Deepfakes and their potential impact on Movies

[kylor]

This isn't really an informative post, but I wanted to see some discussion surrounding Deepfakes, especially when compared to current CGI used in movies.

Deepfakes seem to be a very cheap alternative to CGI de-aging and yield better looking results in most cases. I wondered what people thought about studios implementing Deepfakes into movies (providing that they look flawless with no distortions).

The main reason I thought about making this thread was because of this news:

‘Tron: Legacy': Jeff Bridges Gets FX Update With Fan’s Deepfake (Video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW6P...ature=youtu.be

Next month marks the 10th anniversary of “Tron: Legacy,” the sequel to the groundbreaking 80s sci-fi film that also set a special effects milestone of its own with the early de-aging technology used on the film’s star, Jeff Bridges. A decade later, in an era of deepfakes and even more powerful CGI technology, one YouTuber has decided to update the film with today’s visual effects.

In the video posted by Youtuber Shamook, we see a scene featuring Clu, a program created by Jeff Bridges’ character and original “Tron” protagonist Kevin Flynn. Created to resemble Flynn’s younger self and to make Flynn’s virtual, The Grid, a more perfect world for both programs and users, Clu became corrupted by his quest for perfection and took over The Grid.

Clu was played by the then-60-year-old Bridges, with CGI technology used to de-age him down to his mid-30s. But critics were lukewarm on the results, with the phrase “uncanny valley” regularly being used to describe the character. Since then, films like “Captain Marvel” and “The Irishman” have pushed the boundaries of de-aging tech, while deepfakes have shown how easily one’s likeness can be imitated by a computer. Using a program called DeepFaceLabs, Shamook was able to make Clu look closer to 1982 Jeff Bridges than ever before.

“Tron: Legacy” is available to stream on Disney+. Watch the deepfake comparison in the clip above.

https://www.thewrap.com/tron-legacy-...eepfake-video/

How would you feel about Deepfakes potentially becoming part of the movie industry in the future? I think studios could save a ton of money using Deepfakes and have better results overall in terms of how natural it looks.

[CyberpunkCentral]

[DEEPFAKE] JUSTICE LEAGUE OPENING SCENE - FIXED! - YouTube

[slumcat]

The moustache CGI in JL is UNFORGIVABLE. for a 300 million dollar production, that is what they came up with.

Jeff Bridges CGI in trim is bad too. But I think Deep fake wasn’t around then.

Deep fake should absolutely have a future in cinema. Cinema is all artifice anyway.

[CyberpunkCentral]

De-aging Robert Deniro in The Irishman [DeepFake] - YouTube

[J-Mart]

What exactly is the difference between deepfake and de-aging? I mean, deepfake seems to be an automatic process using AI if I'm reading correctly. If the issue is "replacing" one actor with another hasn't that already been done before? Tarkin and Leia in Rogue One, Winklevoss twins in The Social Network, even the subject of the OP video, TRON: Legacy used a body double for CLU.

If you de-age the actors themselves like in The Irishman, if deepfake delivers the best results, what's the problem?

[mwynn]

Originally Posted by J-Mart

What exactly is the difference between deepfake and de-aging? I mean, deepfake seems to be an automatic process using AI if I'm reading correctly. If the issue is "replacing" one actor with another hasn't that already been done before? Tarkin and Leia in Rogue One, Winklevoss twins in The Social Network, even the subject of the OP video, TRON: Legacy used a body double for CLU.

If you de-age the actors themselves like in The Irishman, if deepfake delivers the best results, what's the problem?

Deepfake can be used to alter video. So replacing someones face to make it look like they committed a criminal act. Deaging is smoothing an image that already exists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepfake

[slumcat]

The ethical problems of deep fake exist in nonfiction. Not in fiction.

Deep fake is horrifying if used in news etc.

But it should totally be a tool for fiction storytelling in film and tv.

[rewak]

Haven't they been doing this for years, decades even? I know in The Crow they had a few shots that were actually Brandon Lee's stunt double but they replaced his face with Lee's. Same thing in Titanic for a few shots of Leo and Kate. It's a technique that's been in use for a long time but I think now Hollywood has gone beyond it with full CGI head replacements being the norm, like Leia in Rogue One or Rachel in Blade Runner 2049.

[mwynn]

Originally Posted by rewak

Haven't they been doing this for years, decades even? I know in The Crow they had a few shots that were actually Brandon Lee's stunt double but they replaced his face with Lee's. Same thing in Titanic for a few shots of Leo and Kate. It's a technique that's been in use for a long time but I think now Hollywood has gone beyond it with full CGI head replacements being the norm, like Leia in Rogue One or Rachel in Blade Runner 2049.

Yes, those things are easier to detect. Deepfake has the potential to fool all resources that could detect it, because it is a machine doing it and it can cover its tracks better than a human can.

Though fake photos have long been plentiful, faking motion pictures has been more difficult, and the presence of deepfakes increases the difficulty of classifying videos as genuine or not.[56] AI researcher Alex Champandard has said people should know how fast things can be corrupted with deepfake technology, and that the problem is not a technical one, but rather one to be solved by trust in information and journalism.[56] Deepfakes can be leveraged to defame, impersonate, and spread disinformation.[82] The primary pitfall is that humanity could fall into an age in which it can no longer be determined whether a medium's content corresponds to the truth.[56]

[J-Mart]

Originally Posted by mwynn

Deepfake can be used to alter video. So replacing someones face to make it look like they committed a criminal act. Deaging is smoothing an image that already exists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepfake

Sure, but in regards to filmmaking is there an issue?

[mwynn]

Originally Posted by J-Mart

Sure, but in regards to filmmaking is there an issue?

None.

[Damon1281]

Aside from the legal issues stemming from non-fiction use, do we really want to keep seeing the same actors forever? What does this do for the chances of young actors?


That said, it is a nice improvement.

[Gacivory]

I hate it. It looks fine in a YouTube video. But it feels soulless to me.

[Rayjg]

I’d be interested in seeing it utilized for something like The Magnificent Ambersons.

[EvaDK]

Quality-wise, deep fake can be an improvement on the usual de-ageing CGI used by the studios today. But faces often still look dead to me, especially the eyes. Like stiff acting devoid of any nuance usually created by the actor.

I'm still flabbergasted that some people didn't mind the de-ageing utilized in Scorsese's The Irishman. To me, it looked dreadful. Absolutely dreadful.

[sandman slim]

Originally Posted by J-Mart

Sure, but in regards to filmmaking is there an issue?

Royalties. As I understand it, Deepfakes take existing footage from copyrighted movies & tv shows and interpolate it or alter it to match the new footage. One Deepfake character might use hours of existing footage to successfully replace -- or in this case -- de-age the new footage. And those hours of film or video are all copyrighted. If Disney were to officially release a version of Tron Legacy with that footage in the OP, they would owe royalties to every single film that young Jeff Bridges was created from. It would be like the early days of music sampling when artists weren't getting clearances for the samples they were using. The original artists rightly sued for the unauthorized use of their works, won pretty much every lawsuit, and got millions in compensation. Deepfake is basically the video equivalent of sampling; even if it doesn't actually copy specific frames from specific older movies, the entire technology is based on using & altering those copyrighted images. If/when someone attempts to use this in a big budget, for profit film, the lawsuits will follow.

[CyberpunkCentral]

Originally Posted by EvaDK

I'm still flabbergasted that some people didn't mind the de-ageing utilized in Scorsese's The Irishman. To me, it looked dreadful. Absolutely dreadful.

It depends. I didn't mind it because Robert De Niro looks more like The Real Irishman older than he did when he was younger. All they had to do is make him look not as old. As for Pacino, what bothered me the most is that he obviously moves like an old man instead of someone in their actual 40s. So did Robert De Niro, but De Niro is physically stronger than Pacino (due to De Niro hitting the gym for a lot of his past films), so he pulled it off a bit better.

Anyways, I don't consider this "de-aging" at all. This is more like digital make-up, if anything. All they did was remove the wrinkles, or added more wrinkles when ever they go back and fourth into the past and future. So calling this "de-aging" is a misconception.

[Poya]

People seem to forget that those videos have deepfake in front of CGI faces. The work was already done for them. And no, the deepfake versions don’t improve anything. Look at their mouths.

[Lee A Stewart]

[SilverFox84]

Originally Posted by Poya

People seem to forget that those videos have deepfake in front of CGI faces. The work was already done for them. And no, the deepfake versions don’t improve anything. Look at their mouths.

Not the same at all, a lot of examples I've seen "deepfake" tech seems to yield far superior results to anything else out there in terms of detail and devoid of the usual CGI uncanniness around usual CGI de-aging, with the possible exception of Marvel, they are the only ones that seem to have cracked de-aging without using deepfake tech.

Apart from the examples in this thread, another great example is digital corridor fixing the Scorpian King VFX shot in The Mummy 2 using deepfake, still isn't perfect but my god it looks passible now.

We Fixed The Worst VFX Shot Ever - YouTube