AI can help us if we learn to use it in a positive manner: Mansha Totla

Young director Mansha Totla is in Venice ,to represent her documentary ‘Jinx’ which won the third place at the esteemed ‘Reply AI Film Festival’ in Venice, Italy, for her ground-breaking short documentary.Mansha has taken a help of artificial intelligence to create a an era World War ,as her documentary showcases the story of Holocaust survivor 90 year old Jinx Akerkar.In an exclusive interaction ,Mansha opens up about her documentary ,use of AI in film making ,positive and negative effect of it and much more.

Zeroing on the concept

“ ‘Jinx’ is a documentary film,  So it's basically an autobiography on her life, so she as a person,her story that I read in an article about her intuition and being a Holocaust escapee was very inspirational to me because her attitude in life, even after going through so much, is so incredibly positive that I felt like it was a story that had to be told and I wanted to be the one to tell.”

Use of Artificial Intelligence in making this documentary

“I actually filmed with ‘Jinx’, like, three years ago, and since then, footage is with me, and I didn't know what to do with it.So AI helped me solve my problem because I didn't want to use, internet stock footages of World War II as they're overused, and people just randomly put them in clips when they talk about World War II stories. But I wanted to create something original.  Recently, this year, only when AI has come more into the limelight, I was like, let's try this out and see if it can solve my problem. Because the thing is, she's a holocaust escapee, but the whole thing about the footage was that  there's no way I can get it done for a short film. I was trying to figure that out, and when AI came I started experimenting with it, and that's why I used it, because it solved my issue and I was able to create World War II footage from scratch all on my computer.That's the reason I used it.”

 Cost effectiveness of AI   

“ I went to film school and I am an independent filmmaker, so they teach you, be the jack of all trades, from directing to editing, lighting, everything. In my practice since the past couple of years, I've been doing everything on my own, I am like a one woman team, but  when you have deadlines, you can't really be dependent, especially if you feel very passionately about something and no matter what. So, that way, I think I saved money because I directed it, did camera work,  lighting,  editing, sound design, colour grade, entire AI creation, all of that.  I didn't have to pay other people.I also have my own camera, I have a few lights of my own. So usually equipment is on the rent basis that also helped a lot with that because I would have spent a lot of money on the set to create the war and that atmosphere.”

Challenges of using AI

“Obviously you learn something new. It is challenging, especially me, because I'm very old school. I'm not really, like one of those techie people. I still hand write all of my notes. I still hand write my scripts before I digitalise  them. I really  had to put AI into practice.I had a very tight schedule. More than that, the challenge was, this isn't just a short film. It's on somebody's life. I had to really treat it with a lot of sensitivity and care because it's about Jinx. Like, the most important thing I was thinking about is if Jinx watches this, then she should think that this is an accurate representation. I can't twist things and make it into a story that it's not.But I also wanted to keep World War II sensitivity, seriousness, at the same time, I wanted to bring out Jinx's personality because she really is such a breath of fresh air. She's a lot of fun to hang out with. She has a very positive take on life.There's this quote- you can't control things that happen in your life, but you can control how you react to it. I feel like Jinx is a very good example of that.”

 Adverse effect of technology

“ I agree that there's good and bad in everything, but I also think that AI is such a vast term, you know. I think when it comes to cinema, and if I speak about the cinema industry specifically, I think it can help us if we learn to use it in a positive manner. I think it can also provide more jobs because a lot of people are now going to be hiring people that know how to work on AI.So I think if we take it in a positive manner, and we know how to use it efficiently, then I don't think it should really be a threatening thing. It's not like it's going to come in one, two years. It's one of those things, how to be in the system and learn this system. I just mean it just to incorporate it in our lives and make it work for us instead of thinking about it in a negative way.