Before the 1930s, Indian film actors sang ‘live’ during shoots, accompanied by musicians playing the tabla, sitar, accordion and all other instruments on a trolley. This cumbersome process changed with the advent of advanced sound-recording technology. Mukul Bose, a technician of New Theatres, Calcutta, pioneered the playback system in 1935. In the film ‘Bhagya Chakra,’ Bose recorded the songs separately and made the actors lip-sync them during shooting. Three years later, in 1938, K.L. Saigal was slated to use playback technology for the iconic song ‘Babul mora’ in ‘Street Singer’. Due to his resistance to new technology, K.L. Saigal insisted on singing live during the filming, forcing director Phani Majumdar to abandon the playback system for the film. The rest is history because the live performance of Saigal singing ‘Babul Mora’ in ‘Street Singer’ became iconic.

This anecdote illustrates a broader truth: throughout history, artists have often grappled with the arrival of new technologies, viewing them with scepticism, fear, or resistance. The tension arises not only from a fear of obsolescence but also from a deep connection to craft and artistic identity.

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In its one hundred thirty-odd years of history, cinema is poised for yet another technological revolution with rapid advancements in fields like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality and extended reality. Utilisation of this technology can change storytelling modes and alter movie-making processes. Curiously, both major movie production houses and independent filmmakers can gain from its time efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and much-improved results. And here’s where WAVES (World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit) seeks to guide and support both established practitioners and upcoming talent with active participation from academic experts and industry professionals. WAVES aims to bridge the gap between creativity and technology, fostering innovation and collaboration. It seeks to provide a platform for knowledge exchange and skill development. Hopefully, this will empower participants to adapt to the evolving entertainment industry demands.

In the last couple of decades, computer-generated imagery and visual effects have been the most significant areas where technology has revolutionised Indian cinema. Traditional visual effects were time-consuming and required teams of artists to manually work together for days. Programming algorithms can now automate significant parts of this process by using machine learning to track movement, generate realistic textures, or simulate lighting conditions with uncanny accuracy. Let’s look at two specific uses. Suppose there is a large stadium, and we will need enormous budgets and production resources to fill it with actual spectators. Simulation of crowds can easily be done with graphics. Similarly, we can meticulously touch up make-up blemishes to increase or decrease an actor’s age. The results are impressive as the graphics seamlessly blend into live-action footage. A scope such as this can prove invaluable in creating mythological worlds, fantastical creatures, and action sequences of greater-than-life size.

Now, if we discuss the possibilities of the near future utilising the latest technology, we can look forward to virtual production. This is a technique that combines real-time rendering engines with AI to simulate environments before shooting begins. Filmmakers might benefit greatly by adopting this approach to save time and money during pre-production. Further, AI-driven visualisation tools could help filmmakers and cinematographers block scenes, plan camera movements, and visualise complex sequences before a single frame is shot. This might be particularly beneficial in films where the action takes place on a large canvas, where smooth orchestration between graphics and live performance is essential.

One of the most laborious phases in filmmaking has been post-production. AI promises to expedite colour grading, matching tones between scenes, and even removing unwanted elements from the image – tasks that previously required long hours of manual work. In the realm of sound, voice cloning, lip-sync corrections, and dubbing in multiple languages are other areas where AI is likely to have a substantial impact. In the coming years, it will be interesting to see how much of this comes to fruition.

In content creation, we’re still exploring AI at the very early stages. But I hear screenplay writers are intrigued by it! AI tools can analyse thousands of scripts, genres, and audience preferences to suggest plot points, character arcs, and dialogue variations. This does not replace the creative mind, but augments it, offering insights that can make narratives more engaging or culturally resonant. For instance, a filmmaker developing a complex historical epic could use AI to research period details and dialects in seconds.

One of the biggest impacts of AI and immersive technology is democratisation. Now, independent filmmakers can create high-quality content with AI-powered tools. Cloud-based editing suites and open-source software let users experiment with VFX, animation, and sound design without spending a lot of money. AI can help cinematographers predict the most efficient camera angles and lighting scenarios to achieve the desired effect in each scene. Using it, editors can scan hours of footage and come up with notes and analysis. The editor can then pick the best shots to include in the final cut, saving time and increasing efficiency. There’s a lot of restoration going on with old Indian movies, and AI plays a big role in it. Digital restoration of original degraded film reels, duplication of these degraded photochemical films, reduction of dirt, scratches, and flickers, while also boosting picture quality, since the footage is original. There are a lot of languages spoken in India, and movies are made in them. Artificial intelligence can help with captioning, dubbing, and translating these films to a wider audience by improving language processing.

While the benefits are vast, the use of AI in cinema raises quite a few ethical concerns. If misused, deepfake technology can lead to misinformation or consent violations. There is also the question of artistic authenticity: Where do we draw the line between human creativity and machine assistance? Further, implementing AI in film production can be expensive. Not all filmmakers and producers can likely afford such investments. Moreover, any technology comes with a risk of dependence. By using artificial intelligence in production, filmmakers risk becoming overly reliant on technology. It is imperative that AI requires data, and that data needs to be collected and prepared. Concerns regarding data privacy have already become a major issue in other industries, but the use of facial recognition and biometrics raises this concern even further. As AI systems are increasingly being used in various sectors, they are becoming attractive targets for hackers and cybercriminals. The algorithms used in AI systems can be subject to bias, resulting in stereotypes or limiting representations of various groups of people. These systems are great for generating new ideas within predefined parameters. However, they don’t have the fluidity and spontaneity of human creativity. Current AI systems excel at pattern recognition and process large volumes of data quickly. However, they lack the human capacity for understanding, intuition, and empathy.

To take the plunge into the lure of technological marvel or not – that remains the dilemma! As Indian filmmakers and technicians stand on the edge of technological transformation powered by AI-driven immersive tools, there is scope for boundless creativity and efficiency, leading to increased audience engagement. But on the other hand, the fear of losing jobs or artistic control, navigating steep learning curves, and ethical landmines cannot be ignored. Yet, history shows that Indian cinema has never stopped reinventing itself—from silent reels to computer graphics-driven epics. As the industry experiments with algorithms and avatars, it may eventually discover that storytelling still beats when technology serves creativity, but does not replace it.