Netflix’s VFX secrets revealed: How AI is transforming filmmaking at Eyeline Studios

Netflix's Eyeline Studios is incorporating AI into traditional filmmaking. At the View Conference in Turin, the studio revealed how they are using AI and their future plans.

The Netflix-owned studio emphasized that they are using AI to enhance real performances by real actors, instead of relying on AI to create entire movies.

Netflix's Eyeline Studios explained how exactly it's using AI

As Variety reports, Eyeline Studios' VP of Virtual Pioneering, Mohsen Mousavi, explained how the studio is using AI at the View Conference. He revealed that the Netflix-owned studio is combining live-action footage, regular VFX, and AI-assisted techniques to produce scenes for film and television. He clarified:

“We’re not prompting our way into shots and movies. That’s not who we are."

He then went on to describe the new approach as the following:

“hybrid production.”

Mousavi explained that generating a convincing image is only part of the process. Although AI models can significantly help in achieving a certain look or set, the artists need to work on it to turn it into the desired result. He emphasized:

“getting to the 100% is what matters the most.”

Netflix's Eyeline Studios is introducing AI in the creative process during the early design stages, allowing its artists to explore ideas alongside traditional methods. A particular technique the studio uses also allows actors to perform on partially built sets, with digital tools later used to complete the surroundings and adjust the lighting while keeping the original performances intact.

Mousavi explained:

“It’s an extension of the traditional art department,”

The studio is also experimenting with volumetric capture, which allows filmmakers to adjust camera angles and lighting after filming. Eyeline demonstrated how footage recorded in one location could be transformed to resemble a different setting without necessarily requiring green screens. Mousavi explained:

“It gives us both freedom of light and freedom of camera after shooting performances."

Eyeline has already used elements of this approach in Netflix productions. For Brazil ’70: The Third Star, a drama about Brazil’s victory at the 1970 FIFA World Cup, the studio helped recreate the tournament’s enormous stadium crowds.

The production combined live-action footage, conventional CGI, and generative AI instead of depending on a single technology. Mousavi said that they would've exceeded their budget if they chose to just use traditional VFX instead of incorporating AI with it.

The studio also demonstrated its work on Netflix’s five-part historical documentary The American Experiment. The new method extended backgrounds, created digital dust effects, and incorporated additional visual elements into filmed footage. Other demonstrations showed how a performer’s apparent age could be changed while keeping the original performance intact.

Eyeline is continuing to develop tools that give artists greater control over AI-generated effects. One area of research involves fluid simulations, particularly water, which can be difficult to generate consistently. Speaking of the systems that are presently being used, Mousavi said:

“They’re not deterministic, and they’re very hard to control,”

The studio revealed that it wants artists to adjust water’s speed, thickness, and turbulence while independently controlling details such as foam and spray. Mousavi explained that visual effects sometimes require creative departures from real-world physics, stating:

“Often in visual effects, what you really want to do is that you want to break the physics of the fluid."

Explaining the studio’s research-led approach, Mousavi did not reveal which foundation-model providers it works with, but said:

“Most of the work we do is based on our own research and our own models,”

Eyeline believes that creative control remains essential. Mousavi stressed the point that cinematographers and production designers must be able to influence the results, saying:

“We want to make sure that it’s not a black box."

Speaking about the studio's final goal, Mousavi said:

“The goal is to make it completely cohesive."

Challenges regarding high dynamic range, 4K resolution, and consistency between video frames, still persist. But the studio aims to integrate AI-generated elements and traditional VFX into a final product that's better than what it may be using just one of the technologies.

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