Ambition, savings & splendour: La Marquise lays out AI potential

Generative AI might court controversy but it can also open up opportunities, as evidenced by upcoming Spanish-Portuguese drama La Marquise.

The show was put centrestage at Plot Next, a two-day event that explores the rise of AI and its strategic impact on the film and creative industries. It is a recently added strand to the Seriencamp conference that took place in Cologne earlier this month.

Of particular note to those working in scripted was the case study on La Marquise, an ambitious adaptation of Maria João Lopo de Carvalho’s bestselling novel (Marquesa de Alorna) that is being coproduced by Lisbon-based Ukbar Filmes, Spain’s Tornasol Film and Portugal’s public broadcaster RTP.

Creator and showrunner Pandora da Cunha Telles explained how without generative AI, La Marquise simply wouldn’t have been possible.

“AI took us up to the production values we couldn’t afford,” she said. While only 5% of what is on screen is derived from AI, it saved around $500,000 (£378,000) of the budget across six episodes. Locations that no longer exist, dream sequences and “fireworks over Vienna” were all brought to life in the story of the Eighth Century Portuguese poet and thinker, with the show being distributed by Mediapro.

Da Cunha Telles also explained that while there were some AI-created sequences she loved, they were inconsistent with the director’s style and so rejected.

Even in sequences that are fully executed using AI, directors and photographers are still vital to “break down a shot”, Da Cunha Telles said. Human input “understands images” in the same way that only human writers can generate the kind of ingenious narratives that are the DNA of high-quality scripted.

And while savings were considerable, the AI-generated sequences still hit jobs. Fewer people were needed to do pre- and post-production, while fewer crews were on set or on location.

While gen-AI continues to make headlines and court controversy, La Marquise is a working example of how the tech is changing production in real time. It also embodies all the hopes and fears of what this nascent technology is capable of.