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> This kind of stuff is the future of film making. > Imagine adding "yourself" into a scene like this, moving around as you > were/are from a video you just cr

> This kind of stuff is the future of film making. > Imagine adding "yourself" into a scene like this, moving around as you > were/are from a video you just created of yourself. As in: film yourself > walking around your bedroom with your phone. Then use an app like this to > add you and your movement (cropped from the video) to a different > background scene. > Goodbye, Hollywood elites! As someone working in this arena, statements like this make me chuckle. Don't get me wrong-- I think this is really cool. I get that people are excited about new tech, and technical people always overestimate the value of technical advancements in creative workflows, but no: people being able to place a perfect hyper-realistic replica of themselves in a film wouldn't kill the film industry any more than RPG Maker + generative AI would kill the games industry. I'd wager it probably would not even leave a dent. Firstly, there would need to be a film to begin with, and that requires a lot. A whole hell of a lot. Secondly, characters matter. A lot. Especially main characters. Do you replace the name of the main character with your name in stories you tell? How about doing a global search-and-replace in the ebooks you read? It's not like we don't have the technical capability. I could see this being a novelty feature in some action movies, especially superhero movies, and more likely in games and porn, but one of the biggest draws a movie has is who stars in it-- and if you look at the rest of the human population, you'll notice that we're not choosing representative samples. The fact that it's someone else with a personality and back story and motives and strengths and flaws-- a character-- is a pretty important part of stories. Their appearance matters, too. Most people don't even like staring at themselves for a few minutes, let alone for an entire feature length film. In most situations, I think it would be distracting as hell. Sure, people might find it amusing to see themselves in Top Gun Maverick, but would they want to see themselves getting bullied by an IRS agent in Everything Everywhere All at Once? Getting a box cutter held to their throat in Emily the Criminal? Would replacing Jon Hamm's appearance with their own really make watching Madmen better? Do most people want to see themselves beat to a pulp in Fight Club? I'd wager that few would. Thirdly, most people aren't particularly interested in putting in the thought and effort to customize their phones: I'm pretty sure they're less interested in putting thought and effort into customizing their passive entertainment. They just want to hit play and have a nice little escape. So, no. As long as people will continue to seek entertainment for the reasons they've always sought it, this is not going to fundamentally change the art of storytelling anytime soon.

ugh123 3y ago
> Firstly, there would need to be a film to begin with, and that requires a lot. A whole hell of a lot. Not sure what you mean by that. Like, there needs to be a written script? But I don't think you're following the "vision" here :) I wouldn't want my own face in a movie and i'd bet most people don't. I'm sure you've seen the demos from Wonder Dynamics and others like them. So that tech already exists and will get "smaller" and in the hands of non-studios soon. In regards to the rest of your comment, what i'm getting at is this: First, just let a human continue to write the script as usual (no AI really needed for this). There's countless unemployed screenwriters in Hollywood (and aspiring all over the world i'm sure) that could provide this. Does it need to be a "top tier" screenwriter already connected to Hollywood? That's rubbish. Some stories will be crap, others could be phenomenal. Good and bad YouTube content is a great example of this. Also podcasting. Also music production. All of which is on a much smaller production scale than what i'm talking about here, but the leap in technology is rapidly unlocking insane capabilities. Second, create an app/platform that hooks in the script and allows a "director" or whatever to define scenes using visual templates, pre-baked scenes, AI-generated, whatever and link to a timeline (like a soup'd up Adobe Premier). The current and upcoming games-industry use of AI could help here and i'd imagine will get substantially better over the next year. They've already been using game assets and 3d game scenes in current production. Look at the scenes created by "The Volume" from ILM. Much of it is Unreal engine 3d game scenes. There's plenty of 3d artists outside of the Hollywood/Disney sphere that could provide assets and talent. AI could help polish it or completely build it at some point in the near future. No need for camera-men, lighting experts, grips, etc. Third, all you need as of "filming" of an actor is to point a phone at them, crop out their body and facial features/movement, and generate 3d space around them to allow the director to point the virtual camera from any angle. You could have multiple cameras/phones at different angles just to help the 3d space generation and probably a max of 4 to create a suitable 3d space all around an actor. Note: these are not director's "film angles", this is just to drive the AI scene generation. Although i've seen tools come out recently: look at Google research's AI generative fill technique that came out recently. Or Adobe's generative fill feature. This will only get better and more adaptable to video rather than still pictures. Example: film me at my dinner table talking to my wife. Then, employ the platform to inpaint a 3d scene around me, replace my face/body with whatever I choose, and let me point a virtual camera a different angles throughout a timeline. Example 2: film me running down my street as if i'm being chased by a [dinosaur, a car, a mob of zombies]. Crop me out and build a scene around me. Obviously, each of these would be independent scenes but multiple shots/angles could be captured during editing. But of course it would take quite a bit of time and talent to build up an entire movie or show. The platform i'm talking about here wouldn't be for most people. But it wouldn't just be for big-budget filmmakers either :) #2 and 3 obviously take a lot of tech to build, but we're already seeing pieces of this with current AI tools. Heck, i've seen several within the last 2 weeks that could be a good starting point for this, including the topic of this HN post. I don't agree at all with "one of the biggest draws a movie has is who stars in it". Can you name any great films that don't star an A-lister over the last 30 years? I'll bet you can find lots :) Either they were attached by an A-list director or the story/production of the film had top-tier quality - and that is really all that needs to be replicated - a good story and convincing production and scene generation/lighting, etc. By nature of today's internet, good stories will find exposure one way or another. Do we think the best actors in the world are only those with connections to Hollywood? Or those who were willing to sleep with Harvey Weinstein? Maybe the best actor is some 80-year old woman living down the street from me. Let's build a platform to give her a chance. >So, no. As long as people will continue to seek entertainment for the reasons they've always sought it, this is not going to fundamentally change the art of storytelling anytime soon. I think YouTube and other online outlets have completely flipped the narrative of what people find entertaining and where they find it. Sure, it hasn't put a huge dent into Hollywood box-offices yet, but it's slowly happening. The "nail" in Hollywood's coffin will be low-cost, high-quality production with full creative control to humans to tell the stories they want to tell. I'm sorry if all of this runs counter to your career and aspirations as a film-industry insider. But Hollywood is largely an industry run by lawyers, suits, and financiers operating on top of the creative medium of filmmaking. And that needs to change.

ugh123 3y ago

> Firstly, there would need to be a film to begin with, and that requires a lot. A whole hell of a lot. Not sure what you mean by that. Like, there needs to be a written script? But I don't think you're following the "vision" here :) I wouldn't want my own face in a movie and i'd bet most people don't. I'm sure you've seen the demos from Wonder Dynamics and others like them. So that tech already exists and will get "smaller" and in the hands of non-studios soon. In regards to the rest of your comment, what i'm getting at is this: First, just let a human continue to write the script as usual (no AI really needed for this). There's countless unemployed screenwriters in Hollywood (and aspiring all over the world i'm sure) that could provide this. Does it need to be a "top tier" screenwriter already connected to Hollywood? That's rubbish. Some stories will be crap, others could be phenomenal. Good and bad YouTube content is a great example of this. Also podcasting. Also music production. All of which is on a much smaller production scale than what i'm talking about here, but the leap in technology is rapidly unlocking insane capabilities. Second, create an app/platform that hooks in the script and allows a "director" or whatever to define scenes using visual templates, pre-baked scenes, AI-generated, whatever and link to a timeline (like a soup'd up Adobe Premier). The current and upcoming games-industry use of AI could help here and i'd imagine will get substantially better over the next year. They've already been using game assets and 3d game scenes in current production. Look at the scenes created by "The Volume" from ILM. Much of it is Unreal engine 3d game scenes. There's plenty of 3d artists outside of the Hollywood/Disney sphere that could provide assets and talent. AI could help polish it or completely build it at some point in the near future. No need for camera-men, lighting experts, grips, etc. Third, all you need as of "filming" of an actor is to point a phone at them, crop out their body and facial features/movement, and generate 3d space around them to allow the director to point the virtual camera from any angle. You could have multiple cameras/phones at different angles just to help the 3d space generation and probably a max of 4 to create a suitable 3d space all around an actor. Note: these are not director's "film angles", this is just to drive the AI scene generation. Although i've seen tools come out recently: look at Google research's AI generative fill technique that came out recently. Or Adobe's generative fill feature. This will only get better and more adaptable to video rather than still pictures. Example: film me at my dinner table talking to my wife. Then, employ the platform to inpaint a 3d scene around me, replace my face/body with whatever I choose, and let me point a virtual camera a different angles throughout a timeline. Example 2: film me running down my street as if i'm being chased by a [dinosaur, a car, a mob of zombies]. Crop me out and build a scene around me. Obviously, each of these would be independent scenes but multiple shots/angles could be captured during editing. But of course it would take quite a bit of time and talent to build up an entire movie or show. The platform i'm talking about here wouldn't be for most people. But it wouldn't just be for big-budget filmmakers either :) #2 and 3 obviously take a lot of tech to build, but we're already seeing pieces of this with current AI tools. Heck, i've seen several within the last 2 weeks that could be a good starting point for this, including the topic of this HN post. I don't agree at all with "one of the biggest draws a movie has is who stars in it". Can you name any great films that don't star an A-lister over the last 30 years? I'll bet you can find lots :) Either they were attached by an A-list director or the story/production of the film had top-tier quality - and that is really all that needs to be replicated - a good story and convincing production and scene generation/lighting, etc. By nature of today's internet, good stories will find exposure one way or another. Do we think the best actors in the world are only those with connections to Hollywood? Or those who were willing to sleep with Harvey Weinstein? Maybe the best actor is some 80-year old woman living down the street from me. Let's build a platform to give her a chance. >So, no. As long as people will continue to seek entertainment for the reasons they've always sought it, this is not going to fundamentally change the art of storytelling anytime soon. I think YouTube and other online outlets have completely flipped the narrative of what people find entertaining and where they find it. Sure, it hasn't put a huge dent into Hollywood box-offices yet, but it's slowly happening. The "nail" in Hollywood's coffin will be low-cost, high-quality production with full creative control to humans to tell the stories they want to tell. I'm sorry if all of this runs counter to your career and aspirations as a film-industry insider. But Hollywood is largely an industry run by lawyers, suits, and financiers operating on top of the creative medium of filmmaking. And that needs to change.