🪄 Hollywood Is In Deep Voodoo

Hello Hollywood AI Reader!

Wow, what a week in the world of AI! A lot of the hype has spilled over into Hollywood, so let’s jump in. Here’s what we got today:

• 🪄 Hollywood Is In Deep Voodoo

• 🔥 Runway Releases Gen-2

• ✍🏼 WGA Addresses AI

• 🍿 AI Kernels

Deep Voodoo is an artificial intelligence company founded by the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. They’re known for their deep fake technology which they used in the creation of “Sassy Justice” and their participation in Kendrick Lamar’s “The Heart Part 5” music video. Despite their short but rich resume, their origin begins in the midst of a crisis.

In early 2020 Stone and Parker, along with Peter Serafinowicz, began work on a script of a feature length deep fake comedic movie, said to center around a character who resembles Donald Trump, and gets roped into working for the presidential administration. So, with a sudden need to hire deep fake artists, Deep Voodoo was created. But as the world came to a screeching halt with the pandemic so did all production for this project. Weary as to not waste their investment, they shifted their focus onto a new project, one that would use the existing crew and assets they already had. From the comfort of their own homes, they wrote, produced, and managed to release one of the greatest creative pieces birthed from the pandemic, “Sassy Justice”. And the video went viral.

All was quiet for the studio until just last year when they were credited with the deep fake editing in Kendrick Lamar’s newest music video, “The Heart Part 5,” which received Best Performance at the Grammys among other awards. This project may not be the last collaboration between Lamar and the founders of Deep Voodoo.

It is rumored that pgLang, Lamar’s multi-disciplinary media group and South County are to be working with producer, writer, and voice actor, Vernon Chatman in a comedic film about “a young Black man who is interning as a slave re-enactor at a living history museum, discovers that his white girlfriend’s ancestors once owned his” (New York Times).

With only a few credited works that we know of, Deep Voodoo has managed to become one of the leading deep fake companies, and has already impacted “traditional entertainment” (Variety). Now, with their newly secured $20 million investment from Connected Ventures, we’re excited to witness the future deep fakes, and original synthetic media, Deep Voodoo will produce.

🔥 Runway Releases Gen-2

Generative AI has been making significant strides in recent years transforming the workflow of certain industries. The technology focuses on creating models capable of generating new data, such as images, music, and text, based on existing examples. One specific generative model that has been making waves through Hollywood is RunwayML.

RunwayML is a cloud-based platform that creates AI tools for video, audio, and text media. The tools produced by the platform are inexpensive, accurate, and intuitive, making it exceedingly popular among filmmakers. As RunwayML grows, so does its expanding library of machine learning tools. Just recently they released their newest generative AI tool, Gen-2, a text to video model capable of generating new video in the style of any existing image, video or text. Gen-2 offers eight different modes:

• Text to Video

  Create videos using nothing but a text prompt.

• Text + Image to Video

  Generate a video using a driving image + text prompt.

• Image to Video

  Generate video using a driving image.

• Stylization

  Transfer the style of a driving image or prompt to your video.

• Storyboard

  Transform mockups into animated renders.

• Mask

  Modify videos with simple text prompts.

• Render

  Apply an input image or prompt to turn untextured renders into realistic outputs.

• Customization

  Customize models for more accurate results.

Currently Gen-2 is still only available for early access but represents a significant advancement in generative AI technology. Its ability to create realistic videos combined with its ease of use makes it an excellent tool for future Hollywood projects.

The platform has already demonstrated that its tools have the potential to revolutionize the way filmmakers create visual effects, with its use in Everything Everywhere All At Once and The Late Night Show with Steven Colbert.

✍🏼 WGA Addresses AI

The Writers Guild of America is sticking it to the robots. In its contract-renewal talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the Writers Guild of America (WGA) is proposing to regulate use of material produced by artificial intelligence. Despite many people’s opinion that AI isn’t very good at screenwriting, the WGA is looking to set the tone for how AI can be used in the writers’ room.

Since entirely AI-generated works don’t meet copyright criteria, the WGA has proposed the following.

• AI can’t be used as source material and AI-generated text cannot be considered in determining writing credits.

• Writers may not be assigned AI-generated material to adapt.

• In the same way that a studio may point to a Wikipedia article, or other research material, and ask the writer to refer to it, they can make the writer aware of AI-generated content.

• Like all research material, it has no role in guild-covered work, nor in the chain of title in the intellectual property.

  It is important to note that AI software does not create anything. It generates a regurgitation of what it's fed.

• Plagiarism is a feature of the AI process.

Whoa, them sound like fighting words. The WGA is looking to establish that AI is nothing more than another tool in a writer’s toolkit. Much of the talks right now are about protecting writers’ working standards, residuals, separated rights and credits against AI.

Is plagiarism a feature of the AI process like the WGA claims it is? We’re not sure we’d go that far. That seems like a bit of a stretch. There are certainly ways to incorporate AI into the writing process without committing plagiarism.

🍿 AI Kernels

Here’s a round-up of interesting news and stories that caught our attention this week:

Is AI the future of Hollywood? Or is it all hype? Read about it here → latimes

If studios want to simulate an actor’s performance, it won’t be free. Time to pay the man. More here → yahoo

AI-assisted works are now available for copyright protection. Wait, haven’t they always been? Read the story → hollywood reporter

AI likely won’t replace many jobs in the near term future. That being said, media and entertainment workflows will become increasingly dependent on it. Check it out → nab

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