FILMMAKERS: We’re Cooked (No We’re Not)
Every time I open social media lately, I see the same caption over and over again:
Filmmaking is cooked. Hollywood is cooked. We’re cooked.
I get why people are saying it. Some of the AI generated videos flying around are genuinely impressive. Your stomach drops for a second and you think, that’s it then.
But after that first hit of fear, I started thinking properly about what filmmaking actually is. And the conclusion I landed on is simple:
We’re not cooked.
The mistake people are making
A lot of the doom talk comes from treating filmmaking like it’s just output, as if cinema is simply “a video” that can now be generated on command. That’s not what filmmaking is. Filmmaking is an ecosystem. It’s years of graft across a whole chain of roles that depend on each other, and you don’t get that from typing a prompt.
A writer spends years learning how to tell a story properly. A director spends years learning how to lead people and shape performance. A cinematographer earns taste under pressure by grafting, making mistakes, and learning how to see. An editor builds instinct through thousands of decisions. Actors learn how to step into other lives and make it real. That full human chain working together, under pressure, in real time, is what creates cinema. AI can generate clips. It cannot replace that.
It’s not just collaboration. It’s friendship
This part gets ignored, but it matters. On set you’re not just collaborators. You become mates. You build trust. You learn how to operate with each other when time is running out, money is disappearing, weather changes, someone is stressed, and the day is falling apart. That trust is how problems get solved and how the work actually gets finished.
That’s the real craft. It isn’t just knowing the gear or the software. It’s being able to operate inside that environment and still deliver, and to do it with people you respect, people you can rely on, and people you’d actually go for a pint with after wrap. AI doesn’t do that.
Reality check: AI will disrupt the industry
I’m not naive about this. AI is going to hit parts of the industry hard. It will change workflows and it will replace certain types of work, especially repetitive early passes and low stakes content. If you feel pressure right now, that’s normal. You should feel it. We’d be idiots not to.
But the leap from “this will disrupt us” to “cinema is dead” is nonsense. Filmmaking isn’t content generation. Cinema is a human thing, and it stays human because the job isn’t just creating images. It’s making something real with other people, under real conditions, with real consequences.
What to do instead of doomscrolling
If you’re a filmmaker and you’re watching the feed telling you it’s over, here’s the honest truth. Keep making films. Keep writing, keep shooting, keep learning, keep failing, and keep improving. Everyone who is good at this has failed for years. That’s how the skill is built. That’s how taste gets earned. That’s how you get good.
If you stop because you’re scared, you lose. If you keep going and adapt, you win. Use AI as leverage if it helps your workflow, but don’t let it touch your identity. It’s a tool. It isn’t your replacement unless you decide to quit.
Final thought
There’s a difference between content generation and cinema. Cinema has always been human. It still is. So no, we’re not cooked. Get on with it and ignore the noise.