Artificial intelligence is automating Hollywood. Now, art can thrive.
The next time you sit down to watch a movie, the algorithm behind your streaming service might recommend a blockbuster that was written by AI, performed by robots, and animated and rendered by a deep learning algorithm. An AI algorithm may have even read the script and suggested the studio buy the rights.
It’s easy to think that technology like algorithms and robots will make the film industry go the way of the factory worker and the customer service rep, and argue that artistic filmmaking is in its death throes. For the film industry, the same narrative doesn’t apply — artificial intelligence seems to have enhanced Hollywood’s creativity, not squelched it.
It’s true that some jobs and tasks are being rendered obsolete now that computers can do them better. The job requirements for a visual effects artist are no longer owning a beret and being good at painting backdrops; the industry now calls for engineers who are good at training deep learning algorithms to do the mundane work, like manually smoothing out an effect or making a digital character look realistic. In doing so, the creative artists who still work in the industry can spend less time hunched over a computer meticulously editing frame-by-frame and go do more interesting things, explains Darren Hendler, who heads Digital Domain’s Digital Humans Group.
Just like computers made it so animators didn’t have to draw every frame by hand, advanced algorithms can automatically render advanced visual effects. In both cases, the animator didn’t lose their job.
“We find that a lot of the more manual, mundane jobs become easy targets [for AI automation] where we can have a system that can do that much, much quicker, freeing up those people to do more creative tasks,” Hendler tells Futurism.
“I think you see a lot of things where it becomes easier and easier for actors to play their alter egos, creatures, characters,” he adds. “You’re gonna see more where the actors are doing their performance in front of other actors, where they’re going to be mapped onto the characters later.”
Recently, Hendler and his team used artificial intelligence and other sophisticated software to turn Josh Brolin into Thanos for Avengers: Infinity War.More specifically, they used an AI algorithm trained on high-resolution scans of Brolin’s face to track his expressions down to individual wrinkles, then used another algorithm to automatically map the resulting face renders onto Thanos’ body before animators went in to make some finishing touches.
Such a process yields the best of both motion capture worlds — the high resolution usually obtained by unwieldy camera setups and the more nuanced performance made possible by letting an actor perform surrounded by their costars, instead of alone in front of a green screen. And even though face mapping and swapping technology would normally take weeks, Digital Domain’s machine learning algorithm could do it in nearly real-time, which let them set up a sort of digital mirror for Brolin.
“When Josh Brolin came for the first day to set, he could already see what his character, his performance would look like,” says Hendler.
Yes, these algorithms can quickly accomplish tasks that used to require dedicated teams of people. But when used effectively they can help bring out the best performances, the smoothest edits, and the most advanced visual effects possible today. And even though the most advanced (read: expensive) algorithms may be limited to major Disney blockbusters right now, Hendler suspects that they’ll someday become the norm.
“I think it’s going to be pretty widespread,” he says. “I think the tricky part is its such a different mindset and approach that people are just figuring out how to get it to work.” Still, as people become more familiar with training machines to do their animation for them, Hendler thinks that it’s only logical that more and more applications for artificial intelligence in filmmaking are about to emerge.
