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Daily Mirror
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
The Oscars introduce new rule which allow AI-generated films for big awards
The Academy Awards have introduced a few new changes, including allowing films made with the help of artificial intelligence to win big awards The Academy Awards have introduced a new change that allows films made with the help of artificial intelligence to win massive awards. The use of AI in movies has already been a controversial topic as The Brutalist received backlash after the movie's editor, Dávid Jancsó, revealed AI was used to create a more convincing Hungarian accent. It still went on to win Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Music at this year's awards show. And now, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences confirmed that movies using AI tools will be able to qualify for awards. According to the rules, AI use won't automatically boost or reduce a film's chance of getting a nomination. The Academy said the most important part is the percentage of human creativity involved in the entire process, which means the AI technology can only assist in the project but not be a huge part of the storytelling or take over the entire thing. Emilia Perez, who won Zoe Saldaña an accolade for Best Supporting Actress, also used voice-enhancing software for its musical numbers. Meanwhile, The Brutalist's film editor Dávid Jancsó revealed in a previous interview with Red Shark News the ways in which the movie's film team used A.I., and why they initially implemented it. It utilised artificial intelligence to fill in minor language gaps coming from Adrien Brody and his co-star Felicity Jones during a distinct part of the movie. "I am a native Hungarian speaker and I know that it is one of the most difficult languages to learn to pronounce,' Dávid told the news outlet. 'It's an extremely unique language." For a few minutes in the movie, a letter from Adrien's character he had written for his wife is read out loud. His character's letter is read in Hungarian. According to TheWrap, this was the only part of the Adrien's performance that Respeecher was used for. 'If you're coming from the Anglo-Saxon world certain sounds can be particularly hard to grasp,' Dávid explained. 'We first tried to ADR these harder elements with the actors. "Then we tried to ADR them completely with other actors but that just didn't work. So we looked for other options of how to enhance it." The production team used the actor's voices on Respeecher and added in AI words in Hungarian. 'Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there. We were very careful about keeping their performances,' he continued. 'It's mainly just replacing letters here and there. You can do this in ProTools yourself, but we had so much dialogue in Hungarian that we really needed to speed up the process otherwise we'd still be in post.'
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
22-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Brutalist used AI for Adrien Brody's Oscar-nominated performance. Is that cheating?
He is a front-runner at the Academy Awards, burning past his colleagues on betting charts over his critically acclaimed achievements in The Brutalist. But unfortunately for Adrien Brody, this is the 2025 Oscars — where controversy seemingly lurks behind every title sequence. And when it comes to The Brutalist, the controversy is a slightly novel one: artificial accents. As revealed by Red Shark News, director Brady Corbet and editor Dávid Jancsó used artificial intelligence from Ukrainian software company Respeecher to adjust Brody and co-star Felicity Jones's Hungarian lines. And as the roles the two played as native-speaking, Hungarian immigrants earned them best actor and supporting actress nominations, it raises a question. An acting award for an AI-aided performance? What gives? "People's careers can really take off. From its studios, [to] directors, everybody involved in an award-winning film — they stand to gain," critic Rachel Ho said of the importance of an Oscar win. "When there is so much at stake in that sense, we do need to be transparent about how AI is being used in a performance — that maybe isn't fully his performance anymore." WATCH | Brady Corbet explains what it took to bring The Brutalist to life: In Brody's defence, Corbet pointed out to Deadline that no English language lines were changed. The actual Hungarian language spoken in the film is minimal, while both Jones and Brody worked extensively with vocal coach Tanera Marshall to nail Hungarian inflections in their mostly English dialogue. But it does foreshadow a trend. According to Variety, fellow best picture nominees A Complete Unknown and Dune: Part Two used AI to some degree in their production. And the Mexico-set musical Emilia Pérez, once front-runner in the best picture category and boasting a number of nominations for its actors, employed Respeecher as well. In a French-language interview at the Cannes Film Festival, mixer Cyril Holtz said it was to help star Karla Sofía Gascón reach the high notes of her songs. The movie has two songs that are up for awards at the Oscars, while Gascón is on the short list for best actress. As AI bubbled up as a new technology back in 2023, it was frightening enough to be a hot-topic in the SAG-AFTRA acting union's strike negotiations. In the contract eventually drawn up, strict guidelines were put in place over when and how AI could be used: breaking down the use-cases into guardrails around "employment based-digital replicas" (AI used to alter or aid a performer already working on a project), "independently created digital replicas" (AI used to replicate an identifiable actor for a project they're otherwise unconnected with) and "synthetic performers" (completely artificial actors, not obviously based on any identifiable person). Those safeguards reflected fears of performers being replaced by AI and famous actors having their likenesses copied against their will — or even resurrected after their death. But while the contract dealt with more obvious and egregious uses of AI, The Brutalist's techniques represent a subtler application — which is far more in line with editing practices already firmly entrenched in Hollywood. In the draft contract made public were two caveats: first, that all parties "acknowledge that the producers have historically used digital technologies to replicate or alter a performer's voice or likeness ... and may continue to do so." And second, that producers do not need to acquire consent from their performers when using AI to alter "pitch, tone, clarity ... or the voice of the performer to a foreign language." Director Brady Corbet, third from right, appears with the cast of The Brutalist — including Brody and Jones, centre — at the Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Jan 5. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images) Neither Brody nor Jones have made any statements suggesting they opposed the use of AI, while Jancsó told Red Shark News both were "fully onboard" with Respeecher's use. While fully virtual performers aren't likely to replace real actors in the immediate future, Ho said Brody's nomination and potential win could cement the practice of subtly improving performances with AI, without letting audiences know. And when it comes to an art form like film, Ho said, that's troubling. "Directors, actors, studios — it is a responsibility [of theirs] to give audiences the whole picture," she said. "We do need to have a lot more transparency, in terms of when these things are being used to create something that wasn't there." AI or ADR? But Michael Forsey, president of Toronto's Rolling Pictures post-production company, explained that ADR (automatic dialogue replacement) has been accomplishing much the same as this kind of AI since Hollywood's birth. After a film wraps, engineers and editors will comb through dialogue — re-recording and prettying up factors as small as the pronunciation of individual letters. He likened the process to auto-tune in music. Listeners largely derided that pitch-correcting tool as "cheating" when it became common knowledge, though it had been an integral part of the industry for years — and still is. "If you're going to take an Oscar away from everyone who used something like auto-tune, then that's going to be a lot of Oscars that you're giving back," Forsey said. "It's cheating for a creative benefit.... We want [filmmakers] to do whatever [they] need to do to make a really good film, right? Because that's what it's about — it's about the film." If AI needed to be disclosed, he said, ADR and a plethora of entrenched editing tools and tricks would need to be, too — and that would include virtually every film released. But it's controversial enough that organizers for the Academy Awards confirmed to CBC News they are considering making the disclosure of AI use mandatory for films submitted, instead of voluntary as it is now. For those with a sour taste in their mouths, vocal coach Mark Byron Dallas said he understands. And there are existing concerns. Emilia Pérez, for example, was criticized for hiring only a single Mexican performer in a lead role. That led to what Mexican fans and critics called "unintelligible" line delivery, despite many of the characters ostensibly being native Mexicans. Producers theoretically could have used AI to improve their actors' accents, bypassing the most obvious failings of not hiring native actors — or at least paying vocal coaches to adequately train them. "The idea to actually replace that whole process, that is something that's unthinkable," Dallas said. "But I'm not going to say it's unlikely to happen in the future." LISTEN | Will The Brutalist's AI use cost it an Oscar?: When it comes to The Brutalist, though, Dallas said he doesn't see Brody's nomination as unfair. Since big-budget movies need big-budget names attached to them to draw crowds, hiring an English-speaking actor was likely unavoidable. And the subsequent AI cleanups were fixes based around largely physical limitations; having grown up as an English speaker, there are simply Hungarian tones Brody would be unlikely to ever perfect. "It's like criticizing somebody for wearing the wrong wig," he said, also comparing it to Robert De Niro's face being de-aged with CGI for The Irishman. "That doesn't affect his performance in it," he said. "I think we need to look at this with a clear vision. I think we need to be fair about that."
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.
CNN
05-02-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Marvel responds to speculation ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps' poster created by AI
Marvel dropped posters for a forthcoming film and one sparked quite a response. 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps' tells the story of Marvel's first family and stars Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic; Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman; Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing; and Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch. One of posters for the new movie drew the ire of some who pointed out issues they believe indicated it had been created using artificial intelligence. But a representative for Marvel denied to multiple outlets that AI was used. CNN has reached out to Marvel for comment. It's the latest outcry involving AI and a film. Last month, Dávid Jancsó, editor for the Oscar-nominated film 'The Brutalist,' told RedShark News he used AI technology on the Hungarian dialogue of actors Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones. Jancsó, who is a native Hungarian speaker, said he used synthesizer software to add his voice to the actors to make sure their pronunciation was accurate. 'Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there. We were very careful about keeping their performances,' he said. 'It's mainly just replacing letters here and there. You can do this in ProTools yourself, but we had so much dialogue in Hungarian that we really needed to speed up the process otherwise we'd still be in post.' The film's director, Brady Corbet, released a statement after a social media firestorm was ignited over the AI use 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,' Corbet said. '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.' 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps' is set to release in theaters on July 25, 2025.
