movies Archives - Teknotum

Fimmaker Darren Aronofsky’s AI experiment on 1776 hits YouTube

George Washington, according to Aronofsky’s Primordial Soup. (Picture: screenshot)

Aronofsky used DeepMind’s tools to recreate the American Revolution for its 250th anniversary, and it looks none too shabby for an early stage AI production.

The short movies try to track specific days on the calendar to those of 250 years ago, will run through the year, and are made by Aronofsky’s AI studio Primordial Soup, with himself executive producing.

It would be ridiculously expensive to make the sets, hire extras and put them all in time-corrected garb for a two-minute short, so this is one of the few places where AI might make sense — not to mention recreating historical figures.

The film shorts aren’t all «AI slop,» though, as they use unionized voice actors for all speech.

Two episodes are already up. The movies are made with the help of Salesforce and distributed by Time Studios, a subsidiary of Salesforce.

Read more: Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Gizmodo.

DeepMind helps create animated movie headed for Sundance

In what is likely the first AI movie at Sundance, «Dear Upstairs Neighbors» was made with the creatives first. (Picture: Google)

The animated movie «Dear Upstairs Neighbors» was created by Pixar alumni Connie He, a group of animation veterans — and a team of researchers at DeepMind.

The movie was an experiment to see how AI tools could better help moviemakers, and ended up needing specialized tools.

Connie He provided the storyboard, the character design, the abstract background paintings, but a 45-person team at DeepMind soon realized that the off-the-shelf-versions of their software wasn’t good enough for this purpose.

They then fine-tuned the Veo and Imagen models to their artwork, and made a video-to-video model where the artists could sketch a scene for guidance and have the model add details and artwork, before upscaling it to 4K using Veo.

For precise detail, they also developed a tool that would let the artists fix detail in specific regions of an animation, without influencing the broader scene.

The movie will debut at the Sundance Institute’s Story Forum, a panel that focuses on tools and technologies in support of storytelling.

Friday roundup: OpenAI deals with Microsoft, makes a movie, and Albania gets an AI-generated minister

The first feature length movie made almost entirely by AI is set to debut at next year's Cannes Festival. — Made with «OpenAI resources,» this movie is built from animated uploaded drawings and prompts. (Picture: Screenshot, Critterz)

Microsoft agrees with OpenAI to keep talking
Microsoft is in a complex business relationship with OpenAI, where the early investor gets access to the latest AI tech and OpenAI gets access to computing power. They have just reached a “non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the next phase of our partnership.” This could allow OpenAI to go for-profit, under the control of a non-profit entity said to retain an ownership stake of more than $100 billion. Many takes on this today, but OpenAI has been moving away from Microsoft for funding, operations and cloud computing lately. The final deal will likely include some kind of a new investment in the now $500 billion company, and may unlock further market opportunities for OpenAI.
More at: OpenAI and Microsoft’s joint statement, x.com announcement, Reuters, Axios.

OpenAI goes to the movies
A new animated a-list movie, «Critterz» is under development using «OpenAI’s resources.» It should be ready for the Cannes Film Festival, meaning production time will be drastically sped up to only nine months. The script is written by part of the team from «Paddington in Peru», and it is spearheaded by Chad Nelson, who is a creative specialist at OpenAI. The technique looks to be to feed drawings to a large language model and have it animate them. The movie therefore streamlines animation, but wont skimp on voice actors, Gizmodo writes.
More at: The Wall Street Journal, Gizmodo and Engadget.

Read on for more news!

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AIFF, the AI Film Festival, showcases innovative video, as industry set to pounce

Jacob Adler’s «Total Pixel Space,» is an innovative, mind bending AI movie. — A frame from Jacob Adler’s «Total Pixel Space,» winner of the Grand Prize at the AIFF awards. (Picture: screenshot.)

In just three short years, AI has gone from being vilified in Hollywood to having its own AI film festival. It’s not quite Cannes yet, but look at the jury, and you’ll find an important list of industry insiders and VFX veterans.

6,000 submissions
Run by Runway, an ai art company focusing on film shorts, and offering a $15,000 grand prize, it showcases independent creators using AI in their projects, a far cry from the accusations of AI stealing creative jobs.

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