Sora Shorts and its Debut
For the first time ever, AI-generated short films are going to be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival. On 31st May 2024, Tribeca Festival announced to showcase of five original short films which are made with the help of the AI model “Sora” developed by OpenAI. Sora is an advanced revolutionary video generation AI model that has the capability to convert written texts to video clips up to one minute in length. However, this tool is still in the extensive testing phase to ensure its safety and effectiveness, focusing on the cautious approach.
Currently, OpenAI is granting early access to this technology to the selected content creators involving the designers, visual artists, and filmmakers to receive feedback from them regarding Sora’s creative potential for the purpose of further improving this creative application. In the month of May, the first official music video of the filmmaker Paul Trillo, titled “The Hardest Part”, was released on YouTube, which was entirely made through the usage of OpenAI’s Sora.
Introducing Sora, our text-to-video model.
Sora can create videos of up to 60 seconds featuring highly detailed scenes, complex camera motion, and multiple characters with vibrant emotions. https://t.co/7j2JN27M3W
Prompt: “Beautiful, snowy… pic.twitter.com/ruTEWn87vf
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) February 15, 2024Jane Rosenthal, the co-founder and CEO of Tribeca Enterprises, said that Tribeca always emphasises the foundational belief of inspiring change through storytelling. According to him, stories help human beings to make a wonderful and better world, and they gain access to these stories in various forms, including feature films, artworks, games, audio storytelling, and even in the form of AI generated short films. The Tribeca festival, which is going to be celebrated between 5th to 16th June this year in New York City, provides an opportunity to assemble artists and diverse audiences together for the celebration of storytelling.
As an effort of this initiative, five filmmakers, including Bonnie Discepolo, Ellie Foumbi, Nikyatu Jusu, Reza Sixo Safai and Michaela Ternasky-Holland, were provided with an opportunity to create a short film with early access to OpenAI’s Sora. In this aspect, for the usage of AI, the filmmakers had to adhere to the norms of the agreements discussed with the DGA, WGA and SAG in 2023.
The COO of OpenAI, Brad Lightcap, said that they are eager to see the creativity of these five filmmakers with respect to the use of Sora at the Tribeca festival and are also excited to learn how they can further improve Sora for all the creatives. The AI-generated five films will be showcased on 15th June at the Tribeca Film Center Screening Room, followed by a conversation session with the filmmakers regarding storytelling in innovative ways and the importance of artists working on challenging ideas and pushing boundaries.
About the Filmmakers
Bonnie Discepolo
Bonnie Discepolo is a writer and director popular for works like “Grandma’s House”, “Give Me an A”, and “Neo Dome”. Discepolo’s films have debuted at Tribeca, Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Overlook Film Festival and many more. Apart from writing and directing, Discepolo has been seen as an actor in “Fire Country”, “Shazam: Fury of the Gods”, “Chicago Med”, and “Robert Rodriguez’s Hypnotic”.
Ellie Foumbi
Ellie Foumbi, an award-winning Cameroonian American filmmaker, was acknowledged as one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film as per Filmmaker Magazine. Ellie’s work often emphasises the exploration of the pressing social-political issues within the African diaspora to highlight the voice of marginalised populations. Some of the notable works of Ellie include “Our Father, the Devil”, “Zenith”, “No Traveler Returns” and “Uniform”.
Nikyatu Jusu
Nikyatu Jusu is recognised as an American independent writer, director, and permanent professor in the Film & Video department at George Mason University. Her short films were found to be screened at different festivals nationally and internationally. She is well known for works like “Suicide by Sunlight”, “Flowers”, “African Booty Scratcher”, and “Nanny”.
Reza Sixo Safai
Reza Sixo Safai is an Iranian-born American filmmaker, actor and producer who has captivated worldwide audiences with his bold, genre-defying works and storytelling. His films have gained critical acclaim and appreciation at numerous prestigious festivals such as Tribeca, Sundance, SXSW, and Cannes. His acclaimed filmography includes “Prisoners of the Ghostland”, “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”, “A Better Place Than This” and “Teacher in a Box”.
Michaela Ternasky-Holland
Michaela A. Ternasky-Holland is an Emmy and Webby award-winning director specialising in the making of socially impactful stories through the usage of cutting-edge and interactive technology. Some of the popular stories of Michaela include “Reimagined: Volume II: Mahal”, “Reimagined Volume III: Young Thang”, “Kapwa”, “Lutaw” and “Face to Face”.
