Thirty seconds might not sound like much, but anyone who has tried to tell a story in four or eight second fragments knows how big a jump it is. Kling 4.0 is now out in the world with native 30-second generation, and I have been thinking about what it means for people who make films, alongside a few other stories from the AI film community that caught my eye.
What Kling 4.0 brings
Kuaishou, the company behind Kling AI, says in its investor relations release that Kling 4.0 officially launched on October 15. Kling AI’s own announcement on GlobeNewswire, dated October 16, says the model is “fully available now on the Kling AI website.”
Here are the headline features, as Kling describes them:
- Native 30-second generation. A single generation can run up to 30 seconds, which Kling pitches as room for long takes and continuous storytelling.
- Up to 15 reference assets and 10 keyframes. Kling’s Omni Reference accepts images, video and audio as references, plus keyframes for planning specific moments in a shot. Kuaishou’s release breaks that down further, with up to 10 images, 5 videos and 7 subjects within the total of 15.
- Extension up to two minutes. According to the GlobeNewswire release, you can upload an existing video and extend it up to two minutes.
- 8,000-token prompts. Both releases say prompt input now reaches 8,000 tokens, so you can write a much fuller creative brief.
For me, the reference and keyframe controls are the most interesting part. Long clips are only useful if the characters stay themselves from start to finish. The filmmakers quoted in the release, Evolutionary Films co-founders John Adams and Diane Shorthouse, say that working on their animated feature “Minibots” with Kling 4.0 “feels increasingly like directing a film rather than prompting an AI.” Kling says it is the exclusive “Technological Brand Partner” on that film, so read the quote with that relationship in mind.
What is still coming
A few important pieces are labelled as “soon” in Kling’s GlobeNewswire release:
- API access for enterprise customers and developers.
- 10-bit HDR output at 4K and 1080p.
- A 21:9 ultrawide format.
Adobe is also part of the story. In the same release, Meg Donovan, Senior Director of Product Marketing for GenAI and Creators at Adobe, says Kling’s newest models are “coming soon to Firefly,” naming Kling 4.0 and Kling 4.0 Flash. That could put these tools in front of a lot of working editors, and I will be watching for the date.
Kling also says it has served more than 100 million users and more than 50,000 enterprise customers. Those are Kling’s own figures, so I treat them as the company’s claim.
Festivals, managers and a debate
The ecosystem around these tools keeps filling in.
The Austin AI Film Festival, held October 16 and 17, lists winners in 11 categories on its site. “MindPods” by Jeff Synthesized took Feature Film, “The Morisca” by Seif Abdalla took Short Film, and “The Sultana Disaster of 1865” by Gavin Carlton took Documentary, among others. I love seeing categories like Hybrid, Avant-Garde and Student Film in the mix. It tells me people are exploring different forms, well beyond chasing photorealism.
On the business side, Variety reports that former UTA agent Dante DeSario and media investor Michael Lambert founded Collage, a management and investment company built to help AI-first production companies navigate Hollywood. Variety says its early clients include Asteria, Native Foreign, Obsidian and Jason Zada’s Secret Level, and that the firm helps them with guilds, “studio bureaucrats” and copyright issues. DeSario told Variety he wants to show studios which companies are making human-led work, and “who to stay away from.” He also told Variety there is “real craft” in this work, which stuck with me.
That idea of craft sits at the center of a debate Variety covered from Turin’s View Conference. Asked by an audience member whether AI could eventually replace human actors, Runway co-CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela said, “Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s already happening in a way,” and described AI as “a new medium of storytelling.”
Nvidia’s Richard Kerris shared the stage and took a different view. He recalled a director’s argument that the spontaneity between a director and an actor could never be prompted, using the example of Marlon Brando improvising with a cat on the set of “The Godfather.” “That craft is something to behold,” he said. Kerris also stressed that filmmaking requires an understanding of character, composition and story, and that there is no “make movie button.” Valenzuela joked, “I wish.” Earlier in the exchange he had said that models may eventually reach a point where you can direct them in a similar way. Variety reports that the exchange provoked one of the conference’s biggest debates.
I think both perspectives are worth sitting with, since one speaks to where Valenzuela believes the technology is heading and the other to what makes a performance worth watching. You can take the tools seriously and still believe the human spark in front of the camera matters a great deal.
A few honest caveats
- No API yet. Until API access arrives, studios cannot build Kling 4.0 into their own production pipelines. For now it lives in Kling’s web app.
- Some specs differ between releases. Kling’s GlobeNewswire release lists 10-bit HDR as coming soon and presents two-minute extension as available. Kuaishou’s release describes HDR output as supported and says extension “will soon support multiple extensions of up to two minutes.” I would check the app itself before planning around either feature.
- The adoption numbers are Kling’s. The 100 million users and 50,000 enterprise customers come from the company, without outside verification.
Go make something
If you make films, I would encourage you to try these tools on a small personal project. Push a 30-second take, build a character sheet, see how keyframes change the way you plan a scene. You will learn more from an afternoon of experimenting than from any spec sheet.
As you do, keep people and consent at the center. Use likenesses and voices only with permission, credit the humans who shaped the work, and think about who the work serves. And please read the original coverage for yourself: the Kling and Kuaishou releases, the festival site, and Variety’s two pieces all have far more detail than I could fit here.