Artificial intelligence has been introduced into classic films – Kommersant FM

Artificial intelligence replaced the leading lady in Ingmar Bergman’s film. The face of Liv Ullman, who played one of the main roles, was removed from the Swedish director’s 1966 film Persona. Instead, the modern Finnish actress Alma Pevsti will look at the audience from the screen. This is a joint experiment between the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, two film studios and the Gothenburg International Festival. There, in the winter of 2024, the changed picture will be presented. Both actresses are expected to attend the premiere.

The festival organizers came up with a new title for the film – “Another Person”. After the screening, a discussion about acting and new technologies is planned. The film will not be released to the public.

A similar technique could well be used in commercial cinema, says Alexander Izotov, head of the Tsar Pictures company. In his opinion, in this case, on the contrary, it is better to replace modern actors with stars of the past:

“I think that the question is more of an advertising and shocking one, because if you look from a financial point of view, the same story will work as with films with large budgets and global promotion.

Relatively speaking, if a deceased actor is “resurrected” using technology in Marvel films, this will have a clear financial effect. But this depends on the will of individual studio executives.

The dream of “revitalizing” great artists and putting them in the frame is also an interesting topic.

If someone gets it into their head to make a movie with “Charlie Chaplin” and combine it with some star of the current generation, then it will be done. It will be cool, it will give an informational reason that can be promoted.”

Artificial intelligence is also actively used by Russian filmmakers. For example, in the TV series “Contact”, actor Pavel Maikov was rejuvenated using a neural network. This was required for an episode in which the hero travels 15 years ago.

And in the second season of the show, Maxim Vitorgan’s face was replaced using a deepfake with an image generated by artificial intelligence. The actor was reportedly cut from the series after he publicly spoke out against Russia’s military actions in Ukraine.

Neural networks are also used to create scripts for Russian films and TV series. ChatGPT is also used by the director of the Juice studio, Vadim Plokhotnikov. In an interview with Kommersant FM, he noted that artificial intelligence helps with large volumes of orders:

“We use this technology in creating television shows, synopses of scripts, and some dialogues for presenters and actors. But this is used as a means, not as an end. That is, we do not create texts only with the help of AI, it helps us find a topic.

Our task is to generate ideas every day, and at some point the brain is simply no longer able to do this.

And artificial intelligence and ChatGPT suggest in which direction you can move, but at the same time they do not replace the screenwriter, they simply act as an inspirer, a muse in real embodiment.

But you definitely can’t use it in full, because it’s stupid, it makes mistakes, and it doesn’t sound realistic everywhere.

We were writing a script for a television show, and ChatGPT lied about several historical facts; we had to double-check this information ourselves. But he came up with a very cool idea on how to present the material visually, and gave us a logical character arc.

We thought out and completed everything else ourselves. Our task was to write 50 such mini-scenarios. It only took a couple of days. Sometimes this is physically impossible to do, and ChatGPT helped us come up with topics that we just fleshed out.

It is impossible to completely replace a living person, because our task and work is to emotionally influence the viewer with our product. Artificial intelligence does not yet know how to do this; the machine does not yet know how to work with people.”

The problem of using neural networks in cinema was actively discussed against the backdrop of a large-scale strike in Hollywood. The US Writers and Actors Guild demands, in particular, stricter protection of digital copies of artists from their illegal use.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, they were able to achieve restrictions on the use of artificial intelligence.

Meanwhile, neural networks continue to be actively used around the world, but interest in them will noticeably decrease over time, says film producer Georgy Malkov:

“Now there are several sensational cases, for example, on YouTube there is the series “PMJason”, where a deepfake of Jason Statham is used. The project is well-known, it is quite popular outside of Russia.

The story of the TV series “Saboteur” is also known, where there was a deepfake of Vladislav Galkin. And now they have announced a film about Vladimir Vysotsky, where such technologies will also be made.

There is a company that offers, for example, to use the images of already deceased Russian actors, having received the rights to do so from their heirs. As a feature, this can probably attract attention in the short term. However, what remains next is the content, the context.

So, after the first Avatar, everyone thought that now there would only be 3D technologies in cinema, but it turned out that now they are rarely used. AI will also become a regular tool, which will no longer be something out of the ordinary for which audiences go to the cinema.

If it is important for history to see a person at different periods of his life and so on, this is probably an appropriate thing, and technologically it may turn out to be better than some kind of plastic makeup. You can also use AI to create some non-existent characters.”

In March, the STS television company announced the filming of the series “Sidorovs”. As representatives of the channel stated, this is the first television project in Russia, the script for which was written by a neural network.

It was developed by artificial intelligence based on the dialogues of the TV series “Voronin”, “Dyldy”, “The Eighties”, “Rodkom” and “The Oligarch’s Wife”.

---

Everything is clear with us – Telegram channel “Kommersant FM”.

Elena Tyuleneva