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Tag: Chad Nelson

  • OpenAI Is Bringing an AI-Driven Feature-Length Animated Movie to Cannes

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    You knew it was bound to happen, and now, it has. The Wall Street Journal reports that OpenAI is lending its services to the production of a feature-length animated film called Critterz, which is aiming to be done in time for next year’s Cannes Film Festival. That would put its production time at nine months, which is unheard of for a feature-length animated film, but that’s because it’ll be created using AI.

    According to the paper, using OpenAI’s resources, production companies Vertigo Films and Native Foreign will hire actors to voice characters created by feeding original drawings into generative AI software. The entire film is expected to cost less than $30 million and will only take about 30 people to complete.

    The driving force behind that is a man named Chad Nelson, a creative specialist at OpenAI. A few years back, he was sketching characters with the intent to make a short film with the DALL-E image generator. Which he did and you can watch it here. Based on that, he was then hired by OpenAI and has since decided to think bigger.

    “OpenAI can say what its tools do all day long, but it’s much more impactful if someone does it,” Nelson told the WSJ. “That’s a much better case study than me building a demo.”

    The film “reflects the kind of creativity and exploration we love to encourage,” a spokesperson for OpenAI told the paper.

    The film reportedly has a script from some of the team behind the recent Paddington in Peru, which makes it sound like AI will primarily be used to streamline the animation process. That will, in turn, make producing the movie so much cheaper because the programs are doing the detailed, artful, but often tedious and time-consuming work of human animators. That’s a bad thing for human animators, but, hypothetically, a good thing for the production companies if the result is a $30 million animated film that can be released in theaters in under a year and make money.

    Clearly, this is a slippery slope. And there’s no guarantee that a) it’ll work, or b) if it does, anyone will come out to see it. It could just end up being a $30 million waste of time. But, you have to imagine that’s probably more attractive to a film company than spending three times the time and maybe 10 times the money on something that fails in the same way.

    Read more about Critterz over at the Wall Street Journal and share your thoughts below.

    Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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    Germain Lussier

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  • OpenAI tech to be used to in a full-length animated film

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    OpenAI is throwing its resources behind a mostly AI-generated animated film that was the brainchild of one of the company’s employees. As first reported by the , the film will be called Critterz and will follow forest creatures who go on an adventure after their village is disrupted by a stranger. Chad Nelson, a creative specialist at OpenAI, started designing the characters three years ago with the intention of making a short film using OpenAI’s .

    The goal of the film is, in part, to show that animated films can be made for less money and in less time with AI. The team behind the film has set a budget of less than $30 million and a production schedule of only nine months. Both are a fraction of what it takes to produce a typical Hollywood animated picture. According to Nelson, OpenAI is hoping that if Critterz is successful, it might pave the way for adoption of more AI in the industry.

    London-based Vertigo Films will produce the film along with Native Foreign, a studio in Los Angeles that specializes in using AI alongside more traditional video production methods. Native Foreign previously produced a faux Planet Earth-style , also titled Critterz, written and directed by Nelson. It used DALL-E to create all the visuals for the short, which Native Foreign then brought to life with (limited) animation.

    The production team will hire human voice actors for the film’s characters and will hire artists to draw sketches that will then be fed into OpenAI’s chat and . The script for Critterz was penned by some of the same writers behind Paddington in Peru. The team aims to premiere the film at next year’s Cannes Film Festival in May.

    Over the last few years, many Hollywood workers have fought to protect their livelihoods against AI encroachment. In 2023, after a protracted strike, SAG-AFTRA that would require “informed consent and compensation” should a studio wish to use AI-generated likenesses of any current or deceased SAG-AFTRA members. All of this comes against the backdrop of enormous by creatives alike.

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    Andre Revilla

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