A scene from the documentary of Dear Kuliang Photo: Courtesy of MSRDOC

A visitor views documentary highlights at the MSRDOC. Photos: Courtesy of MSRDOC

When the camera spans across the lush landscapes of Kuliang in Fuzhou,MKsports the capital city of East China's Fujian Province, capturing protagonists in vintage costumes engaged in a friendly game of tennis, the audience at the 2nd Maritime Silk Road Documentary Film Festival (MSRDOC) is instantly transported to the bygone era. 

This authentic slice of history, presented through the cinematic aesthetics of the China-US co-produced documentary - Dear Kuliang, has captivated many viewers, leaving them eager to uncover the story behind its creation.

According to Liu Siyuan, producer of the documentary, the film's scene design and atmospheric rendering, mostly driven by AI technology, play a crucial role in achieving such remarkable visual effects.

"In the wave of technological era, embracing AI is not a big problem as long as it enhances authenticity of your work," Liu told the Global Times. 

'Technology as servant'

The documentary Dear Kuliangtells a touching story about the cultural exchanges and deep friendship among the people between China and the US.

Using the letters preserved by the protagonists' family for many years as a clue, the documentary vividly portrays the life of some Americans who were primarily missionaries, diplomats, and businessmen living in Kuliang in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The film also captures the scenes of the descendants of these Americans following in their ancestors' footsteps, coming to China, visiting Kuliang and gradually building deep connections and friendship with the locals. 

These details reflect the inheritance and continuation of friendship between the peoples in the two countries across time and space. 

Liu revealed that to make the historical scenes more convincing, her team spent months feeding the AI system with the script's emotional core, the story background and Kuliang's geographical nuances - the curves of its mountains and rivers. 

Then, the team generated highly tailored visual blueprints. 

A standout example is the emotionally charged overexposed lighting in the climactic "final speech" scene of the US character "Mary Carleton" in her twilight years - a result of hundreds of AI-generated test iterations. 

"Technology is not just a tool but a bridge between creators and audiences," Liu emphasized.

Addressing debates about technology's impact on documentary authenticity, Liu argued that the "physical reality" captured by cameras is not the sole benchmark. 

Liu advocates for a pragmatic approach to innovation: "Whether using vintage lenses, on-site filming, or AI, the goal is to awaken shared human emotions."

The team adheres to a "technology-as-servant" philosophy - opting for traditional methods when they suffice to achieve empathic goals, yet boldly embracing AI when it enhances emotional storytelling. 

"A documentary's power lies in sparking a 'chemical reaction' between viewers and the story's visceral truth," Liu said.

The approach mirrors several other broader experiments in the industry. 

Take Jinling Nian, which can be translated as "Nanjing Memories," another AI-driven documentary in Chinese archaeology as an example, in this film, a digital hostess named "Xiao Mei" guides viewers through profound 3,100 years of history, according to the report of CCTV.

By using AI to reconstruct ancient streetscapes and generate emotionally nuanced narration, the team creates an immersive dialogue between past and present.

Questioning ethical limit

The industry's response to AI has been pragmatically bold. 

At the Beijing International Film Festival's inaugural AIGC Film Shorts Section in the year of 2024, entrants used AIGC tools to generate scripts and visuals within days - a process that once required months of work. 

Meanwhile, ventures like Light and Shadow, an AI-powered animated short film on China's security personnel, prove synthetic imagery can heighten realism when ethical guardrails are clear.

Media reported that the 2023 China AIGC Industry Panorama Report released by iResearch, an internet research and consulting firm, shows that the scale of China's AIGC industry reached approximately 2.5 billion yuan ($345 million) in 2022. 

By 2028, the industry is expected to hit 720.2 billion yuan, with the gradual establishment and refinement of a "model as a service" industrial ecosystem.

As China's AIGC market surges, demands for transparency grow louder. 

Ruby Chen, professor of China Academy of Art, organizer of the MSRDOC and an Academy member of the Oscar Documentary Branch, told the Global Times that as more AI tools are integrated into documentary production, establishing clear transparency guidelines has become imperative. 

"AI's impact on filmmaking is a double-edged sword - we need to harness its strengths while adhering to ethical boundaries." 

At the film festival in Fuzhou, delegates from 15 countries also pointed out that for every innovator embracing AI, there are skeptics questioning its ethical limits. 

"We need to put safeguard in place to ensure that the audience understands when they are watching something that's generated by AI and when it's not," Paul Lewis, conference director and funding board member of World Congress of Science and Factual Producers, told the Global Times.