“At 73, I am transforming. I want to embrace new technologies, master them, and do what I truly desire. That is my determination.” — Bao Dai Xi
November in Beijing is slightly cold. We met the legendary film maker Bao Dexi at the iQiyi Youth Center. This was the scene of his teaching session for the “Bao Dexi iQiyi AI Theater” creative camp in collaboration with iQiyi. When other course instructors were teaching, he would also arrive early in the classroom every day to listen to the courses on film knowledge and aesthetics with the students. From time to time, he would naturally take over the microphone to share a few insights, which would elicit understanding smiles and applause from the audience.
Having shone and contributed in the film industry for over forty years, Bao Daixi is a core creative member of several renowned projects such as “The Hidden Tiger”, “The King of Kung Fu”, and “Flower Blossoms”. He has won several world-class film awards, including the Oscar Award, as a photographer. His understanding and dedication to imagery are unique.
Such a master has recently gotten involved in AI imaging work. At this creative camp, young creators come with their inspirations and stories. Under the guidance of Bao Dexi, they will study various courses ranging from screenwriting art, camera language, advanced AI practical skills, sound and voice acting, and commercialization.
After the creation camp ends, the top 15 teams will produce videos of their stories and launch the first AI theater in China within a quarter, so they can meet the audience.
“I have been making films for over forty years, and I still use traditional methods to produce them today.” At this point, a youthful light filled Bao Dexi’s eyes. “But now, AI can completely overturn past concepts, so I have risked everything and switched over.”
Before visiting the creative camp, we had questions in our minds—there are numerous competitions and events on the market regarding AI video generation, but a creative camp led by a master like Bao Dexi, starting from the aesthetics of imagery and storytelling, and providing full support throughout the entire process from creation to distribution, is extremely rare.
Instead of following the conventional path of accepting submissions and filtering them, iQiyi is investing more heavily in venture capital incubation and deeply engaging in AI imaging. What exactly is its plan?
After actually attending the courses and talking with Bao Dexi and platform executives, we clearly realized that if this exploration succeeds, the impact on the film industry will far exceed public expectations. This is a serious attempt to prove that AI tools are no longer just “toys,” and AI short videos can no longer be merely “short video” entertainment. With this step, the integration of AI into professional film content creation becomes even faster.
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Why is a good story more important for AI images?
This year, Sora2 became so popular, and the real credit goes to short-video platforms.
With its highly engaging “hell jokes,” Sora2 used its AI capabilities to create countless memes, and through the creation of meme references, triggered a powerful spread on social platforms.
When talking about AI videos, today’s manufacturers no longer focus solely on technology; they start to discuss “methods” and how to replicate the viral marketing logic of Sora2.
But the “AI Theater” collaboration between Bao Daixi and iQiyi seems to go in the opposite direction—instead of creating internet memes, it focuses on “telling good stories”.
Why not make short videos? Bao Dexi has his own ideas:
“If you are someone who reads books frequently, you will know that the imagination space provided by text is far greater than that of 3-minute short video content.”
This is the power of stories.
The works that will appear in “Baldur Ii iQiyi AI Theater” are all story films over 15 minutes long, several times longer than the duration requirements for videos in other AI video competitions. This length means that mere visual novelty alone is not enough to captivate the audience; the structure and development of the story play a more important role.
Don’t underestimate these 15 minutes. Since it’s a story, there must be freshness for the audience; to create freshness, a touching approach is necessary. In Baldwin’s view, a 15-minute AI video is even more difficult to produce than a 30-minute short film, or even a 2-hour movie:
“These 15 minutes of drama aren’t just the first 15 minutes of a 2-hour movie – it has to be a film structure where the story is told in just 15 minutes, and the audience must stay engaged and not turn away. How to control the rhythm and tell a good story is the biggest challenge for creators.”
The “high demands” in terms of imagery and storytelling are what make this iQiyi creative camp unique.
Zhu Liang, Vice President of iQiyi and Head of Innovation Production, said that the “AI Theater” creation camp is similar to a “venture capital” model. It starts with evaluating each project case by case, and under high standards, projects that meet the creative goals are identified. Bao Dashi, as the founder of the creation camp, participated in the evaluation process throughout the camp to ensure that better content can be implemented on iQiyi.
If other AI video competitions on the market aim to “discover excellent creators,” the AIPTV “AI Theater” creation camp is more like a one-week “master class.” It not only teaches the application of AI capabilities in short story videos, but also focuses on developing the participants’ overall abilities—and even their film aesthetics. The AI tools are not treated as “toys,” but as serious tools for film creation.
In Bao Dexi's view, AIGC has indeed lowered the barrier for individual creators. However, for AI images to truly advance and become essential in professional film creation, users' understanding of film imagery and their mastery of professional knowledge remain important.
Following the creators, AI technology reviews participated in a trial class. Starting from the essence of the film scores, the composer of the theme song for “The Storm” discussed music theory and practice, ranging from “The Night of the Living Dead” to “The Piano Player at Sea”. It analyzed in depth the emotions conveyed by the scores and their roles in the movies, helping everyone find a score that fits their own imagery. The young creators actively asked questions, and Bao Dexi occasionally came on stage to add more details. AI creation is no longer just a card drawing game in front of a computer; it is a professional exploration and practical implementation shared by two generations of creators.
“A film is a combination of various artistic forms. It integrates all kinds of scenery, characters, nature, music, literature... In the past, a production team consisted of dozens of people, with guidance from artists, costume designers, photographers, and action experts. They could provide professional advice,” Baudeix inspired everyone to think by acting like a true teacher, “Now with AI, does it mean that a film creator needs to create independently? The higher and more comprehensive their professional skills are, the better the work will be?”
The equal opportunities in creation brought about by AI allow more people to create their works more easily. However, the emergence of high-quality works calls for a new generation of “super individuals”.
Qi Kang said: “AI may break down the boundaries between professional creators and business enthusiasts, and it will also overturn the traditional models of film and television entertainment content creation and production. Our current ‘professional creators’ might, in addition to focusing on AI technology that generates new forms of life and emotional states, also need to think about and explore how AI technology can evolve ‘audiovisual language’.”
In such a creative atmosphere, everyone's enthusiasm is quite high. The youth center is often brightly lit at two or three o’clock, and there are many people who discuss all night long without even thinking about sleeping.
“We see a strong desire to learn among the younger generation of creators,” said Zhu Liang, vice president of iQiyi and head of intelligent production. “Everyone is very eager to showcase their talents through AI.”
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Full-process support to help creators win at the “starting line”
To tell good stories using AI, aesthetics are certainly important, but the technology and operational support provided by Qiky is essential so that creators can fully utilize their imagination and focus entirely on creative work.
“It is a ‘mutual pursuit’—Teacher Bao Dashi will pay attention to the scripts of each creative team, focusing on the teams’ desire to create, their ability to express, as well as their mastery of AI capabilities and learning speed, among other factors, and provide comprehensive guidance; while iQiyi will send technical, production, and operational support to ensure the quality and innovation of the theater projects,” Zhu Liang said.
First is the technical challenge – it’s often said that “a skilled housewife cannot cook without rice”. If the platform fails to meet the AI technology requirements, creators naturally cannot produce high-quality content, let alone tell a complete story well.
At this point, we have to mention the work of the iQiyi Smart Production Department: based on the platform’s long-term production experience and aesthetics, they have concentrated a large amount of experience into a stable workflow and platform. They also get close to creators and discuss and adjust things with them in practice.
Although through clever story arrangement, emotional manipulation, and leveraging the strengths of different AI models, AI images can be somewhat shielded from viewers’ criticism, iQiyi has also made thorough preparations in terms of the engineering implementation of AI technology.
Today, the commercial practices of a medium-sized company’s “burning” model have been proven false by many cases—not only is the risk greater, but if other models perform better in certain scenarios, it also hinders creators from producing better content on the platform.
Zhu Liang said bluntly in his review of AI technology: “In this regard, we open up our doors widely and actively communicate with various model companies. The key is to produce good works. As for the processes and methods, we will choose them together with the creators. What’s special about the Aiying Smart Production Department is that it acts as a bridge between technology and art, allowing communication on both the creator side and the model company side. The feedback and suggestions from creators and artists regarding AI tools also further influence the direction of AI tool development during this process.” We hope to better combine technology and art to serve our creators.
This creative camp is also an important preliminary exercise for iQiyi’s AI engineering capabilities. Through continuous observation of creators, iQiyi is accumulating more experience, so as to make the use of tools a efficient process that supports the subsequent industrial production of AI content.
At the production level, iQiyi’s technical support ensures that creators have the ability to create great stories; at the distribution level, iQiyi’s specially established brand “Baldishi iQiyi AI Theater” creates a more innovative and freer development space for AI videos by opening up new scenarios.
Compared to the previously successfully validated brands such as “Mist Theater” and “Love Theater”, “AI Theater” does not divide itself by content categories, nor does it deliberately target a specific audience. It first undertakes production and technical experiments, aiming at all audiences across the internet.
At this point, Zhu Liang, who has also spent many years in the film and television industry, shared such a story with AI technology reviews:
“More than twenty years ago, film technology also underwent a revolution—from film to digital. The change in imaging media was quite challenging for the industry, and I worked hard on this for nearly twenty years.” In the middle, there were concepts like ‘digital movies’ and ‘digital intermedia’ (i.e., films shot on film and then scanned using digital technology). But today, these distinctions no longer exist. The film medium has been fully digitized. When people talk about ‘movies’, they usually mean digital media. On the other hand, ‘film movies’ have become a retro and unique term.
In his view, today’s “AI theater” is no different from the “digital movies” of the past. Perhaps one day in the future, when AI fully enters every stage of video production, the concept of “AI theater” will no longer exist. But today, allowing AI videos to enter its exclusive “theater” as high-quality, professional content is a ritual that iQiyi also declares its embrace of future creative endeavors.
“Our current mindset is still more humble and open-minded, and we build a mental image for users through the brand approach,” Zhu Liang said. “We want people to know that the content in this section is a high-end brand of our series-based operation, with higher quality and commercial potential, and it differs from ordinary ‘AI short videos’ and ‘AI manhwa’.”
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Conclusion
Three years after ChatGPT became popular, when discussing large models, many people still ask the same question: “Will AI replace human jobs?”
Behind the repetitive questions that seem cliché, there lies a kind of “fear” – a fear of the inevitable future that is still full of unknowns.
Indeed, the significant improvement in the efficiency of film and television production by AI has made “one-person studios” possible. The complex manual work of the past will also be largely replaced. In today’s era of AI advancing rapidly, perhaps no one is safe.
In response to this issue, Bao Daixi was exceptionally open-minded. He said, “Don’t be afraid. Now is the time for you to transform yourself, not for AI to transform you. I would like to say something encouraging to everyone: I am 73 years old and I am already in the process of transformation—many people are still young. Why can’t you do the same?”