Bad AI effects are creating a new kind of work: starting over.
In a column for Post Magazine, Edson Williams, founder and VFX supervisor at Spelling Communications client Lola VFX, says producers and studios are increasingly asking his team to rescue poor AI work from other vendors. Often, there’s no easy fix. The shots have to be redone from scratch.
Williams compares AI to salt in a cake. Add too much and frosting won’t save it.
He isn’t anti-AI. Lola uses deepfakes as a rough template, then its artists do the real work with traditional tools or with Unreal Engine and MetaHuman. His concern is companies treating AI as a stand-alone way to cut time and cost.
The first pass may be easy, he says, but fine-tuning is hard. Simple fixes can take many iterations. A 30-second commercial may have room for flaws, but feature films need continuity from scene to scene.
His prediction is that traditional VFX and AI-generated effects will split sharply. The best companies will use both, and “take out” AI will be left to cheaper, shorter content.
Source: Post Magazine, January/February 2026
