{"id":22002,"date":"2025-05-13T11:27:38","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T10:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/?p=22002"},"modified":"2025-05-13T11:27:39","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T10:27:39","slug":"ai-in-storytelling-telling-authentic-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/ai-in-storytelling-telling-authentic-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"AI in storytelling: Telling authentic stories?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wildscreen.org\/science-in-storytelling\/\">Wildscreen\u2019s Science in Storytelling event<\/a> this March opened with the \u201cArtificial Intelligence: An Altruist\u2019s Guide\u201d panel. Given the heated conversations taking place in production houses across Bristol, and beyond, there was nowhere else to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-wildscreen wp-block-embed-wildscreen\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"HnOQOe6dcc\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wildscreen.org\/science-in-storytelling\/\">Science in Storytelling<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Science in Storytelling&#8221; &#8212; Wildscreen\" src=\"https:\/\/wildscreen.org\/science-in-storytelling\/embed\/#?secret=NhnjR0W4W2#?secret=HnOQOe6dcc\" data-secret=\"HnOQOe6dcc\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bristol is famously celebrated as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/2021\/nov\/20\/wildlife-series-bristol-green-hollywood-independent-production\">Green Hollywood<\/a>\u201d, being home to a number of production companies, the <a href=\"https:\/\/wildscreen.org\/festival\/programme-2024\/\">Wildscreen Festival<\/a> and, of course, our <a href=\"https:\/\/courses.uwe.ac.uk\/P90012\/science-communication\">MSc in Science Communication<\/a> here at UWE Bristol. The industry has been pondering the impact of AI in the world of wildlife film after something of a bombshell panel (AI Won\u2019t Take Your Job, But the Person That Can Use It Better Than You Will\u2026) at last year\u2019s Festival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The full Wildscreen Festival took place in Bristol in October 2024, a weeklong event for the wildlife film industry with delegates from across the globe. Midway through the week, Eline Van der Velden, founder and CEO of UK-based production company <a href=\"https:\/\/www.particle6.com\/\">Particle6,<\/a> and Christopher Paetkau, senior MD of Canada\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.verdadesign.com\/portfolio\/build-films\">Build Films<\/a>, formed part of a panel on AI and it became clear from their comments that you could be forgiven for thinking that AI had very much arrived in the industry, with all the subtlety of a bear in a production office, and was about to make lots of jobs obsolete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-wildscreen wp-block-embed-wildscreen\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"74ZSBExT9X\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wildscreen.org\/festival\/programme-2024\/\">2024 Festival Programme<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;2024 Festival Programme&#8221; &#8212; Wildscreen\" src=\"https:\/\/wildscreen.org\/festival\/programme-2024\/embed\/#?secret=X1kZWcwDqA#?secret=74ZSBExT9X\" data-secret=\"74ZSBExT9X\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Van der Velden announced, \u201cPre-production, ideas, budgets, scripting, it can do everything for you,\u201d she said, \u201cthen cameras, you don\u2019t need operators anymore because it will do it all for you.\u201d Cue an audible gasp from the room. \u201cYou may laugh, but I\u2019m telling you. Everything is done for you. You wouldn\u2019t send a camera in a helicopter anymore would you? You\u2019d use a drone. This is the same.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Paetkau quipped, \u201cthat\u2019s a good thing.\u201d and was, if anything, even more dismissive of the prospects for voice over artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a room full of filmmakers, the reaction was as you might imagine. As a lecturer leading two modules in this area, <em>Wildlife Filmmaking<\/em> and <em>Science On Air and On Screen<\/em>, I felt more than a little uneasy sitting there alongside many of our students. More than anything else, I feared for the real, authentic films we\u2019ve made and loved. From the stage, someone called for \u201ca new kind of authenticity\u201d in the new world brought to us by AI. Behind me, a voice shouted \u201cFake News\u201d. It was clear I was not alone in my discomfort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery aligncenter has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" data-id=\"21898\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/09\/IMG-20240520-WA0008-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-21898\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/09\/IMG-20240520-WA0008-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/09\/IMG-20240520-WA0008-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/09\/IMG-20240520-WA0008-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/09\/IMG-20240520-WA0008.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" data-id=\"21899\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/09\/IMG-20240913-WA0003-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-21899\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/09\/IMG-20240913-WA0003-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/09\/IMG-20240913-WA0003-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/09\/IMG-20240913-WA0003-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/09\/IMG-20240913-WA0003-1200x1600.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/09\/IMG-20240913-WA0003.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wildlife-filmmaking-from-start-to-finish-at-uwe-bristol\/\"><em>MSc Science Communication students film<\/em>ing <em>on location and using the editing suite at Films@59<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A member of the audience raised a hand, \u201cI think authenticity matters. Here&#8217;s a thought. If your wife had just punched in the (AI) chat five minutes before your wedding. \u2018Write me some wedding vows\u2019. And she read them out and they sounded beautiful\u2026does that matter to you? Or do you want her to write her wedding vows and say something meaningful?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As has already been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.c21media.net\/department\/news-analysis\/will-ai-lead-to-the-extinction-of-natural-history-programming\/\">reported<\/a>, Paetkau replied that he had used AI to compose his wife\u2019s Christmas card and he felt that that was \u201ccompletely authentic\u201d. People laughed, perhaps a little nervously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After the panel, conversations all either began or ended with an expectant \u201cDid you see the AI panel?\u201d In the weeks since the Festival, colleagues and friends in the industry often returned to the conversation. In our sessions on campus with the MSc students, we had to work hard not to allow discussions of AI in filmmaking to derail the rest of our learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On another panel at the festival in October 2024, Keith Scholey, co-director of <a href=\"https:\/\/silverbackfilms.tv\/shows\/\">Silverback<\/a> (Our Planet, Our Oceans) was asked about the impact of AI, sharing \u201cThe big challenge for natural history will be what is real and how you put a value on reality. You could very quickly see cheap AI content just flooding the market, and we have to consider how you persuade the world to pay for the world of reality.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whilst Walter Kohler, founder and chief executive of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.terramater.at\/\">Terra Mater Studios<\/a> agreed, stating that \u201cAI is the biggest problem we have in the room. You are used to seeing an image and believing it is real. This will be a big disturbance to our mind if we\u2019re sitting there asking if it\u2019s real or not.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Personally, I cannot imagine a time when I reach for the remote and think that I really want to watch something generated by AI. Sir David Attenborough has been the face and voice of Natural History film in the UK for some time. It\u2019s not his face and his voice which make him quite so iconic. It\u2019s his insight. The world is full of faces, voices and opinions. Insight is valuable.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/05\/pexels-tom-krach-1081250691-32021560-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-22004\" style=\"width:443px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/05\/pexels-tom-krach-1081250691-32021560-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/05\/pexels-tom-krach-1081250691-32021560-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/05\/pexels-tom-krach-1081250691-32021560-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/05\/pexels-tom-krach-1081250691-32021560-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/05\/pexels-tom-krach-1081250691-32021560-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/05\/pexels-tom-krach-1081250691-32021560-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Returning to last year\u2019s Festival, Paetkau showed a sequence of a polar bear, several aspects of which were enhanced or generated using AI, explaining \u201cwe spent under 24 hours there filming this and got footage that we wanted to put into a sequence. We went to the BBC\u2019s <em>Planet Earth<\/em>, we took a script from a lion hunt, copy and pasted into ChatGPT and altered it to the behaviour we described. Then we got ElevenLabs to produce a voiceover. From the day of filming to putting that together was two days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The sequence looked good. It was well edited. The script was fine but the voice over delivery felt, at least to me, like it belonged somewhere on the edge of the uncanny valley. To others in the room, it felt real enough to become a shockwave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My expectations were then high for the most recent event. The panel in Wildscreen\u2019s Science In Storytelling panel in March 2025 was intriguingly titled, calling for a human focused outlook: \u201cAn Altruist\u2019s Guide\u201d. With the AI panel in October 2024 derailing conversations midway through the Festival, the organiser programmed this panel to open the day. Perhaps with one eye on keeping things light(er), it opened with PhD student Prem Gill who is studying seals from satellite data and using AI in his work, conducting a quiz with the audience deciding whether a sound was a \u201cseal\u201d or \u201cspace\u201d. Unfortunately, a series of mishaps with the sound meant that it fell a little flat. Prem, however, is an entertaining presenter and as the technology failed, his warm and dry humour made the best of the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s no doubt that AI is a tool and can be a useful one. That it can be used in conservation efforts like PhD research is, perhaps, slightly tangential to whether it should be used in wildlife filmmaking.&nbsp; Heading into the panel in March, I was instead wondering how we should use this tool in our stories and what stories might they enable us to tell. Perhaps, more importantly, how honest are we prepared to be about how we use AI tools (if we do at all) in our creative work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are used to filmmakers using Computer Generated Imagery (CGI). Some of it considerably better than others. For CGI, Animators and VFX artists manually design and animate scenes or characters. For AI, a person (not described as an artist) types prompts and the AI does the rest. Proponents for AI often suggest that it will reduce the more mundane parts of our jobs and free us up to be more creative. 62% of users in a <a href=\"https:\/\/reports.weforum.org\/docs\/WEF_Artificial_Intelligence_in_Media_Entertainment_and_Sport_2025.pdf\">recent report<\/a> into AI\u2019s use in media said their biggest use was \u201cContent Creation\u201d. I am interested to know what the more creative parts are of media than content creation but, joking apart, it\u2019s a lovely thought that we might altruistically use AI to make the world a better, more diverse place filled with creativity. I suspect people might, all too often, take shortcuts where they are available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If we do use AI to create our films, write our articles and tell our stories then what are we freeing ourselves up for? It seems unlikely that many people will look back at their lives and wish they had fewer moments making beautiful things, really getting to the heart of a story and finding ways to enthral audiences. Whether they will wish they spent more time typing prompts into generative AI remains to be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In an adjacent discussion in the world of filmmaking, we are constantly being told that our attention spans are shrinking, although the evidence for that is scant, to say the least. There is evidence that filmmakers believe it and tell audiences that it is true but it does not necessarily follow that people\u2019s propensity to concentrate is diminishing. <em>Oppenheimer<\/em>, <em>The Brutalist<\/em> and, to a certain extent, <em>Adolescence<\/em> tell a different story about audiences and their attention spans. If you want to make long form pieces, you can find the audiences and research to back it up. If you want to make short, snappy social media style films, there\u2019s research to back that up too. Let\u2019s not pretend the audience are all one homogenous group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I suspect that some filmmakers will use the tools of AI extensively. Some audiences will lap it up. Other filmmakers will strive for a more standard meaning of the word \u201cauthentic\u201d and, doubtless, open their films with a badge that declares that AI was not used in the making thereof. Other audiences will seek that content out the way a select band of teenagers are heading to record fairs, hunting for vinyl. Personally, I hope our stories will continue to be rich, deep and authentically told. Perhaps the AI could help with the risk assessments?<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/05\/AG-683x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Profile picture of Andrew Glester, Lecturer in Science Communication at UWE Bristol\" class=\"wp-image-22005\" style=\"width:157px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/05\/AG-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/05\/AG-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/05\/AG.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By Andrew Glester, Lecturer in Science Communication, MSc Science Communication, UWE Bristol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wildscreen\u2019s Science in Storytelling event this March opened with the \u201cArtificial Intelligence: An Altruist\u2019s Guide\u201d panel. Given the heated conversations taking place in production houses across Bristol, and beyond, there was nowhere else to start. Bristol is famously celebrated as \u201cGreen Hollywood\u201d, being home to a number of production companies, the Wildscreen Festival and, of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/ai-in-storytelling-telling-authentic-stories\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;AI in storytelling: Telling authentic stories?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":22003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":795,"footnotes":""},"categories":[795,12,794,3,822],"tags":[25,963,957,956,954,953,958,120,955,962,959,961,960,951,952],"class_list":["post-22002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-of-health-science-and-society","category-msc-science-communication","category-school-of-applied-sciences","category-science-communication","category-science-on-air-and-on-screen","tag-ai","tag-ai-in-storytelling","tag-build-films","tag-christopher-paetkau","tag-eline-van-der-velden","tag-green-hollywood","tag-keith-scholey","tag-msc-science-communication","tag-particle6","tag-science-in-storytelling","tag-silverback","tag-terra-mater-studios","tag-walter-kohler","tag-wildscreen","tag-wildscreen-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22002"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22012,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22002\/revisions\/22012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}