What can artificial intelligence bring to screenwriting? Director and screenwriter Ivon Vavrová sees it as a new, tireless tool—a muse that expands an author’s possibilities but does not replace the craft. Her experience shows that if we know what we want to say, AI can speed up the work and open new questions.
How AI helps with screenplays
Screenwriting is both craft and art: it requires research, story structure, character development, and dialogue that holds the audience’s attention. AI can speed up research, propose structure, and relieve the writer of routine, such as formatting to conventions. It can generate variations of situations or dialogue and maintain character continuity according to specified traits. The result, however, always rests on the writer’s choices, revisions, and taste.
General-purpose tools are sufficient too, such as conversational models like ChatGPT, with which you can conduct long, creative dialogues. There are also specialized applications (for example Dramat) for character profiling or working with arcs. The well-known experimental short film Sunspring (2016) was made from a screenplay generated by an AI named Benjamin and kicked off a wave of festivals experimenting with similar approaches. Such projects demonstrate potential, not automatic quality.
Limits, ethics, and the reality of production
AI is often likened to a “ghostwriter”—an invisible hand that helps but bears no signature. The history of art knows studios and assistants who collaborated on the final work; what matters, however, is transparency about to whom and how authorship belongs. Vavrová emphasizes that acknowledging collaboration with AI is not cheating but an honest naming of the tool. For that reason, it makes sense to speak of AI as a muse one must learn to work with.
Writing a good screenplay does not yet mean having a good film: the director, producers, dramaturgy, and the entire crew are decisive. Producers use analytical tools like ScriptBook that estimate market potential but cannot guarantee success. Fears of job loss culminated in the recent Hollywood writers’ strike, after which came rules and temporary agreements on the use of AI. The future therefore belongs to authors who master the craft and use AI as a partner, not a replacement.
