In early June, an East London arts venue hosted an event to celebrate the release of Visions, the first major update to LTX Studios by Lightricks. The generative AI video editing software startup held an exclusive event for media industry figures and digital creators to exchange perspectives on the evolution and innovation of GenAI in the visual arts, as well as discovering its innovative new release.
Emceed by Sonya Barlow, the event was attended by senior Lightricks personnel, including CEO and co-founder Zeev Farbman and VP Product Alon Ya’ar, alongside a select group of invitees. LTX Studio’s beta testers, leading digital content creators, animators, filmmakers, and video marketing experts came together to mark what could be a watershed in the evolution of AI video editing.
As part of the evening, AI creators Omar Karim, Georgia Lewis Anderson and Lois Hinx held a panel discussion about digital creation, the impact of AI, and what the future could hold for content creators.
What does the new release mean for AI video editing?
There isn’t always a lot of buzz when a software company releases an update, but the Visions event showed that GenAI video editing is a hot topic. It’s not just that everything GenAI is attracting a lot of attention at the moment, but that AI video editing in particular is moving extremely fast.
As VP Product Alon Ya’ar said at the event, “This new underlying tech has completely changed over the past two years. We, as a product team, need to be extremely agile and move extremely fast. The pace of advancement is just unbelievable. Like, I can go to bed with one model and one functionality, and the next day I wake up to a call from research or from Zeev [Lightricks CEO Zeev Farbman] actually saying, ‘Wow, everything has changed – we need to start from scratch.’”
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Visions release is more than simply an update. As well as improving the interface, it aims to make creative workflows more efficient and streamlined. Visions radically speeds up the creative process by producing multiple video previews in seconds, making it easier to adhere to a specific visual style with the entire story in a single click, and delivering consistent characterisation throughout the storyboard.
Building GenAI into preproduction workflows
One of the most important focal points for the new release was to remove friction for users and make AI an integral element in any video creation process.
Ya’ar emphasised this, saying that “There’s a user on the other side of the screen, and we need to address their needs and workflows. We mapped the different workflows and processes of creative professionals from different industries – marketing departments, advertising agencies, filmmakers, small and big studios – and we really try to see how LTX Studio can fit into their workflows or actually change the workflows now with AI.”
It’s something that came up in the panel discussion too. Some people are concerned that GenAI editing could lead to the loss of jobs for junior animators or 3D creators, but the three focused more on the benefits that GenAI video editing can bring.
Karim pointed out that generative AI video apps can level the playing field for talented creators on limited budgets. With tools like these, they don’t need a large 3D department, sound department, or set of fill-in animators. The apps serve as AI assistants that empower new creators to actualise their vision, without being held back by the lack of expensive equipment or large teams.
There was general agreement that tools like LTX Studio are most valuable for carrying out small but time-consuming preproduction tasks that distract creators from their core goal of storytelling. “I think Visions is all about solving the core challenges that our users are facing,” Yaar said. “We’re really trying to understand their pain points and how they utilise LTX Studio. And not surprisingly, most of them use it for preproduction purposes. So Visions is all about streamlining preproduction use cases.”
Strengthening community in AI video creation
The Visions launch event also highlighted the need for old-fashioned, in-person exchanges of ideas and perspectives within the fast-moving world of media production. Digital creators, like artists through the centuries, need a community to spark inspiration, refine concepts, and develop new ways of thinking and approaching art.
GenAI video tools like LTX Studio don’t need human assistants to carry out tedious manual tasks or to augment skills like audio or 3D modeling that they might lack. But the crowd at this event made the case that the online community is growing stronger to compensate for that.
Lightricks CEO Zeev Farbman referred to this in his talk at the launch event when he shared his excitement at being able to participate in the creative process through his software.
“At some point very early in my pixel polishing career, I realised that I’m actually not a creator,” he said. “I had a discussion about that in the early days with our CTO, and we realised that okay, we’re not artists, and none of us is going to write a Beethoven symphony. But someone created a musical tool, a piano, for Beethoven to write symphonies on, and for us as the tool makers, it’s an incredible source of inspiration to create pianos for you.”
Conclusion
The Visions launch event was an important opportunity for creators to come together to build the energy of ideas-sharing. As more generative AI tools like LTX Studio come onto the market, and companies like Lightricks push the boundaries for GenAI in video creation, it becomes even more crucial to build a strong community and enable it to discuss the impact, benefits, and potential drawbacks to the new technology.
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