8 months ago
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Lightricks, the company that makes popular apps like Facetune and Videoleap, announced a new AI-powered filmmaking tool called LTX Studio today. The studio helps creators from the ideation phase to generate an AI-powered short clip to understand how a storyline would play out.
LTX Studio, which is currently inviting users to sign up for a waitlist, is a web-based tool. The company will make the tool available to everyone next month, and it doesn’t plan to charge for it at the moment.
How does the tool work?
Creators can first type an idea they have and LTX Studio will create a script and a storyboard for them along with characters through a prompt.
Image Credits: Lightricks
The storyboard shows different scenes divided into many shots. Users can change the scenes by prompting, changing the style — such as anime or cinematic — modifying the weather settings, and altering the location. Typically, each shot is just a few seconds long with customizations such as camera angles, motion scale, special effects, and character dialogs.
There is also a shot editor, which lets you rename the shot and change the settings for the frame, motion scale, camera motion, duration, and sound.
Users can also add, remove, or modify characters for the whole concept through a separate characters tab. They can also import an image with a visible face to create a character for the storyline. Lightricks mentioned that maintaining character consistency throughout the story was one of the key features creators were looking for.
Once users are done with storyline tweaking and shot editing, they can preview the film and export the file as well to share with others for feedback.
Lightricks thinks that this product is suited for professionals like filmmakers, people involved in pre-production, and ad agencies. The company’s co-founder and CEO Zeev Farbman said that LTX studio will be helpful to quickly create conceptual stories or for filmmakers to evaluate different options of shooting a scene without pouring a lot of money into it.
Using AI in Lightricks products
Farbman noted that the company realized the opportunity around AI in 2022 and started thinking about what kind of next-gen products it could develop around it.
“We realized that there is going to be this paradigm shift with AI for all the tool makers. And we needed to figure out what our next-generation products would look like. While we had a bunch of popular products, we wanted to develop something from scratch,” Farbman told TechCrunch over a call.
The company said it had introduced AI-powered features to its popular product to its Facetune and Videoleap products but wanted to also create a new product. That thought process led the startup to make LTX Studio.
The new tool uses a bunch of different AI models for different parts of the creation process including the company’s own text-to-video model. However, not all things are AI-powered. The company is using third-party asset providers for background music, as it believes that AI doesn’t produce quality background music yet.
A survey conducted by the company last year highlighted that 62% of users are already using some kind of generative AI-based products. That’s why Lightricks is also doubling down on AI-powered features just like other creative product companies like Adobe and Canva.
Lightricks is consolidating its products
The company has released many apps for photo and video editing over the years. But last year, it started to fold features of products like Beatleap for remixing videos, Motionleap for animating photos, and Filtertune for creating personality looks into its marquee products such as Facetune, Photoleap, and Videoleap. While some of the other individual apps still exist, the company is focusing on developing its hit products more.
Lightricks has discontinued certain products as well. In 2022, the company received backing from TikTok star Charli D’Amelio and family. At that time, it started an editorial site with the family called The247. Plus, it also launched a link-in-bio service called LinkInBio. The company has now discontinued both products.
The company has historically built consumer-focused apps, but it is now diversifying its offerings. Last year, Lightricks acquired Popular Pays, a platform that connects brands with creators. Plus, with the latest LTX studio launch, it is aiming to cater to more professionals.
Lightricks raised a massive Series D of $130 million in 2021 led by Insight Partners. But the company said it will change its direction from a consumer-only startup.
“Be it raising another round or going public, the story is going to build around AI not only for consumers but for professionals as well. For that, we need to launch our tools, show some traction, and then we are going to reach out to the market,” Farbman said.
The company had laid off 12% of its staff in 2022 but isn’t planning to make any cuts to its current workforce of 550 people.
