When the iconic Hollywood Filmmaker, Martin Scorsese calls something “creatively freeing,” Hollywood listens. When he calls AI that same thing, Nollywood should probably take notes too.
The 83-year-old Goodfellas director joined AI firm Black Forest Labs as an adviser, revealing he now uses their FLUX model to generate storyboards instantly.
“For 70 years, I’ve been creating my own storyboards… I recently tested this out on a scene and the ability to visualize and immediately share the storyboard was creatively freeing,” Scorsese said. He argues it saves time and money without sacrificing craft.
The Nollywood Reality
In Nigeria, most filmmakers already battle tight budgets, brutal deadlines, and crews stretched thin. A tool that turns a director’s mental image into a storyboard in seconds sounds like a lifeline.
Imagine a young director in Surulere prepping a low-budget thriller. No money for a full art department. With FLUX-style AI, she types “night market chase, rain, neon kiosks, overhead tracking shot” and gets 10 storyboard frames to show her DP. Production moves faster. That’s Scorsese’s argument: less “wear and tear on the crew”.
The Backlash Hits Home
But the same fears hitting Hollywood apply here maybe worse.
Lagos concept artists, storyboarders, and VFX juniors already compete for few gigs.
Avengers: Endgame concept artist Karla Ortiz blasted Scorsese for “throwing every single storyboard artist he’s ever worked with under the bus”.
Replace “Hollywood storyboard artist” with “UNILAG grad trying to break into Nollywood,” and the anxiety is real. If a producer can prompt a scene instead of hiring a junior artist at ₦50k/day, will they?
Tool or Threat?
Scorsese isn’t using AI to replace actors or writers only to “convey a cinematic language” in pre-production. He compares it to his use of 3D in Hugo and de-aging in The Irishman. Technology as a pencil, not the hand.
That distinction matters for Nollywood. Our industry thrives on adaptation. We shot on VHS when film was expensive.
We mastered mobile editing when laptops were scarce. AI storyboards could mean more indie films actually get made, because pre-vis becomes cheaper.
But without guardrails, it could also mean fewer entry-level jobs — the same jobs young Nigerian creatives use to learn the craft.
The Bottom Line for 9ja Creatives
- Learn the tool: Directors who can prompt and draw will outbook those who can only do one.
- Own your style: AI trains on existing work. Artists with a distinct Nigerian visual language will be harder to replace.
- Demand Credit + Compensation: If your past boards train a model, the guild conversation starts now.
Scorsese says cinema is “only around 125 years old, so we have to be open to how it can evolve”.
Nollywood is even younger. The question isn’t whether AI comes for us. It’s already here.
The question is: will we use it to tell bolder Nigerian stories faster or let it tell us the creativity of the Storyboard artist are no longer needed?
