Digital media pioneer Scott Ross—co-founder of Digital Domain—doesn't mince words about AI's impact. In an exclusive interview with Fox Renderfarm, a leading cloud rendering service provider and render farm in the CG industry, he breaks down why this technological shift is fundamentally different from the analog-to-digital revolution, and charts a path forward for artists in an era where everything becomes visual, and content is king.
Image © Scott Ross
Fox Renderfarm: Hi Scott! Thank you for accepting this interview. What's the hardest truth artists need to face about the future of filmmaking?
Scott Ross: Be afraid. Be afraid of AI. I look at digital visual effects workers in three categories.
First, primary creatives — the idea people. The director, the screenwriter, the storytellers.
Second, secondary creatives — the vision translators. Visual effects supervisors, animation supervisors. They take the director’s vision and turn it into something visible.
And third, tertiary creatives — the hands-on makers. They’re the ones actually manufacturing the product, executing the work for the secondary creatives.
If you’re a tertiary creative, you will be replaced — and replaced by AI. If you don’t develop the skills to move into a secondary or primary creative role, you need to be thinking about what comes next.
Fox Renderfarm: Okay. That's scary, huh?
Scott Ross: Yes, the really scary part is—if you look at India, for example. The Indian industry looked for less expensive ways to be able to do the old traditional work, and the less expensive way was to pay people less. And so in India, people are paid less than in, let's say, the United States or the UK. And so the industry moved the lower-end work to India. And now there are thousands of visual effects workers in India… they should be concerned.
Fox Renderfarm: Over the years, you’ve witnessed the industry shift from analog to digital, and now to AI. From your perspective, what feels similar about this transition, and what feels completely new？
Scott Ross: The similarity is that we’re once again seeing new technology replace old technology.
The difference is that when analog moved to digital, there were a lot more employment opportunities for people in the industry, because there were a lot more visual effects being done because it was easier. You look at some of the things George Lucas did with Star Wars, where all of a sudden there's all this animation and CG stuff happening in the background, which you couldn't do in the analog days. The digital shift meant more work, more effects, and more jobs.
AI is different. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people look at what was in the past and they say, "Oh well, what was in the past will apply to the future." It's not necessarily so. Because the role of AI is to replace workers, to do it automated. And so if its goal, and the desire of the client, is to make things cheaper, that means there's going to be a lot of job loss. So it's very, very different than the analog to digital move.
Fox Renderfarm: Nowadays, many artists feel overwhelmed by how fast the industry is changing. What guidance would you offer to help them stay grounded and grow?
Scott Ross: I think there's gonna be opportunities in other industries. So, the unfortunate thing is that a lot of people that are in their twenties, they wanna work for Pixar or Lucasfilm or Industrial Light & Magic; they wanna work on movies or video games.
But what's going to change is that everything will become visual.
For example, I just bought a new coffee machine. In the old days, the coffee machine would come with an instruction pamphlet, and it was printed. I'd have to go through the instructions. The new coffee machine comes with a QR code, and it's visual. So it's not just printed words, it's actually demonstrations—visual stuff that people that are visual communicators will find opportunities in other fields: medicine, education, manufacturing… all of those things are now moving towards visual images. Those opportunities will exist.
Image © Scott Ross
Fox Renderfarm: Have you heard about Fox Renderfarm?
Scott Ross: Sure.
Fox Renderfarm: What's your view on cloud rendering services?
Scott Ross: Cloud rendering has dramatically simplified and reduced the cost of production. I remember at Industrial Light & Magic in the early digital days—render hours and storage were severely limited. Even when I started Digital Domain, we only had two terabytes of online storage. Today, you can easily buy a hard drive with that capacity at any store.
The cloud makes everything more affordable and manageable. The remaining critical challenge is security. For cloud computing to reach its full potential, it must be absolutely secure.
Fox Renderfarm: Any advice for newcomers and young creators entering the industry these days?
Scott Ross: You know, the critical issue is content. So technology is here to serve content.
If my kids were interested in getting involved in this, I'd say be storytellers. Learn how to tell stories. Learn how to create content. Come up with powerful ideas and concepts, and then the technology will serve that. And as we're moving towards AI, that technology is no longer going to be as expensive, and it's not going to be a closed-door policy—people will have access to the technology.
I would say: Learn how to prompt. Learn how to use AI as a tool to create creative content.
