An AI-made microdrama version of Neighbours has left some of the people who worked on the soap uneasy. Actors and crew are worried about what happens when a long-running series is chopped up by software and rebuilt as something else.
The comparison being made is stark: it is "like cutting up a Picasso". The point is that a finished piece of work, shaped by many hands, is being taken apart and reassembled by a machine.
The format
Microdramas are very short episodes, usually a minute or two long, made to be watched on a phone. They are often shot or reframed vertically, so they fill a handheld screen. Each instalment tends to end on a cliffhanger or a sudden twist, to keep viewers tapping to the next one. Stories are told at speed, with little room for build-up.
That is a long way from how soaps are normally made. Neighbours has run for decades, with storylines that unfold over weeks and characters viewers have known for years. Squeezing that into rapid-fire clips means deciding what to keep and what to drop.
The AI edit
In general terms, AI editing tools can scan footage, pick out scenes, cut them down, reframe shots for a different screen shape and stitch the results together. Some can also generate captions or alter sound. What they cannot do is judge a performance the way an editor, director or actor would. Critics of such tools argue that pacing, tone and emotional beats are creative choices, and that handing them to software risks flattening the original.
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