Reel-to-unreal: SFU Film Academy prepares secondary students for AI in filmmaking

The district, in partnership with Simon Fraser University, ran its sixth year of the SFU Film Academy, offering opportunities for Grade 8 to 11 students to try their hand at filmmaking. This year's course featured the addition of artificial intelligence as a bleeding-edge element of modern cinema and encouraged students to explore what its impact will be on Hollywood in the near future.

First there were silent films. Then the talkies, followed by a century of advancements in cinema. And now in 2025, student filmmakers are experimenting with artificial intelligence, as part of their summer experience with the SFU Film Academy.

Now in its sixth year, the two-week filmmaking program, hosted by the district in partnership with SFU Surrey’s Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology (FCAT), has entered a new era of creativity, with Grade 8 to 11 students exploring the use of AI to create scenes in short movies. Forty students joined this year’s cohort, learning how to use AI as a filmmaking tool may arguably be as valuable as a camera or boom microphone in Hollywood’s very near future.

“Our students got to try out using AI to fill in the blanks for some of their short films,” said teacher Lev Mihalik. “They were able to get exterior shots, crowd shots, and the technology is good – it’s hard to match the camerawork to the AI footage, but it worked and it really added to the humour of the whole thing.

“They created trailers with these random clips and their job was to put in music and voiceover for a trailer and sound effects. It was an exercise to have some understanding of where that emerging technology is headed.”

While film academy students have always earned course credits for traditional aspects of filmmaking such as script writing, acting, videography and editing, Mihalik said it was important for students to be aware of how visual artists are entering a new frontier with AI.

Fellow teacher Jun Kim said the students really embraced the use of AI – with some even incorporating tongue-in-cheek references to artificial intelligence in their storylines – and showed a true passion for making movies that came through in their dedication to the program.

“I was really surprised that a lot of the kids, if not all of them, were super interested and into filmmaking,” said Kim. “They were super engaged, they wanted to be there even though they were long days, and they made a bunch of really high-quality films.”

This year marked the second year the program was hosted entirely at SFU Surrey, with the university providing professional equipment for every stage of filming and editing for students to learn pre- and post-production, audio recording, screenwriting, acting, directing and cinematography.

While the advent of AI has disrupted traditional filmmaking, Mihalik noted it’s here to stay, and stressed the importance of making students aware of such technological advancements so that they can make informed decisions and learn how they may adapt alongside the technology in the future.

“There’s a lot of doom and gloom within the film industry about AI, but I look at it as a new opportunity, and we have to learn how to work with it,” he said. “Nothing’s going to replace the magic that students get to experience of making a movie with your friends – that’s never going to be replaced by AI.

“The academy is for students to fall in love with the creative process of filmmaking, and I’m hopeful that there’s space for both.”