Martin Scorsese uses AI for filmmaking

Martin Scorsese has become one of the most high-profile Hollywood directors to publicly embrace artificial intelligence, announcing a partnership with AI company Black Forest Labs that will see him use the technology to create storyboards.

The 82-year-old Oscar winner will serve as an advisor to the research lab, and has already begun testing its FLUX image generation technology during pre-production. 

In a statement released on Tuesday, Scorsese framed his interest in AI not as a departure from his values as a filmmaker, but as a continuation of his longstanding engagement with new tools. 

“For 70 years, I’ve been creating my own storyboards. There’s always been this problem of how do you communicate what you see in your head to your cast and crew,” he said. 

“There are some things you have to see and feel. I’m interested in the intersection of technology and storytelling, and seeing how that can push the bounds of creativity to create deeper and richer experiences for audiences. Remember, cinema is a young medium, only around 125 years old, so we have to be open to how it can evolve.”

He drew a direct line between this move and his previous technological experiments, the use of 3D in Hugo and de-aging technology in The Irishman. 

For Scorsese, the appeal of AI storyboarding is fundamentally practical.

“Now, with this tool, I can share what I’m visualizing more clearly and efficiently to my creative team, the production designer, art designer, and cinematographer, for them to build on to enrich cinematic intelligence,” he said. 

“During the pre-production process, time costs money, and this allowed us to move faster without sacrificing quality or craft.” 

He also noted what the technology means for the people around him: “If you have a tool like this, you could figure it out much much quicker and you could save production time, and also less wear and tear on the crew.”

The announcement places Scorsese alongside James Cameron, who joined the board of AI firm Stability AI last September, as one of the more prominent voices in Hollywood willing to engage with the technology rather than resist it.