Barbara Ford Grant: “A lot is happening behind closed doors”

IBC

In a world where production capability is ubiquitous and content costs nothing, creative vision is the only thing that matters, according to VFX pioneer and Hollywood consultant Barbara Ford Grant.

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Barbara Ford Grant hasn’t wavered in her belief since making an experimental short film from scratch using AI tools a year ago.

“You don’t prompt your way into a movie,” she says. “You build workflows and pipelines. You layer AI into existing processes. What worries me most is that there’s still not enough understanding of how much AI is already integrated into everything we do.”

A creative technologist who began her career as a digital artist before leading award-winning teams, and projects including Game of Thrones, Alice in Wonderland, and Shrek, Ford Grant is a pioneering technologist and creative executive whose advise is sought across Hollywood.

“When I entered the industry, computer graphics were the disruptive technology,” she says. “People were worried then because it displaced old methods — though many still exist, like stop motion and miniatures. But what CGI really unlocked was new storytelling. You couldn’t have made Toy Story, Jurassic Park, or Avatar before CGI. That’s what I hope we see again — entirely new forms of storytelling.”

Movie studios would like to do things better, faster and cheaper - or at least two of the three.  Ford Grant only sees a race toward faster and cheaper. “I’m not seeing enough focus on using these tools to make content more interesting, to truly empower talent or push culture forward.”

Currently a consultant to Paramount and board member of Sohonet, Grant has been an AI technologies strategy consultant to Marvel Studios and held key executive leadership roles at HBO, DreamWorks Animation, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Digital Domain and Walt Disney Studios. She was the first woman chair of the Academy’s 95-year-old Scientific and Technical Awards Committee (2018-2024) and is a member of both the Television Academy and the Motion Picture Academy.

“It’s pretty clear that the technical difficulty to produce content - moving images, convincing sound, plausible narratives - is evaporating fast,” she says. “What took weeks can now take minutes. What cost thousands can now cost tens. The industrial complex approach to production, which has been the gatekeeper for determining who gets a seat at the table for many decades, is dissolving. But you cannot train a model on vision and judgement that takes a lifetime to develop.”

This creates an interesting paradox that she believes will define the next era of filmmaking, “As content floods every available channel, the scarcity shifts entirely to the human capacities that determine whether any of it is worth watching.”

The power of creativity

On the plus side, the power of creativity has always been with artists. “The possibilities have never been greater for them to push limits. I would be surprised if studios don’t see enabling artists as morally imperative — and also strategically necessary. Not doing so would be an existential threat because others will step in.”

However, she urges artists to step up and let AI in. “Different parts of the ecosystem have different points of view about AI. Studios have one perspective. Artists have another. Early adopters have their own. It’s not even just about where you sit — it’s about how you visualise the role of these tools.

“Particularly on the artist side, there’s this notion of choosing to resist, or virtue signalling that they’re not participating,” she says. “But the fact is, AI is already embedded in how people consume entertainment, how content is marketed, how studios plan a ten-year slate or pipeline.

“I don’t think creatives should be forced to use AI but it already exists within the infrastructure, and that’s only growing. There are people who aren’t negotiating labour deals or representing unions, who are fully embracing these tools. They see this as a watershed moment — access to capabilities they didn’t have before. And they’re going to move at rapid speed, regardless of what legacy institutions do.”

One AI battle after another

In the U.S, actor’s union SAG AFTRA is renegotiating a new deal with the studios less than three years after the strikes that brought production to a halt.

GenAI was a hot topic then and is among the union’s priorities now. In the interim, studios have advanced their AI strategies including training models on in-house content libraries and promoting executives with an AI-first brief.

Lionsgate, for instance, tied the knot with AI firm Runway to develop ‘capital-efficient content creation opportunities’ and recently hired its first chief AI officer Kathleen Grace. She joined from Vermillio, a platform that helped content owners and talent track, authenticate and monetise the use of their work in AI models.

Disney recently inked a $1bn licensing deal with OpenAI allowing users to make content with Disney characters. Its new CEO Josh D’Amaro has vowed to integrate AI into production workflows, albeit doubling down on artist creativity as the company’s strongest selling point.

“After the last strike, a lot of people left the industry and won’t return,” says Ford Grant who is not involved in negotiations. “Some of that work isn’t coming back. Arguably YouTube was the only winner.

“I hope that unions think strategically about their future role in entertainment, rather than trying to claw back leverage that may no longer exist. They need to understand what AI is, where it’s going, what they can control, and what value they uniquely offer.”

Practical lessons in AI
With the 2023 strikes, Ford Grant found herself with extra time and decided to make a short film to explore the possibilities and limitations of AI filmmaking.

“I’d been working on machine learning R&D for about 15 years, but once generative video tools like Midjourney came out, I wanted to play around with them unencumbered by the studio system.”

Under the banner of BFG Productions, she developed, wrote and produced a 22-minute film, Unhoused, on a shoestring $40,000 budget.  The majority of that was used to shoot the production traditionally with real actors on location with a union crew.

“Humans are still the best performers. You’ll still shoot practical photography. But if you want to accelerate how you blend that footage with generative content — matching colour, lensing, camera movement — what does that workflow look like? That’s what I’ve focused on.”

She incorporated different models into different parts of the process, including writing software to connect practical production with generative compositing.

“Foundation models are stabilising. What matters now is what you build on top such as LoRAs (Learnable, Reversible, and Adjustable operations), ControlNets (which gives precise control over AI image generation) and custom workflows. I’m also exploring tools like Cursor, Cloud, Figma — asking what the ‘new studio’ looks like.”

The immediate future of production won’t be purely generative. “It will be hybrid — traditional VFX combined with generative techniques,” she says. “A lot is happening behind closed doors. AI is being discussed everywhere.  What we see publicly right now is mostly demo material. The most promising work I’ve seen privately involves animation and non-photorealistic character work.”

Future of cinema

She worries for that cinema could atrophy unless there’s innovation in its production and presentation.

“Someone once said cinema risks becoming like opera; it will still exist, but for a nostalgic, aging audience. I hope it retains enough revenue to remain a meaningful distribution model, not something supported by benefactors.”

Immersive multi-sensory experiences designed for venues like Sphere or Cosm could be an salvation. Crucially, they are also communal experiences. Cosm call it Shared Reality.

Ford Grant, who once worked at immersive art project Meow Wolf, says connected physical-digital narrative worlds have always inspired her.

“Game of Thrones (on which she also worked) came close with its world-building across series, podcasts, VR and live activations. The next step is connecting those experiences in real time across locations. Imagine being in Cosm in Los Angeles and feeling connected to someone experiencing it in Barcelona. We’re not fully there yet technologically. But it’s coming.”

As keyed into technology as she is, Ford Grant maintains that storytelling is nothing without human taste and judgement and it is this curation which she sees as the most rewarding role for creatives.

“Creativity is the accumulated judgment that comes from years of sitting in the back of screenings watching how people respond, understanding why one cut lands emotionally and another dies, recognising when something is technically correct but spiritually dead on arrival.”

Take the craft of the cinematographer. AI tools might help them test 30 filters instantly, emulate different lenses and explore visual ideas rapidly but it is their trained eye for an image in service of the story which should stand them in good stead in the era of instant image making.

“The individual impulse for an aesthetic and a sensibility is something that a model can’t predict. Then there’s the alchemy of the group. Filmmaking is a team sport in which each person brings expertise, instinct, and reaction to the material and the world around them. That creative mix is hard to program.

That’s why I’m excited that the playing field is levelling in a way that has the potential to reward the very thing we've always valued most - the quality of the idea, the depth of the vision, the truth of the telling. Not who has the biggest budget or the most expensive equipment, but who has something genuine to say and knows how to say it.”
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