VCD Researchers Explore AI-Assisted Filmmaking in AI Lens Workshop
Researchers from the AUT Virtual Creative Design Research Centre (VCDRC) recently took part in an international workshop exploring how artificial intelligence can become an active collaborator in creative filmmaking.
The online session brought together AUT researchers and collaborators from the Somabotics programme at the University of Nottingham to experiment with AI Lens, an experimental system that replaces a traditional camera monitor with imagery generated live by artificial intelligence.
Rather than simply recording footage, the AI Lens system generates images in real time in response to prompts, framing, and performance. This allows filmmakers and performers to shape AI-generated scenes during the creative process, turning the camera into a collaborative interface between human creativity and machine generation.
For the VCDRC team, the workshop provided an opportunity to explore how generative AI tools might influence creative workflows in filmmaking and digital media production.
Participants experimented with prompts, sound cues, and improvised performance to guide the AI system, revealing how generative tools can introduce unexpected visual ideas and alternative narrative possibilities.
The workshop also demonstrated how remote collaboration can connect creative researchers across institutions, allowing teams to experiment with emerging technologies together while reflecting on their creative and ethical implications.
The collaboration also connects with AUT’s Portals/Traces research project, which investigates how new technologies—from virtual production and motion capture to generative AI—are transforming contemporary screen production. The project explores how creative practitioners can work critically and experimentally with emerging tools while examining the traces they leave in creative processes and media environments.
By embedding technologies such as AI within artistic practice, VCDRC researchers aim to better understand how creative decisions emerge when humans and intelligent systems collaborate.
The AI Lens workshop marks an early step in ongoing collaboration between AUT and international partners exploring the future of AI-assisted filmmaking, virtual production, and creative media research.