Latest news with #Jancsó
Fox News
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Oscars' new AI rule could lead to ‘diminishing return' in nominated films: expert
The Oscars announced several changes and updates to their rules for next year's 98th ceremony, including permission for generative artificial intelligence to be included in consideration for nominations. "With regard to Generative Artificial Intelligence and other digital tools used in the making of the film, the tools neither help nor harm the chances of achieving a nomination. The Academy and each branch will judge the achievement, taking into account the degree to which a human was at the heart of the creative authorship when choosing which movie to award," the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) shared in a statement. "You're putting your finger on the scale when you're using this type of technology and, yes, humans are involved, but not in the outcome. What's involved here is the AI is doing the heavy lifting," Raymond Arroyo, Fox News contributor and host of the "Arroyo Grande" podcast, told Fox News Digital. He continued, "This is fine for some parts of filmmaking: production design and even script[s] [making] alterations and plot lines, but there's a human element that you're going to want to rely on. Because humans are imperfect, and that's what makes art, and that's what makes the human experience. In many ways, it's our striving for perfection and missing that fascinates." AI was already used in an Oscar-winning film this year, "The Brutalist." The film's editor, Dávid Jancsó, told tech magazine Red Shark News in January that AI tools from Respeecher, a Ukrainian software company, were used to improve the Hungarian dialogue spoken by stars Adrien Brody, who won for best actor at this year's Oscars, and Felicity Jones. "I am a native Hungarian speaker, and I know that it is one of the most difficult languages to learn to pronounce," Jancsó told Red Shark. "It's an extremely unique language. We coached [Brody and Jones] and they did a fabulous job, but we also wanted to perfect it so that not even locals will spot any difference." According to Jancsó, Brody and Jones recorded their voices into the AI software, and he used his own voice for some of the dialect. That kind of perfection isn't necessary, in Arroyo's opinion. "Every great story is about the hero trying to achieve something that's really out of his grasp, beyond him," he said. "But for AI, everything is within its grasp. And I do worry that some of the craftsmanship and the artistic choices will be delegated to a computer rather than to another level of human interaction and collaboration." Arroyo doesn't see AI completely replacing creatives entirely, a common fear across Hollywood, but he does believe it could negatively impact the artistic process. "You're always going to have a director, but if your set designs are being done by AI, and your costume design's being done by AI, your background music is being done by AI … you see the diminishing return. That human interaction where art is made is cut off, because you have one prime mover and a computer." The Oscars also announced another rule change that surprised many. Beginning with the upcoming ceremony, Academy members will be required to watch all nominated films in each category to be eligible to vote in the final round. Over the years, anonymous Oscar voters have shared their ballots in trade publications, often admitting that they haven't watched some films or finished longer nominees. Arroyo speculated that that may lead to fewer members voting. "I know a number of members of the Academy who don't vote at all, and they don't because they hate most of the films being offered and don't want to sit through them," he said. "So, it's kind of their own personal defection in place." "But I mean, on the whole, it's a good idea people at least consider the nominees in total that they're voting on. But I think they're nominating too many people. You can't have 10 movies nominated for best movie. It's too much. And so it can't also become a second career for members of the Academy to vote with knowledge on your nominees. And so they may have to readjust the sheer volume [of] the awards." According to AMPAS, most categories are voted on by eligible members of their respective branch (costuming votes for costuming, editors for editors, etc.) while certain categories "may be open to members across all voting branches." For the final round, all eligible members may vote in all categories. AMPAS has not yet laid out any methodology on how to enforce this new system, leaving a gray area for how well it will work. "I don't know how professionals are going to have that much time," Arroyo said. "If they're directors and producers and, actors, designers, and they're working constantly, that's a big time suck. So how the Academy patrols it, I don't know." He suggested sending screener links that can indicate whether someone has watched it, or possibly a questionnaire about what happens in the film, but, "there's so much busy work that I think it defeats its own purpose, so they may have to walk that back." "It's a good idea, but the answer is: Nominate less, curtail your categories so you have 10 rather than 30," Arroyo added. As of 2024, there are 23 categories, with two new ones added for upcoming ceremonies. In 2026, members will be able to vote on achievements in casting, and in 2028, a long-awaited stunt category will be available.
Fox News
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
'The Brutalist' producer defends Oscar-winning movie's use of artificial intelligence after controversy
A producer for the Oscar-winning film, "The Brutalist," is defending the production's use of artificial intelligence. D.J. Gugenheim, one of several producers involved in the film, spoke with Deadline at the Oscars on Sunday night, saying the technology is simply a tool. "If you're in post [-production] on a film, there's so many tools that you use, whether it's lighting, sound, and these are all versions of functions of numbers," he told the outlet. "What's important about how we're making a film is that we're trusting the actors and the creatives and the talent to make a film. So, if no one is losing a job, and you're making the best version of the product, that's when you're using a tool." "The problem, I think, with AI is when we take away a job," he added. Gugenheim said he felt the team didn't hide the fact they used AI, noting the editor shared the information himself. Dávid Jancsó told tech magazine Red Shark News in January that AI tools from Respeecher, a Ukrainian software company, were used to improve the Hungarian dialogue spoken by stars Adrien Brody, who won for best actor at this year's Oscars, and Felicity Jones. "I am a native Hungarian speaker and I know that it is one of the most difficult languages to learn to pronounce," Jancsó told Red Shark. "It's an extremely unique language. We coached [Brody and Jones] and they did a fabulous job, but we also wanted to perfect it so that not even locals will spot any difference." According to Jancsó, Brody and Jones recorded their voices into the AI software, and he used his own voice for some of the dialect. He also shared that generative AI was used in the film's final sequence to create a "series of architectural drawings and finished buildings" in the style of Brody's character, an architect. The revelation stirred controversy about the use of AI in film, and some demanded that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences institute disclosure rules for next year. "People are asking questions, like, The Academy is now asking if AI is being used. I say that's great. There's no problem with that, and you shouldn't use AI to take away from a job, for sure," Guggenheim told Deadline. Director Brady Corbet also addressed the controversy in a statement to Variety shortly after Jancsó's interview, writing, "Adrien and Felicity's performances are completely their own. They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents. Innovative Respeecher technology was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed. This was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production. The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity's performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft." Corbet also stated that production designer Judy Becker "and her team did not use AI to create or render any of the buildings. All images were hand-drawn by artists. To clarify, in the memorial video featured in the background of a shot, our editorial team created pictures intentionally designed to look like poor digital renderings circa 1980." "The Brutalist" wasn't the only nominated film this year to use AI. "Emilia Perez" used AI to increase the vocal range of the film's star, Karla Sofia Gascon, according to the re-recording mixer Cyril Holtz in an interview at Cannes last May, per The Guardian. "Dune: Part Two" used AI for the Fremen characters, who have distinct glowing blue eyes. In the official production notes for the film, Visual Effects Supervisor Paul Lambert explained they created "a machine-learning model, an algorithm trained from those 'Dune' shots to find human eyes in an image, which would then give us a matte for the different parts of the eye." The Bob Dylan biopic, "A Complete Unknown," also used AI, but only for "3 brief wide shots on a motorcycle, not involving performance or creative enhancements," per a statement to Variety.
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Oscar-nominated film under fire for use of AI — and their response may surprise you
Hollywood's latest AI experiment isn't another deepfake or sea of digital extras. It's a tweak to human voices. In the Oscar-nominated film The Brutalist, actors had their foreign dialogue improved by artificial intelligence, raising concerns about the technology's growing role in filmmaking — and in our lives. The Brutalist follows a Hungarian-Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust, escaping postwar Europe to settle in America and rebuilding his life, career, and marriage. In the film, lead actors Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones speak partially in Hungarian with Jewish accents, which is where the use of AI comes in. The movie's editor, Dávid Jancsó, recently told industry publication Red Shark News that he used an AI tool called Respeecher to make portions of the Hungarian dialogue sound more authentic. "Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there," Jancsó, a native Hungarian speaker, said. "We were very careful about keeping their performances. It's mainly just replacing letters here and there." The recent admission caused a major debate among film industry professionals, especially with The Brutalist sweeping award nominations this season. Brody and Jones are both nominated for Oscars for their respective roles, and the film is in the running for best picture. Industry experts say The Brutalist isn't the first — and won't be the last — movie to use AI in its filmmaking. In fact, editors of Emilia Pérez, a film also nominated for a slew of Oscars including best picture, recently admitted to using AI to enhance the singing voice of lead actor Karla Sofía Gascón. Gascón is also nominated for an Oscar for her role. "I suspect the use of AI in production will become increasingly common and openly admitted, particularly for what might be seen as minor labor-intensive work such as generative backgrounds, crowd scenes, and the like," Louis Heaton, digital film and TV production lecturer at London Metropolitan University, told CNN. Heaton credits AI's popularity with the tech being "cheaper and quicker" for production studios. Jancsó cited the same reasoning for using Respeecher in The Brutalist. "It is controversial in the industry to talk about AI, but it shouldn't be," Jancsó told Red Shark News. "It just makes the process a lot faster. We use AI to create these tiny little details that we didn't have the money or the time to shoot." AI may be an inexpensive shortcut, but the cost to the arts — and the planet — is hard to justify. AI data centers use a massive amount of electricity, which is often powered by dirty fuel. Data centers also churn through billions of gallons of freshwater, which is used to cool their equipment. Moreover, AI technology also relies on rare minerals and elements, which are often mined unethically and unsustainably, per the United Nations Environment Programme. The demands of AI are expected to contribute to the doubling of data center power consumption from 2022 to 2026. "There is still much we don't know about the environmental impact of AI but some of the data we do have is concerning," said Golestan Radwan, chief digital officer of the United Nations Environment Programme, on the UNEP website. "We need to make sure the net effect of AI on the planet is positive before we deploy the technology at scale." Not only that, but using AI to enhance acting performances could be seen as watering down the art form, taking some of the humanity out of storytelling. As Heaton told CNN: "As AI here appears to be directly altering/improving an element of the actor's performance, it could be seen as calling into question the authenticity of that performance. Would the average moviegoer really care if the lead actors were speaking perfect Hungarian? ... I'd say no." Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Brutalist producer defends Oscar frontrunner after AI controversy
The producer behind Oscar frontrunner The Brutalist has asked that the audience not 'diminish a truly terrific film from a gifted filmmaker' over the revelation that it employed AI tools. The film's editor, Dávid Jancsó, revealed earlier this month they used the Respeecher voice cloning software to make Hungarian dialogue spoken by Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones sound more authentic. 'I am a native Hungarian speaker and I know it is one of the most difficult languages to learn to pronounce,' Jancsó told tech publication Red Shark News. 'It is an extremely unique language.' They had coached Brody and Jones to speak the language, the editor said, 'and they did a fabulous job but we also wanted to perfect it so that not even locals will spot any difference'. Jancsó said the AI software enabled them to blend his own speech with the performances of the actors. In a column for Variety, Emmy-winning producer Stan Brooks said that the AI tools used for The Brutalist enhanced the performances of the actors. It was a process, he claimed, that had been followed in 'editing suites, sound edit rooms and mixing stages for as long as I can remember'. 'My producing career began in the late '80s, and I've produced and directed over 80 movies and television episodes. For as long as I've been in the business, we've done tiny things to enhance voice performances,' he said. Brooks pointed out that film producers used different processes and software to ensure the best performances from actors made it into the final cut. 'If an actor delivers a perfect reading in take three of a scene, but there's a mic bump, car horn or loud noise masking a word, do we go to the second-best take? Not if we can avoid it,' he said. 'With the Pro Tools software, which replaced time spent in a sound edit suite, we can try and grab just that word from another take and place into take three. We save the best performance.' The producer then explained the process of ADR, or additional dialogue replacement, in which actors record dialogue for a scene shot somewhere noisy. He said Donald Sutherland was a 'big fan' of a similar process called looping, which he learned from 'none other than Federico Fellini on Casanova'. Brooks, however, clarified that he did not condone the 'perils of AI'. He did not want 'AI to start writing movies, series, or other original content without crediting and paying the dozens (or hundreds? thousands? millions?) of sources that it referenced to do so,' he wrote. To differentiate between the tools used on The Brutalist and the kind of AI he said could be detrimental, Brooks brought up a film that he directed recently, where a sound technician used an AI tool to create dialogue that had been mistakenly left unrecorded. 'In that innocuous moment at 11 o'clock at night on a darkened mixing stage, I saw the embodiment of everyone's fears. This AI could easily replace loop groups. Real performers. Real jobs,' he wrote. Brooks ended by asking for more understanding of the filmmaking process and for viewers to not confuse it with situations where AI was 'actually a threat to people's livelihoods and careers'. 'Using AI as a tool to replace a process we've already performed for decades is not that threat. So don't let this noise around The Brutalist diminish a truly terrific film from a gifted filmmaker.' The Brutalist was one of the big winners at this year's Golden Globes, winning Best Director, Best Male Actor for Drama and Best Picture for Drama, and quickly became a frontrunner for the Oscars, with 10 nominations. Shortly after the interview with Jancsó dropped, there was speculation that this could hurt the film's chances at the Oscars. Director Brady Corbet defended the film saying: 'Adrien and Felicity's performances are completely their own. They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents. Innovative Respeecher technology was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed. 'This was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production. The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity's performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft.' Corbet also clarified that AI was not used to 'create or render any of the buildings'. 'All images were hand-drawn by artists. To clarify, in the memorial video featured in the background of a shot, our editorial team created pictures intentionally designed to look like poor digital renderings circa 1980. 'The Brutalist is a film about human complexity, and every aspect of its creation was driven by human effort, creativity, and collaboration. We are incredibly proud of our team and what they've accomplished here.'
The Independent
30-01-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
The Brutalist producer defends Oscar frontrunner after AI controversy
The producer behind Oscar frontrunner The Brutalist has asked that the audience not 'diminish a truly terrific film from a gifted filmmaker' over the revelation that it employed AI tools. The film's editor, Dávid Jancsó, revealed earlier this month they used the Respeecher voice cloning software to make Hungarian dialogue spoken by Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones sound more authentic. 'I am a native Hungarian speaker and I know it is one of the most difficult languages to learn to pronounce,' Jancsó told tech publication Red Shark News. 'It is an extremely unique language.' They had coached Brody and Jones to speak the language, the editor said, 'and they did a fabulous job but we also wanted to perfect it so that not even locals will spot any difference'. Jancsó said the AI software enabled them to blend his own speech with the performances of the actors. In a column for Variety, Emmy-winning producer Stan Brooks said that the AI tools used for The Brutalist enhanced the performances of the actors. It was a process, he claimed, that had been followed in 'editing suites, sound edit rooms and mixing stages for as long as I can remember'. 'My producing career began in the late '80s, and I've produced and directed over 80 movies and television episodes. For as long as I've been in the business, we've done tiny things to enhance voice performances,' he said. Brooks pointed out that film producers used different processes and software to ensure the best performances from actors made it into the final cut. 'If an actor delivers a perfect reading in take three of a scene, but there's a mic bump, car horn or loud noise masking a word, do we go to the second-best take? Not if we can avoid it,' he said. 'With the Pro Tools software, which replaced time spent in a sound edit suite, we can try and grab just that word from another take and place into take three. We save the best performance.' The producer then explained the process of ADR, or additional dialogue replacement, in which actors record dialogue for a scene shot somewhere noisy. He said Donald Sutherland was a 'big fan' of a similar process called looping, which he learned from 'none other than Federico Fellini on Casanova '. Brooks, however, clarified that he did not condone the 'perils of AI'. He did not want 'AI to start writing movies, series, or other original content without crediting and paying the dozens (or hundreds? thousands? millions?) of sources that it referenced to do so,' he wrote. To differentiate between the tools used on The Brutalist and the kind of AI he said could be detrimental, Brooks brought up a film that he directed recently, where a sound technician used an AI tool to create dialogue that had been mistakenly left unrecorded. 'In that innocuous moment at 11 o'clock at night on a darkened mixing stage, I saw the embodiment of everyone's fears. This AI could easily replace loop groups. Real performers. Real jobs,' he wrote. Brooks ended by asking for more understanding of the filmmaking process and for viewers to not confuse it with situations where AI was 'actually a threat to people's livelihoods and careers'. 'Using AI as a tool to replace a process we've already performed for decades is not that threat. So don't let this noise around The Brutalist diminish a truly terrific film from a gifted filmmaker.' The Brutalist was one of the big winners at this year's Golden Globes, winning Best Director, Best Male Actor for Drama and Best Picture for Drama, and quickly became a frontrunner for the Oscars, with 10 nominations. Shortly after the interview with Jancsó dropped, there was speculation that this could hurt the film's chances at the Oscars. Director Brady Corbet defended the film saying: 'Adrien and Felicity's performances are completely their own. They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents. Innovative Respeecher technology was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed. 'This was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production. The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity's performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft.' Corbet also clarified that AI was not used to 'create or render any of the buildings'. 'All images were hand-drawn by artists. To clarify, in the memorial video featured in the background of a shot, our editorial team created pictures intentionally designed to look like poor digital renderings circa 1980. ' The Brutalist is a film about human complexity, and every aspect of its creation was driven by human effort, creativity, and collaboration. We are incredibly proud of our team and what they've accomplished here.'
