Hollywood’s First Full-Length AI-Powered Film: A Look at Here
A New Era of Visual Effects
On Friday, TriStar Pictures released Here, a $50 million film directed by Robert Zemeckis that uses real-time generative AI face transformation techniques to portray Tom Hanks and Robin Wright across a 60-year span. This marks one of Hollywood’s first full-length features built around AI-powered visual effects.
The Film’s Story
Here adapts a 2014 graphic novel set primarily in a New Jersey living room across multiple time periods. Rather than cast different actors for various ages, the production used AI to modify Hanks’ and Wright’s appearances throughout the film.
Metaphysic’s De-Aging Technology
The de-aging technology used in the film comes from Metaphysic, a visual effects company that creates real-time face swapping and aging effects. During filming, the crew watched two monitors simultaneously: one showing the actors’ actual appearances and another displaying them at whatever age the scene required.
Custom Machine-Learning Models
Metaphysic developed the facial modification system by training custom machine-learning models on frames of Hanks’ and Wright’s previous films. This included a large dataset of facial movements, skin textures, and appearances under varied lighting conditions and camera angles. The resulting models can generate instant face transformations without the months of manual post-production work traditional CGI requires.
Faster and More Efficient Than Traditional CGI
Unlike previous aging effects that relied on frame-by-frame manipulation, Metaphysic’s approach generates transformations instantly by analyzing facial landmarks and mapping them to trained age variations. Zemeckis notes, “You couldn’t have made this movie three years ago. Traditional visual effects for this level of face modification would reportedly require hundreds of artists and a substantially larger budget closer to standard Marvel movie costs.”
Not the First Film to Use AI Ageing
This isn’t the first film to use AI techniques to de-age actors. ILM’s approach to de-aging Harrison Ford in 2023’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny used a proprietary system called Flux with infrared cameras to capture facial data during filming, then old images of Ford to de-age him in post-production. By contrast, Metaphysic’s AI models process transformations without additional hardware and show results during filming.
Conclusion
Here marks a significant step forward in the use of AI-powered visual effects in filmmaking. The speed and efficiency of Metaphysic’s de-aging technology have opened up new possibilities for storytellers and have the potential to revolutionize the way actors are portrayed on screen. As the technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see even more creative and innovative uses of AI in the world of entertainment.
FAQs
Q: What is Metaphysic’s de-aging technology?
A: Metaphysic’s de-aging technology uses custom machine-learning models to generate instant face transformations by analyzing facial landmarks and mapping them to trained age variations.
Q: How was the technology developed?
A: The technology was developed by training custom machine-learning models on frames of Hanks’ and Wright’s previous films, including a large dataset of facial movements, skin textures, and appearances under varied lighting conditions and camera angles.
Q: Is this the first film to use AI-powered visual effects?
A: While Here is one of Hollywood’s first full-length films built around AI-powered visual effects, it’s not the first film to use AI techniques to de-age actors. ILM used a proprietary system called Flux to de-age Harrison Ford in 2023’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
