ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
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of their authenticity. This kicked up ethical debates and legal disputes, with celebrities like Taylor Swift and Scarlett Johansson speaking out against the non-consensual use of their likenesses (a protest not at all new to the production industry; Crispin Glover sued Back to the Future Part II over the same issue, except AI was not involved in his case). But what about when GenAI is used ethically, and tastefully too? In the past few years, entertainment companies have been harnessing the technology for creative means after securing actors’ and artists’ consent. Robert Zemeckis’ latest film Here stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, yet despite a three-decade difference, they appear as if fresh out of Forrest Gump . At the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards, Eminem performed Houdini alongside his younger, ‘Slimmer’ self, bleach-blonde buzz cut and all. Snoop Dogg, Dr Dre, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr all appear in the same commercial for Still GIN. It’s not sorcery and it’s not CGI; it’s generative AI – and it’s working in real time. BIG IDEAS With offices in Los Angeles, London and elsewhere around the globe, Metaphysic is pushing the lever on what’s possible with GenAI. A few years ago, Here was just an idea – and a relatively far-fetched one at that. Then, it would’ve taken years to age and de-age its stars using existing conventional methods. But now, it takes ‘nanoseconds’, according to Ed Ulbrich, chief content officer and president of production at Metaphysic. “During the pandemic, a friend of mine named Kevin Baillie, who is Robert Zemeckis’ VFX supervisor, turned me on to the deepfake Tom Cruise TikToks,”
Ulbrich recalls. “I’d seen deepfakes before, but when a bunch of us VFX guys saw that, we were all looking at it and going ‘holy shit’. Long story short, that photoreal GenAI technology back in 2022, when it was used to revive Elvis Presley for a performance on America’s Got Talent . They placed the King’s face on top of tribute singer Emilio Santoro’s during the live broadcast and audiences could hardly believe their eyes. To train its models, Metaphysic scours the Earth for source data – in an entirely ethical manner, of course. For deceased actors and artists, this means getting the green light from their estates, as well as film studios’ permission to use existing footage. “It is unforgiving,” states Ulbrich. “There’s no margin for error. It’s a great responsibility to bring someone like that back, and we take it very seriously. It’s with the blessings of estates every step was the genesis of Metaphysic.” The company first debuted its of the way.” For vocal performances, Metaphysic also uses GenAI to ‘recreate their actual voices, as opposed to using impersonators’. IN AN INSTANT Here has been Metaphysic’s big project from the start. “A bunch of old guys – and I’ll include myself in that category – are harnessing the most advanced, cutting-edge technology in the world to make a traditional live-action movie. It’s just actors talking, it’s a drama. It’s not superheroes throwing buildings at each other,” Ulbrich says half-jokingly. “Zemeckis had the idea of using this technology. He thought this could get the movie made because doing it with CGI instead would cost tens of millions of dollars. It’s throughout the entire movie,
It is unforgiving. There’s no margin for error. It’s a great responsibility to bring someone like that back – we take it very seriously”
and would have been like composing music by one note a day, multiplied by four characters. It would have been a very long, expensive, tedious process just for people talking on camera,” he explains, having been an early proponent of CGI in the nineties. The team behind Here initially contacted both VFX
Sammy Davis Jr, Frank Sinatra, Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg (left to right) could only appear in this Still GIN ad together with the help of GenAI tools
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