7 ms·

The AI magic behind Sphere's upcoming 'The Wizard of Oz'

54 points by radeeyate 2y ago

sema4hacker 1y ago
An actual video example would have helped, but nothing to see here.
- DoctorOW 1y ago
  > On August 28, their work will debut at Sphere Probably isn't done yet
- CharlesW 1y ago
  There are examples in this video: https://youtu.be/f01dsTigSmw https://youtu.be/f01dsTigSmw
  - AIPedant 1y ago
    Man... I wrote a comment about how this project sounded tasteless and awful, but this is somehow much worse than I was expecting. The scene with the Wizard made me want to throw my tablet. Also, did they upscale the frame rate to 48fps??? Hard to tell from the video, but it looks like that’s the case. If so these people are ridiculous hacks and should never be allowed to touch another classic film. (“24fps would be disorienting on such a large screen!” Maybe that’s a sign this project should have never left the boardroom.)
    - Ukv 1y ago
      > Also, did they upscale the frame rate to 48fps??? Hard to tell from the video, but it looks like that’s the case. If so these people are ridiculous hacks and should never be allowed to touch another classic film. Doesn't seem like it'd be an unreasonable choice to me if it's done well (I didn't notice any interpolation artifacts, checking through frames). People going to see a film at the Sphere probably aren't format purists expecting to see an entirely faithful and untouched version of the film, but rather a version adapted to take full advantage of the unusual medium.
    - qingcharles 1y ago
      I think it's hard to tell about the FPS. The video is recorded in 60fps, so it might be causing the recorded footage to look higher FPS.
  - ipsum2 1y ago
    Wow, it looks better than I expected.
  - mrandish 1y ago
    Yikes, the parallax distortion is severe, especially when the camera pans. The metal wheel doesn't even look round. Unfortunately, the person shooting this video with their phone didn't zoom out to extreme wide angle to show what's going on in most of the field of view. The video looks like maybe a 60-70 degree slice out of the 165 degree Sphere screen. Of course, we already know the answer has to be: nothing. Nothing is going on in most of the screen.
  - qingcharles 1y ago
    This is absolutely incredible. I'm actually blown away by how good this looks and the technical challenges of making this happen. Fantastic work.
leptons 1y ago
AI, huh? So will Dorothy have 5 fingers or 8 fingers on each hand?
- ohgr 1y ago
  And there I was looking forward to 6 hotdogs for fingers.
- adzm 1y ago
  Actually pretty neat how quickly this joke became anachronistic
ge96 1y ago
The NASCAR layout was pretty nuts and Anema (EDM) robot guy leaps off a cliff
Xcelerate 1y ago
> “When the request came to us, I was almost jumping up and down,” says Dr. Irfan Essa, a principal research scientist at Google DeepMind and director of its Atlanta lab. Wait, what? When did Google DeepMind open an Atlanta office? That seems like a news story in and of itself... maybe I’ve been under a rock the last few years.
- aspenmayer 1y ago
  Not sure about DeepMind specifically, but I did find this blog post from 2022 about the opening of their new office in Atlanta. They mention that Google has been in Atlanta for more than 20 years, which in the context of their new office announcement leads me to believe that they have had an Atlanta presence of some kind since then, but whether that is an office or data center or some other kind of facility, I can’t say. https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/atlanta-office/ https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/atla... In this blog post from 2013, they refer to receiving ISO 50001 certification for an already existing data center in Douglas County, which is apparently considered part of the Atlanta metro area. https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/environment/pushing-our-energy-performance-even/ https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/environment/pushing... To your point about Google DeepMind’s Atlanta location’s history, I asked Google Gemini, since I assumed it might have tuning specifically for Google info. According to Gemini, Google Brain had offices in Atlanta, while DeepMind did not pre-merger. Here’s a list of all their locations I found: https://about.google/company-info/locations/ https://about.google/company-info/locations/
actuallyalys 1y ago
This article is kind of strange to me because it implies celluloid film is low quality, but it seems there’s a rough consensus that you can can scan that size of film in to create good 4K video, if not higher. That’s not enough for the Sphere’s full 16K resolution, but that’s more to do with it having extremely high resolution than the film being “tiny” or grainy.
- chungy 1y ago
  There is a 4K Blu-ray of the film, I have a copy, it looks wonderful :)
- crazygringo 1y ago
  Celluloid film from 1939 is good, but not that good. I mean it's perfectly watchable on a 1080p display, but in 4K it's nowhere near the kind of 4K quality you get with modern digital cameras with modern lenses. Sure you can watch it its 4K scan (heck, they scanned it in 8K), but most of those pixels above 1080p are just showing you film grain and blur. Which is nice in terms of looking like it would with a real projector! But it's not "4K quality" in terms of resolvable detail.
  - actuallyalys 1y ago
    Thanks for the fact check. Saying you can get even better than 4K is definitely overstating it. It’s possible the sources I was looking at were thinking of later eras of film, which I’d assume would have higher quality (and the lenses certainly improved).
  - mrandish 1y ago
    Anyone really interested in resolution, film scanning and digital cinema should see this in-depth comparison shot by an expert ASC cinematographer specifically to be a definitive set of proofs for the industry. He compares (and pixel-peeps) identical shots from a range of top digital cinema cameras (Arri Alexa, RED, etc) with a high-quality 6K film scan. https://www.yedlin.net/ResDemo/ResDemoPt2.html https://www.yedlin.net/ResDemo/ResDemoPt2.html. I found the results pretty surprising. It really needs to be watched because opinions will vary based on aesthetic interpretation but in broad strokes, it's pretty clear that above well-shot, high-quality 2K (aka 1080P) other variables beyond resolution begin to matter more (color depth, film stock, shot style, etc.) This supports your contention to an extent but the test also shows that beyond well-shot, high-quality 2K, going to 4K doesn't matter very much either. To be clear, it can matter sometimes but other factors can easily be equally or more important than resolution once beyond 2K. From my own experience and experimentation, I already felt many in the industry over-weight the importance of 4k resolution vs 2k in overall image quality (assuming both are equally high-quality and well-photographed), but this convinced me 4K over 2K makes even less difference than I thought. And this was under controlled test conditions with pixel-peeping. In real-world theatrical or couch viewing distances of cinematic content, it's hard to think 4K matters much at all over good 2K. I already knew I will NEVER upgrade to 8K for theatrical or couch-distance viewing of cinematic content (and I have $50K of gear in a dedicated custom-built, soundproof, lightproof home theater room with high-end laser projector and 150-inch screen), but this shows even the idea of 8k is ridiculous overkill and a complete waste of money, bandwidth and tech for cinematic context viewing. (note before the inevitable objections: 8k can be useful for 2 ft distance desktop viewing of synthetic content and can be necessary for 2-inch distance head-mounted VR).
invisible 1y ago
They showed a bit of this with a high production video of “how we did it” on Tuesday. The outpainting was amazing, details looked crisp, physics sim was pretty good, and the continuity for actors was good. The amount of tech they had to create and manage for the project is remarkable on its own. There were some perspective and lighting issues, and a few small glitchy artifact moments. They probably showed about 5 minutes of footage from various parts of the movie.
AIPedant 1y ago
> Take the moment where the Cowardly Lion first pounces on his soon-to-be companions. The camera pans back and forth between the Scarecrow and Tin Man, with cuts to Dorothy hiding behind a tree in the distance. The experience at Sphere called for keeping all these elements together, in hyper-realistic detail. This sounds awful, as if Google thinks direction and editing are technological limitations rather than artistic choices. This entire project seems fit for a culture that loves content and hates art. If these tasteless jokers ever do this to Stalker I will probably riot. (“Carefully composed shots is for anachronistic dweebs, our society demands an Experience Like No Other.”) > Every change, Hays notes, was made in close collaboration with Warner Bros., to ensure continuity with the spirit of the original. Considering Warner Bros. Discovery’s track record is 3 years of selling out their own directors and writers, I would be more confident if Google were left to their own devices! DeepMind likely has more respect for the film than Warner Bros. management.
- skwirl 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - AIPedant 1y ago
    I didn’t say they shouldn’t be allowed to do it, and the only thing I said about “the theater experience” was sneering at the idea. I am talking about the film itself, and saying that these edits to the film are tasteless trash. Claiming I’m “clutching at pearls” is a bad faith insult - my point is this shit fucking sucks! David Lynch used ML to remaster Inland Empire, which was shot on a digital camcorder and was simply too dark and blurry. This was an excellent use of the technology. Blowing up The Wizard of Oz for the sake of tech bros and tourists is a terrible use of the technology.
    - happyopossum 1y ago
      > as if Google thinks direction and editing are technological limitations “Google” isn’t making the artistic decisions here - there’s a full production staff from the studio doing that. Google is making what they ask for. >I am … saying that these edits to the film are tasteless trash Making such a claim with zero knowledge or experience is a pretty bold move - how are you so confident here? While I didn’t get to see the private preview shown at the sphere this week, I’ve spoken to about a dozen people who did and they were all very positive about it.
WalterBright 1y ago
I try to watch silent films, but I just don't like: 1. reading dialog cards, especially since I can lip read a bit and that's not what the characters are saying 2. the truly awful "period" music added 3. the grainy black and white I've seen some work on the 1929 film "Wings" that was done in high def, sound effects were added, and some small colorization of scenes. I'd like to take that further: 1. remove graininess and fuzziness with AI, and of course all scratches, etc. 2. add foley sound effects 3. replace dialog cards with dubbed dialog, lip read if possible 4. add a decent music sound track (Like what was done with "Metropolis") 5. colorize it! These are all very doable today, as I've seen each done in a small way. Why should we suffer all the limitations of silent movies? I just want to enjoy it, not suffer.
- cowmix 1y ago
  OTOH, artistic choices were made at the time with these limitations in mind.
  - WalterBright 1y ago
    Nobody's taking anything away if you want to watch the original form. Besides, how many movies in the last 50 years are made in B+W, use title cards, have a soundtrack of someone plinking on a pipe organ, are fuzzy and grainy, etc? Most people won't even watch a B+W movie, let alone a silent one. P.S. Reddit has a subreddit for colorized photos. There is some amazing work done there. It really makes the photos more interesting. My wallpaper is showing one right now.
- reneretord 1y ago
  [dead]
- ojbyrne 1y ago
  Who brought up silent movies?
mrandish 1y ago
As someone with a background in both film and video production technologies (as well as being a high-end home theater projection enthusiast) I think this project is doomed to be terrible - and not just on aesthetic grounds but also technically (I'll explore why it's technically doomed in the next paragraphs). But first, what might be good about this? Well, it might be interesting seeing how well they get AI video to maintain consistency of elements between shots. The article is vague but, extrapolating, I assume they probably composited multiple establishing and master shots along with production stills and set schematics to stitch together extended master environment reference plans. Then 3D artists modeled, textured and lit photo-real versions of these extended environments to match the stitched reference material. Those were then used as fine-tuning to constrain the AI outpainting to that ground truth. It might be interesting to see these techniques used to extend the original WoZ 4:3 aspect to a 2.4:1 widescreen format. However, I think it's going to be a disaster because they're extending the outpainting to encompass the Sphere's extreme 165 degree horizontal field of view. Pushing that far will derail any aesthetic or technical value the project may have had. The biggest technical problem is a 165 degree FOV is not just ill-suited for theatrical storytelling, it's actively harmful because it significantly constrains the compositional and creative choices a director and cinematographer can make. Historically, Hollywood has experimented with a variety of wider (or taller) than typical cinematic formats including Omnivision, Circle-Vision 360, MagnaVision, Cinerama, IMAX and many others. Over many decades of experimentation, it became clear that, for cinematic storytelling, formats up to around 2.5:1 were mostly upside assuming the costs and space could be supported. Extra-wide formats like Cinerama and IMAX had creatively useful upsides but came with some significant downsides which could be minimized with careful handling. Ultra-wide formats like Omnivision, Circle-Vision and, now, Sphere, were primarily useful only for theme parks and short "You Are There"-type features such as Disneyland's Circle-Vision Grand Canyon tour. It can be helpful to refer to the reference chart on this page showing the different FOVs in a typical theater overlaid with the SMPTE, THX and 20th Century Fox recommended FOVs. https://acousticfrontiers.com/blogs/articles/home-theater-viewing-angles-distances-and-sightlines https://acousticfrontiers.com/blogs/articles/home-theater-vi... Experimentation showed that ultra-wide formats, which are more than double typical cinematic FOVs and originally developed for world fairs, are simply ill-suited to cinematic storytelling. In addition to audience fatigue during longer run-times, significant technical challenges of optical distortion, and high costs - perhaps the worst part was the director losing much of the ability to signal to the audience what's important through framing and composition. This signal channel between the director and audience usually goes unnoticed by most viewers but it's a profoundly important storytelling tool for directors and cinematographers. To be fair, I do think immersive/surround visual formats can be useful in the context of a theme park attraction, amusement ride, VR headset or interactive gaming. They just don't work well for cinematic storytelling - like Wizard of Oz. It's a good tool being used for the wrong job. Recently, I screened the "Postcards from Earth" movie at the Sphere. This movie was created specifically to launch the Sphere and is their featured demo. And they indeed struggled mightily with the issues I've outlined. Ultimately, they chose to mostly not use more than about a 60 degree slice from the center of their 165 degree canvas, at least for anything significant to the story. All that very expensive, compromise-causing extended FOV was relegated to ambient scenic support except for a few brief "stunts" where some large object would arrive from overhead or an edge. But even those would quickly move from being at the edges (and too close/big), to exist in the center 60 degrees like everything else. Also, Sphere content must strictly limit any camera panning, tilting or side dollying to avoid causing motion sickness. The issues I've outlined above are primarily "Production" problems with Ultra-Wide FOVs, however the extreme format also causes significant "Presentation" problems. These presentation problems come from the Sphere going all-in on creating such a large, extremely wide-angle, wrap-around presentation that fills the entire visual field for 17,000 seats. Unfortunately, choosing that "feature" as the top priority requires other important tech aspects of visual presentation like contrast, dynamic range and resolution to be significantly compromised. A key problem is that the wrap-around screen being 165 degrees causes it to illuminate itself nuking the contrast. The sides down near the horizon line are opposite and shining directly at each other. Another significant issue is that it's almost impossible to shoot or present real-world camera content able to fill the entire 165 degree Sphere screen with a single natural image. As near as I could tell, the entire Postcards from Earth movie doesn't contain even a single full-screen frame that was shot with one camera. It's all CGI with occasional real-world camera shots composited into small frames within the wrap-around CGI field. This is because it's incredibly challenging (if not entirely impossible) to photograph a single image that wide and tall while keeping the perspective from being severely distorted. During the "Planet Earth"-type scenes, the director clearly had to go to great effort to keep any real-world object with straight lines from getting too big. On top of the significant cinematic, compositional and tech issues, the content of Postcards from the Earth is also weak. The story was trite, shop-worn and heavy-handed. The acting, music, cinematography, etc was overall weak - basically what I'd call "pretty good for a video game cut scene but certainly not AAA cinema grade." In terms of nice things to say... well, the audio presentation wasn't bad. By which I mean, it wasn't great but it was impressively good for that huge of a space dominated by a massive non-parabolic reflector. Basically, the massive size and unusual shape of the space make it extremely challenging to provide a decent audio field to the majority of seats. IMHO, the audio engineering team over-achieved in the degree to which they're able to address many of those challenges. There are a huge number of tuned speakers hidden behind the acoustically semi-transparent screen driven by a lot of DSP power. Very expensive and technically quite difficult. Unfortunately, the resulting audio - while technically impressive given the significant constraints, still isn't nearly as good as a well-tuned flagship Dolby Atmos, THX-certified theater in Hollywood or Manhattan. Another unfortunate aspect is the perforations in the screen required to enable the audio transparency further reduce the screen's ability to generate peak nits of brightness. If you want to experience today's highest fidelity theatrical imagery for cinematic storytelling, the Sphere isn't it. Sadly, it's not even close (which makes the >$100 price for a bad movie, presented poorly especially egregious). The best you can experience today is visiting one of the 31 real IMAX cinemas (out of 1700 IMAX branded screens (aka "LieMAX" screens)) but only when they are showing a movie A) Distributed in the full 15 perf / 70mm 2D IMAX format, and which was B) Specifically shot to utilize the full 1.43:1 aspect ratio of the full IMAX format. Unfortunately, that's a small minority of what's shown on those 31 screens. Most films shown on IMAX screens weren't really shot specifically for full 1.43 IMAX format (which is super tall compared to normal cinema aspect), so they're just open gate (unmasked) versions of films primarily framed and lit for typical wide format exhibition (like 2.39:1). Also, avoid anything shown in 3D because the 3D projection process (whether IMAX or not) always significantly reduces brightness, contrast and resolution vs 2D projection.
imhoguy 1y ago
Maybe Jodorowsky could make his Dune adaptation finaly that way? They have enough painted material to feed AI.
sema4hacker 1y ago
I wonder if they fixed any of the 147 continuity errors: https://youtu.be/f6yMvD4h5Aw https://youtu.be/f6yMvD4h5Aw

54 points by radeeyate 2y ago

sema4hacker 1y ago

An actual video example would have helped, but nothing to see here.

DoctorOW 1y ago
> On August 28, their work will debut at Sphere Probably isn't done yet
CharlesW 1y ago
There are examples in this video: https://youtu.be/f01dsTigSmw https://youtu.be/f01dsTigSmw
- AIPedant 1y ago
  Man... I wrote a comment about how this project sounded tasteless and awful, but this is somehow much worse than I was expecting. The scene with the Wizard made me want to throw my tablet. Also, did they upscale the frame rate to 48fps??? Hard to tell from the video, but it looks like that’s the case. If so these people are ridiculous hacks and should never be allowed to touch another classic film. (“24fps would be disorienting on such a large screen!” Maybe that’s a sign this project should have never left the boardroom.)
  - Ukv 1y ago
    > Also, did they upscale the frame rate to 48fps??? Hard to tell from the video, but it looks like that’s the case. If so these people are ridiculous hacks and should never be allowed to touch another classic film. Doesn't seem like it'd be an unreasonable choice to me if it's done well (I didn't notice any interpolation artifacts, checking through frames). People going to see a film at the Sphere probably aren't format purists expecting to see an entirely faithful and untouched version of the film, but rather a version adapted to take full advantage of the unusual medium.
  - qingcharles 1y ago
    I think it's hard to tell about the FPS. The video is recorded in 60fps, so it might be causing the recorded footage to look higher FPS.
- ipsum2 1y ago
  Wow, it looks better than I expected.
- mrandish 1y ago
  Yikes, the parallax distortion is severe, especially when the camera pans. The metal wheel doesn't even look round. Unfortunately, the person shooting this video with their phone didn't zoom out to extreme wide angle to show what's going on in most of the field of view. The video looks like maybe a 60-70 degree slice out of the 165 degree Sphere screen. Of course, we already know the answer has to be: nothing. Nothing is going on in most of the screen.
- qingcharles 1y ago
  This is absolutely incredible. I'm actually blown away by how good this looks and the technical challenges of making this happen. Fantastic work.

leptons 1y ago

AI, huh? So will Dorothy have 5 fingers or 8 fingers on each hand?

ohgr 1y ago
And there I was looking forward to 6 hotdogs for fingers.
adzm 1y ago
Actually pretty neat how quickly this joke became anachronistic

ge96 1y ago

The NASCAR layout was pretty nuts and Anema (EDM) robot guy leaps off a cliff

Xcelerate 1y ago

> “When the request came to us, I was almost jumping up and down,” says Dr. Irfan Essa, a principal research scientist at Google DeepMind and director of its Atlanta lab. Wait, what? When did Google DeepMind open an Atlanta office? That seems like a news story in and of itself... maybe I’ve been under a rock the last few years.

aspenmayer 1y ago
Not sure about DeepMind specifically, but I did find this blog post from 2022 about the opening of their new office in Atlanta. They mention that Google has been in Atlanta for more than 20 years, which in the context of their new office announcement leads me to believe that they have had an Atlanta presence of some kind since then, but whether that is an office or data center or some other kind of facility, I can’t say. https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/atlanta-office/ https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/atla... In this blog post from 2013, they refer to receiving ISO 50001 certification for an already existing data center in Douglas County, which is apparently considered part of the Atlanta metro area. https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/environment/pushing-our-energy-performance-even/ https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/environment/pushing... To your point about Google DeepMind’s Atlanta location’s history, I asked Google Gemini, since I assumed it might have tuning specifically for Google info. According to Gemini, Google Brain had offices in Atlanta, while DeepMind did not pre-merger. Here’s a list of all their locations I found: https://about.google/company-info/locations/ https://about.google/company-info/locations/

actuallyalys 1y ago

This article is kind of strange to me because it implies celluloid film is low quality, but it seems there’s a rough consensus that you can can scan that size of film in to create good 4K video, if not higher. That’s not enough for the Sphere’s full 16K resolution, but that’s more to do with it having extremely high resolution than the film being “tiny” or grainy.

chungy 1y ago
There is a 4K Blu-ray of the film, I have a copy, it looks wonderful :)
crazygringo 1y ago
Celluloid film from 1939 is good, but not that good. I mean it's perfectly watchable on a 1080p display, but in 4K it's nowhere near the kind of 4K quality you get with modern digital cameras with modern lenses. Sure you can watch it its 4K scan (heck, they scanned it in 8K), but most of those pixels above 1080p are just showing you film grain and blur. Which is nice in terms of looking like it would with a real projector! But it's not "4K quality" in terms of resolvable detail.
- actuallyalys 1y ago
  Thanks for the fact check. Saying you can get even better than 4K is definitely overstating it. It’s possible the sources I was looking at were thinking of later eras of film, which I’d assume would have higher quality (and the lenses certainly improved).
- mrandish 1y ago
  Anyone really interested in resolution, film scanning and digital cinema should see this in-depth comparison shot by an expert ASC cinematographer specifically to be a definitive set of proofs for the industry. He compares (and pixel-peeps) identical shots from a range of top digital cinema cameras (Arri Alexa, RED, etc) with a high-quality 6K film scan. https://www.yedlin.net/ResDemo/ResDemoPt2.html https://www.yedlin.net/ResDemo/ResDemoPt2.html. I found the results pretty surprising. It really needs to be watched because opinions will vary based on aesthetic interpretation but in broad strokes, it's pretty clear that above well-shot, high-quality 2K (aka 1080P) other variables beyond resolution begin to matter more (color depth, film stock, shot style, etc.) This supports your contention to an extent but the test also shows that beyond well-shot, high-quality 2K, going to 4K doesn't matter very much either. To be clear, it can matter sometimes but other factors can easily be equally or more important than resolution once beyond 2K. From my own experience and experimentation, I already felt many in the industry over-weight the importance of 4k resolution vs 2k in overall image quality (assuming both are equally high-quality and well-photographed), but this convinced me 4K over 2K makes even less difference than I thought. And this was under controlled test conditions with pixel-peeping. In real-world theatrical or couch viewing distances of cinematic content, it's hard to think 4K matters much at all over good 2K. I already knew I will NEVER upgrade to 8K for theatrical or couch-distance viewing of cinematic content (and I have $50K of gear in a dedicated custom-built, soundproof, lightproof home theater room with high-end laser projector and 150-inch screen), but this shows even the idea of 8k is ridiculous overkill and a complete waste of money, bandwidth and tech for cinematic context viewing. (note before the inevitable objections: 8k can be useful for 2 ft distance desktop viewing of synthetic content and can be necessary for 2-inch distance head-mounted VR).

invisible 1y ago

They showed a bit of this with a high production video of “how we did it” on Tuesday. The outpainting was amazing, details looked crisp, physics sim was pretty good, and the continuity for actors was good. The amount of tech they had to create and manage for the project is remarkable on its own. There were some perspective and lighting issues, and a few small glitchy artifact moments. They probably showed about 5 minutes of footage from various parts of the movie.

AIPedant 1y ago

> Take the moment where the Cowardly Lion first pounces on his soon-to-be companions. The camera pans back and forth between the Scarecrow and Tin Man, with cuts to Dorothy hiding behind a tree in the distance. The experience at Sphere called for keeping all these elements together, in hyper-realistic detail. This sounds awful, as if Google thinks direction and editing are technological limitations rather than artistic choices. This entire project seems fit for a culture that loves content and hates art. If these tasteless jokers ever do this to Stalker I will probably riot. (“Carefully composed shots is for anachronistic dweebs, our society demands an Experience Like No Other.”) > Every change, Hays notes, was made in close collaboration with Warner Bros., to ensure continuity with the spirit of the original. Considering Warner Bros. Discovery’s track record is 3 years of selling out their own directors and writers, I would be more confident if Google were left to their own devices! DeepMind likely has more respect for the film than Warner Bros. management.

skwirl 1y ago
[flagged]
- AIPedant 1y ago
  I didn’t say they shouldn’t be allowed to do it, and the only thing I said about “the theater experience” was sneering at the idea. I am talking about the film itself, and saying that these edits to the film are tasteless trash. Claiming I’m “clutching at pearls” is a bad faith insult - my point is this shit fucking sucks! David Lynch used ML to remaster Inland Empire, which was shot on a digital camcorder and was simply too dark and blurry. This was an excellent use of the technology. Blowing up The Wizard of Oz for the sake of tech bros and tourists is a terrible use of the technology.
  - happyopossum 1y ago
    > as if Google thinks direction and editing are technological limitations “Google” isn’t making the artistic decisions here - there’s a full production staff from the studio doing that. Google is making what they ask for. >I am … saying that these edits to the film are tasteless trash Making such a claim with zero knowledge or experience is a pretty bold move - how are you so confident here? While I didn’t get to see the private preview shown at the sphere this week, I’ve spoken to about a dozen people who did and they were all very positive about it.

WalterBright 1y ago

I try to watch silent films, but I just don't like: 1. reading dialog cards, especially since I can lip read a bit and that's not what the characters are saying 2. the truly awful "period" music added 3. the grainy black and white I've seen some work on the 1929 film "Wings" that was done in high def, sound effects were added, and some small colorization of scenes. I'd like to take that further: 1. remove graininess and fuzziness with AI, and of course all scratches, etc. 2. add foley sound effects 3. replace dialog cards with dubbed dialog, lip read if possible 4. add a decent music sound track (Like what was done with "Metropolis") 5. colorize it! These are all very doable today, as I've seen each done in a small way. Why should we suffer all the limitations of silent movies? I just want to enjoy it, not suffer.

cowmix 1y ago
OTOH, artistic choices were made at the time with these limitations in mind.
- WalterBright 1y ago
  Nobody's taking anything away if you want to watch the original form. Besides, how many movies in the last 50 years are made in B+W, use title cards, have a soundtrack of someone plinking on a pipe organ, are fuzzy and grainy, etc? Most people won't even watch a B+W movie, let alone a silent one. P.S. Reddit has a subreddit for colorized photos. There is some amazing work done there. It really makes the photos more interesting. My wallpaper is showing one right now.
reneretord 1y ago
[dead]
ojbyrne 1y ago
Who brought up silent movies?

mrandish 1y ago

As someone with a background in both film and video production technologies (as well as being a high-end home theater projection enthusiast) I think this project is doomed to be terrible - and not just on aesthetic grounds but also technically (I'll explore why it's technically doomed in the next paragraphs). But first, what might be good about this? Well, it might be interesting seeing how well they get AI video to maintain consistency of elements between shots. The article is vague but, extrapolating, I assume they probably composited multiple establishing and master shots along with production stills and set schematics to stitch together extended master environment reference plans. Then 3D artists modeled, textured and lit photo-real versions of these extended environments to match the stitched reference material. Those were then used as fine-tuning to constrain the AI outpainting to that ground truth. It might be interesting to see these techniques used to extend the original WoZ 4:3 aspect to a 2.4:1 widescreen format. However, I think it's going to be a disaster because they're extending the outpainting to encompass the Sphere's extreme 165 degree horizontal field of view. Pushing that far will derail any aesthetic or technical value the project may have had. The biggest technical problem is a 165 degree FOV is not just ill-suited for theatrical storytelling, it's actively harmful because it significantly constrains the compositional and creative choices a director and cinematographer can make. Historically, Hollywood has experimented with a variety of wider (or taller) than typical cinematic formats including Omnivision, Circle-Vision 360, MagnaVision, Cinerama, IMAX and many others. Over many decades of experimentation, it became clear that, for cinematic storytelling, formats up to around 2.5:1 were mostly upside assuming the costs and space could be supported. Extra-wide formats like Cinerama and IMAX had creatively useful upsides but came with some significant downsides which could be minimized with careful handling. Ultra-wide formats like Omnivision, Circle-Vision and, now, Sphere, were primarily useful only for theme parks and short "You Are There"-type features such as Disneyland's Circle-Vision Grand Canyon tour. It can be helpful to refer to the reference chart on this page showing the different FOVs in a typical theater overlaid with the SMPTE, THX and 20th Century Fox recommended FOVs. https://acousticfrontiers.com/blogs/articles/home-theater-viewing-angles-distances-and-sightlines https://acousticfrontiers.com/blogs/articles/home-theater-vi... Experimentation showed that ultra-wide formats, which are more than double typical cinematic FOVs and originally developed for world fairs, are simply ill-suited to cinematic storytelling. In addition to audience fatigue during longer run-times, significant technical challenges of optical distortion, and high costs - perhaps the worst part was the director losing much of the ability to signal to the audience what's important through framing and composition. This signal channel between the director and audience usually goes unnoticed by most viewers but it's a profoundly important storytelling tool for directors and cinematographers. To be fair, I do think immersive/surround visual formats can be useful in the context of a theme park attraction, amusement ride, VR headset or interactive gaming. They just don't work well for cinematic storytelling - like Wizard of Oz. It's a good tool being used for the wrong job. Recently, I screened the "Postcards from Earth" movie at the Sphere. This movie was created specifically to launch the Sphere and is their featured demo. And they indeed struggled mightily with the issues I've outlined. Ultimately, they chose to mostly not use more than about a 60 degree slice from the center of their 165 degree canvas, at least for anything significant to the story. All that very expensive, compromise-causing extended FOV was relegated to ambient scenic support except for a few brief "stunts" where some large object would arrive from overhead or an edge. But even those would quickly move from being at the edges (and too close/big), to exist in the center 60 degrees like everything else. Also, Sphere content must strictly limit any camera panning, tilting or side dollying to avoid causing motion sickness. The issues I've outlined above are primarily "Production" problems with Ultra-Wide FOVs, however the extreme format also causes significant "Presentation" problems. These presentation problems come from the Sphere going all-in on creating such a large, extremely wide-angle, wrap-around presentation that fills the entire visual field for 17,000 seats. Unfortunately, choosing that "feature" as the top priority requires other important tech aspects of visual presentation like contrast, dynamic range and resolution to be significantly compromised. A key problem is that the wrap-around screen being 165 degrees causes it to illuminate itself nuking the contrast. The sides down near the horizon line are opposite and shining directly at each other. Another significant issue is that it's almost impossible to shoot or present real-world camera content able to fill the entire 165 degree Sphere screen with a single natural image. As near as I could tell, the entire Postcards from Earth movie doesn't contain even a single full-screen frame that was shot with one camera. It's all CGI with occasional real-world camera shots composited into small frames within the wrap-around CGI field. This is because it's incredibly challenging (if not entirely impossible) to photograph a single image that wide and tall while keeping the perspective from being severely distorted. During the "Planet Earth"-type scenes, the director clearly had to go to great effort to keep any real-world object with straight lines from getting too big. On top of the significant cinematic, compositional and tech issues, the content of Postcards from the Earth is also weak. The story was trite, shop-worn and heavy-handed. The acting, music, cinematography, etc was overall weak - basically what I'd call "pretty good for a video game cut scene but certainly not AAA cinema grade." In terms of nice things to say... well, the audio presentation wasn't bad. By which I mean, it wasn't great but it was impressively good for that huge of a space dominated by a massive non-parabolic reflector. Basically, the massive size and unusual shape of the space make it extremely challenging to provide a decent audio field to the majority of seats. IMHO, the audio engineering team over-achieved in the degree to which they're able to address many of those challenges. There are a huge number of tuned speakers hidden behind the acoustically semi-transparent screen driven by a lot of DSP power. Very expensive and technically quite difficult. Unfortunately, the resulting audio - while technically impressive given the significant constraints, still isn't nearly as good as a well-tuned flagship Dolby Atmos, THX-certified theater in Hollywood or Manhattan. Another unfortunate aspect is the perforations in the screen required to enable the audio transparency further reduce the screen's ability to generate peak nits of brightness. If you want to experience today's highest fidelity theatrical imagery for cinematic storytelling, the Sphere isn't it. Sadly, it's not even close (which makes the >$100 price for a bad movie, presented poorly especially egregious). The best you can experience today is visiting one of the 31 real IMAX cinemas (out of 1700 IMAX branded screens (aka "LieMAX" screens)) but only when they are showing a movie A) Distributed in the full 15 perf / 70mm 2D IMAX format, and which was B) Specifically shot to utilize the full 1.43:1 aspect ratio of the full IMAX format. Unfortunately, that's a small minority of what's shown on those 31 screens. Most films shown on IMAX screens weren't really shot specifically for full 1.43 IMAX format (which is super tall compared to normal cinema aspect), so they're just open gate (unmasked) versions of films primarily framed and lit for typical wide format exhibition (like 2.39:1). Also, avoid anything shown in 3D because the 3D projection process (whether IMAX or not) always significantly reduces brightness, contrast and resolution vs 2D projection.

imhoguy 1y ago

Maybe Jodorowsky could make his Dune adaptation finaly that way? They have enough painted material to feed AI.

sema4hacker 1y ago

I wonder if they fixed any of the 147 continuity errors: https://youtu.be/f6yMvD4h5Aw https://youtu.be/f6yMvD4h5Aw