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# AI Is Rewriting Singapore’s Film Industry — But the One Thing Machines Still Can’t Replace Could Decide Who Survives
- URL: https://www.wwconemedia.com/ai-is-rewriting-singapores-film-industry-but-the-one-thing-machines-still-cant-replace-could-decide-who-survives/
- Published: 2026-09-08T08:13:17.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-08T08:13:17.000Z
- Author: WWC NEWSDESK
- Tags: ASIA, SINGAPORE, TECHNOLOGY

SINGAPORE — Artificial intelligence is moving rapidly from the sidelines of filmmaking into the production pipeline, and Singapore’s screen industry may be approaching a turning point.

AI can already generate backgrounds, transform sets, accelerate visual-effects work and even create entire sequences. But as Singapore filmmakers experiment with the technology, the bigger question is becoming harder to ignore: **If AI makes movies faster and cheaper, what happens to the people whose skills, performances and creative disagreements traditionally make those movies worth watching?**

That tension is increasingly visible in Singapore.

CNA reported on September 8 that local filmmakers are experimenting with both fully AI-generated productions and hybrid approaches combining human actors with AI-assisted environments. Among the most prominent examples is **Crooks**, a nine-episode drama starring Christopher Lee that uses conventional live-action performances while artificial intelligence helps create and expand the surrounding cinematic world during post-production.

## Crooks Shows What AI Could Look Like Behind the Camera

Unlike projects that attempt to generate nearly everything with artificial intelligence, Crooks keeps actors at the centre of the production.

Christopher Lee and the other performers are filmed traditionally, while AI-assisted workflows are used for tasks including virtual-set creation, background generation, relighting and environmental expansion.

The Straits Times reported that more than **50 production, technical and editing personnel** were being reskilled as part of the project. The drama is inspired by former convict and Eighteen Chefs founder Benny Se Teo and follows an ex-convict chef trying to rebuild his life.

That makes Crooks particularly important for Singapore’s AI debate. Instead of asking whether filmmakers can simply replace human crews with machines, the production is testing whether AI can stretch what a relatively small production industry can put on screen while preserving human performances.

And money is an important part of the equation.

B-01 Films turned toward an AI-hybrid production model after part of the project's financing fell through. AsiaOne reported that producer Boi Kwong began exploring AI after investors withdrew amid financial pressures surrounding the production.

The potential savings could be substantial.

Singapore broadcaster 8world reported that the production team estimated its hybrid workflow could reduce costs by roughly **30 to 40 per cent**, while improving production efficiency by around **three to five times**. Those figures are estimates from the team behind the production rather than an industry-wide benchmark, but they illustrate why AI is attracting serious attention from filmmakers working with tight budgets.

For a smaller filmmaking market such as Singapore, that could be transformative.

The technology may allow producers to create period settings, large-scale environments and visual sequences that would previously have required expensive sets, overseas locations or far larger visual-effects budgets.

But cheaper production does not automatically mean better filmmaking.

## Singapore Has Already Seen the Other Side of AI Cinema

The controversy surrounding **Trace Project** demonstrated the risks.

The 64-minute Singapore AI-generated science-fiction movie premiered on National Day on August 9 and attracted substantial online criticism over its storytelling and AI-generated visuals.

Mothership's review documented visual inconsistencies including Singapore flags appearing with the wrong number of stars and other noticeable generation errors. The filmmakers acknowledged mistakes after the screening and said the production had taken roughly two to three months.

CNA also reported that Trace Project and another AI-generated local production released around National Day divided viewers, highlighting a growing gap between what generative AI technically makes possible and what audiences actually consider convincing entertainment.

That distinction may become crucial.

AI can produce images rapidly. It can lower technical barriers. It can allow creators with smaller teams to visualise ideas that previously demanded substantial budgets.

But technology cannot guarantee compelling characters, believable dialogue or emotional connection.

And that could become the dividing line between AI as a useful filmmaking tool and what critics increasingly dismiss as mass-produced “AI slop”.

## Human Actors May Become More Valuable, Not Less

One of the most striking conclusions emerging from Singapore’s experiments is that AI may actually make authentic human performance more noticeable.

Industry figures interviewed by CNA argued that current AI systems still struggle with the tiny imperfections that make acting convincing — subtle reactions, emotional timing and the unpredictable interaction between performers.

The Actors’ Society chairperson Laura Kee also raised another concern: Singapore performers do not have the same collective-bargaining structure over AI protections that exists in some larger entertainment markets.

That means issues such as digital likenesses, AI-generated performances and contractual rights could increasingly depend on the legal knowledge and negotiating strength of individual performers.

The challenge is therefore not simply whether AI will eliminate film jobs.

Some positions could shrink, others could change dramatically and entirely new roles may emerge around AI-assisted post-production, visual design and model supervision.

Crooks already offers an example: instead of eliminating its entire visual-production workforce, the project is reskilling dozens of people to operate within a different workflow.

## AI Could Also Remove Something Filmmaking Has Always Needed

There is another consequence that cannot be measured purely through budgets.

Films are traditionally made through collaboration — and sometimes disagreement.

Directors challenge editors. Actors interpret scripts differently from writers. Cinematographers negotiate with production designers. Producers push back against directors.

That “creative friction” can fundamentally change the finished product.

Nanyang Technological University assistant professor Pei Sze Chow told CNA that automating too much of the process risks eliminating some of that productive tension between creative people.

A filmmaker working alone with a powerful generative model may gain enormous creative control.

But absolute control may come with a price: fewer people questioning whether an idea actually works.

## Then Comes the Question Singapore Has Yet to Fully Answer: Who Owns It?

The timing of the film industry's AI experiment is particularly significant because Singapore is simultaneously reconsidering how its intellectual-property framework should deal with artificial intelligence.

On August 26, the Ministry of Law and Intellectual Property Office of Singapore opened a public consultation running through **October 22, 2026** on AI and intellectual-property law.

Among the copyright questions under review are how AI training should be handled, how businesses and creators should manage copyright risks when deploying AI, and how the law should treat **human creativity in AI-assisted works**.

Those questions go directly to the heart of AI filmmaking.

If a director writes the story but an AI system generates the imagery, who created the visual work?

If an actor's appearance or voice can be synthetically reproduced, how should consent and compensation work?

And if generative systems were trained using copyrighted movies, scripts, illustrations or performances, what rights should the original creators retain?

These are no longer theoretical questions.

They are becoming production questions, employment questions and potentially business-model questions.

## Singapore’s Real AI Film Race Has Just Started

The strongest case for AI in filmmaking may not be movies made entirely by machines.

It could instead be productions like Crooks, where artificial intelligence operates somewhere between a visual-effects department, virtual production studio and digital toolbox while humans remain responsible for performance and storytelling.

For Singapore filmmakers competing against industries with much larger budgets, that combination could unlock projects that previously seemed financially impossible.

But Trace Project also delivered an early warning.

**Lowering the cost of creating images does not lower the difficulty of creating something people genuinely care about.**

Singapore's film industry is therefore not simply deciding whether to accept or reject artificial intelligence.

That decision has effectively already begun.

The more consequential battle will be over **where AI stops and human authorship begins — who gets paid, who retains creative control and whether efficiency strengthens Singapore storytelling or slowly strips away the people who give those stories their identity.**

And as AI makes the technical act of producing a movie easier than ever, the industry's next competitive advantage may turn out to be something surprisingly old-fashioned:

**having something genuinely human to say.**

WWC ONE MEDIA M.J.E