(Cleveland, OH – August 01, 2024)
Associate Professor of Digital Filmmaking Brian Fuller addressed a session of the University Film and Video Association (UFVA) this week. Cleveland State University was this year’s host, choosing the theme “Rock On: Urban Resilience, Cinema, and Sustainability.”
Fuller moderated a Thursday panel entitled “The End of Creativity? The Pitfalls and Promise of Artificial Intelligence.” He shared the session with Andrew Millians of Lindenwood University in Missouri and Gabriel Paletz of the Prague Film School in the Czech Republic. The trio’s presentations focused on the use of artificial intelligence to teach film history, production, and screenwriting.
Fuller recounted for attendees his 2023 summer collaboration with PennWest Philm student Jared Bupp. The pair co-wrote the script for Glory Days, a narrative short about three men playing cards. He discussed in detail their use of Chat GPT as a research assistant. “An A.I. chatbot is great for juggling the mechanics of poker, for helping the characters accurately reminisce about immigration in the Ellis Island era, for digging up old baseball stories. It was even helpful suggesting films and television shows which feature poker playing. But it was lousy, and I mean lousy at actually generating dialogue.”
Bupp and Fuller worked on the script most of June 2023. It was ready for pre-production on the first day of the fall term. Students enrolled in ART4405, Narrative Filmmaking, produced Glory Days and The Damsel Trope during the semester and premiered both in December before entering the films in festivals and competitions.
A.I. was one of many subjects which figured heavily in the UFVA’s schedule of screenings, workshops, and presentations. “I always come back from conferences to Edinboro with such great ideas for classroom assignments and my own filmmaking scholarship. Having colleagues the world over is such an important resource for artists who teach.”