(Yicai) July 11 -- China’s first sci-fi short series that was created using generative artificial intelligence creation technology is being broadcast on TikTok’s Chinese version Douyin as film producers harness the power of AI.

Douyin is uploading a new episode of Sanxingdui: Future Apocalypse every day. Each clip is three minutes long and the episodes have been played a total of more than 20 million times.

The series was produced by Bona AIGMS Production House, Bona Film Group’s AI film production arm, in collaboration with Dreamina, Douyin’s AIGC platform. 

Bona’s technical team was working overtime to make sure the company was the first in the country to air an AI-generated short series online, Chief Executive Officer Jiang Defu told Yicai in an exclusive interview.

“We had to air the product as soon as possible, because the technology is developing so fast that our film may have fallen behind, if we had waited until the end of the year,” he added.

The hook up with Dreamina, which was announced earlier this year, provided Bona with AI tech that could generate images and videos through natural language and image input as well as edit clips. The platform also provided technical support including tokens and a new Beta.

Dreamina needed a video to use as a demonstration of its technology, while Bona needed a video generated by AI technology, said Quji Xiaojiang, Bona’s head of production and director of the Bona AIGMS Production House.

The division of costs has not been disclosed. However, Quji said that once the series has reaches 100 million views, the project will be on the brink of commercial success, which may prompt the company to launch a second season on a pay-to-view basis. And as AI technology gets more developed, AIGC videos could even hit cinema screens.

Other film and TV series producers have also started to use AI technology, but there are different ways of applying it, Quji said. Some invest as much as us, while others use it as another software tool. The way you perceive AI determines how you use it, he added.

How to accurately simulate complex scenes is a common problem in AI video production. AI videos still have shortcomings such as the model not properly understanding the relationship between the characters and the environment, as well as not getting the plot, Cheng Weizhong, founder and CEO of Avatarworld, previously told Yicai. This can lead to disappointing results.

Episodes of Sanxingdui: Future Apocalypse have some issues too, Yicai noticed. For example, the characters’ lips sometimes do not move in sync with the audio, and occasionally their body movements are stiff and their faces are rigid.

AIGC films and television series will get better in the future thanks to the rapid iteration of AI tech, an insider at Dreamina told Yicai. Over the course of the tie-up, Dreamina was able to improve the LLM’s video generation tech, thereby improving the quality of the images.

Editor: Kim Taylor