.