Artificial Intelligence and the Cinematic Experience

 

Artificial Intelligence and Hollywood have been mixing for decades but the problem that the world of Hollywood is facing is whether AI is becoming more of a risk when it comes to helping make movies. Artificial Intelligence in movies is different then CGI or other computer graphics technology because the human who is writing or directing or even editing, or designing the film has a say when it comes to the aesthetic of the film. If they use AI then the artificial intelligence controls everything. A few years ago in 2020, Carolyn Giardina of the Hollywood Reporter wrote an article entitled From Deepfakes to Facial Capture: How Artificial Intelligence Is Already Changing Hollywood where she highlights the problem of using artificial intelligence in making movies. She states, "One of the hum-drum housekeeping tasks that AI already handles at VFX studio Industrial Light & Magic is overseeing the workflow of rendering animation and visual effects. "We use it for scheduling render jobs on the render farms to get our workloads done every single night in a predictable fashion," says Rob Bredow, senior VP, executive creative director, and head of ILM, whose recent work includes Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. "One of the things that's interesting about machine-learning algorithms is, even when they're only 80 or 90 percent effective, sometimes their guesses tend to pretty much align with if you had put a person there and had them make that guess."¹ What this says is that machines can recognize what you are working on and find a way to help you finish that work without asking for that help to begin with.

That same article highlights how AI is changing the visual side of movies. The article says "VFX house Digital Domain used AI as part of its Masquerade facial capture system to superimpose Josh Brolin's performance onto the villain Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. "We've seen huge advancements in that area of research lately," says Darren Hendler, director of the studio's digital human group. "Real-time rendering together with our AI-driven, real-time facial capture system is changing the timelines for creating movie creatures. Soon we'll be able to generate realistic Thanos-like performances live on set." Hendler says a suite of deep-learning technologies on the horizon "can potentially allow us to quickly and realistically transform a stunt double into an actor or change an actor's lines."² Look at it like this, there are great technologies like the ones already helping to change how movies are made; that is not the problem. The problem is giving these technologies a voice of their own.

An article for the LA Times makes these points even clearer. The article states "“‘Fall’ was probably the hardest film I ever made,” said director Scott Mann. Could he avoid a redux? The solution, he realized, just might be a project he’d been developing in tandem with the film: artificially intelligent software that could edit footage of the actors’ faces well after principal photography had wrapped, seamlessly altering their facial expressions and mouth movements to match the newly recorded dialogue."³ The point I and these writers are trying to make is that is important to see what is in front of us and know that there is technology out there that can hurt us but also technology that can help us. 

An article for The Guardian is also key to understanding this problem. The article illustrates that "Not all aging action stars are happy about the technology, however. Last month Keanu Reeves told Wired magazine of a clause in his film contracts that bans studios from digitally editing his performances. “If you go into deep fake land, it has none of your points of view,” he explained. “That’s scary.” Meanwhile, ChatGPT has taken the world by storm with its facility for writing essays, news reports, and poems and even passing business and law school exams. It may only be a matter of time before it can come up with a decent script treatment or turn a novel into a blockbuster screenplay." ⁴ That is repeating what I stated before about technology that can hurt us. Digitally, artificial intelligence can edit your performances but if it feels bad, it can create new performances of an actor or actress that never happened and the performer would not know about it. 

The biggest story now is how the threat of artificial intelligence can hurt actors and their performances.  CBS News has a great article that deals with this exact topic. The article says "Harrison Ford, at age 80, is now starring as Indiana Jones — both old and young. Audiences could soon see a new performance by James Dean, who died in 1955. Another upcoming film will feature Tom Hanks and Robin Wright as they appeared in Forrest Gump nearly 30 years ago. The AI company Metaphysic is immortalizing actors through data capture — with many cameras taking images at the same time — which allows performers to appear in future films without ever being on set."⁵ The dangers of that are monumental. Actors want control of their likenesses otherwise like is the case with the Robin Wright-Tom Hanks film, movies will be made using actor's likenesses and mannerisms that the actors did not consent to. At the end of the day, what needs to be done is letting actors and actresses know how their voice and likeness is being used that way they are not doing projects they did not sign up for. That is the danger of artificial intelligence, it can be used in multiple ways and not all the ways are positive. 

1. Giardina, C. (2020, May 13). From deepfakes to facial capture: How artificial intelligence is already changing Hollywood. The Hollywood Reporter. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/how-artificial-intelligence-is-changing-hollywood-1293429/visual-effects-10/ 

2. Giardina, C. (2020, May 13). From deepfakes to facial capture: How artificial intelligence is already changing Hollywood. The Hollywood Reporter. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/how-artificial-intelligence-is-changing-hollywood-1293429/visual-effects-10/ 

3. Contreras, B. (2022, December 19). A.I. is here, and it’s making movies. is Hollywood ready? Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2022-12-19/the-next-frontier-in-moviemaking-ai-edits 

4. Smith, D. (2023a, March 23). “of course it’s disturbing”: Will ai change hollywood forever? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/mar/23/ai-change-hollywood-film-industry-concern 

5. Vigliotti, J. (2023, July 11). How ai is Transforming Hollywood, and why its at the center of contract negotiations. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/artificial-intelligence-actors-strike-sag-aftra-metaphysic/