“You couldn’t have made this movie three years ago,” said Robert Zemeckis, the director of “Here.”The film stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, and is based on a 2014 graphic novel that takes place in a single spot in the world over several centuries. The story mostly takes place in a suburban New Jersey living room. It skips back and forth through time, but focuses on a baby-boomer couple — played by Hanks and Wright — at various stages of their lives, from age 18 into their 80s.Before A.I. software, Zemeckis could have had multiple actors play each character, but the audience might have gotten lost trying to keep track. Conventional makeup could have taken a decade off Hanks, who is now 68, but not half a century. The issue with C.G.I. is time and money. Persuading us that we’re watching Hanks and Wright in their 20s would have required hundreds of visual effects artists, tens of millions of dollars and months of postproduction work. A.I. software, though, changed all that accounting. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Full Episode
Hi, my name is Devin Gordon, and I'm a contributor to the New York Times Magazine. So maybe you remember, last year, there was a major strike by the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild that completely stopped Hollywood for several months. And one of the issues at the core of the contract negotiations with the movie studios was the subject of A.I.
guild members were concerned that AI could replace humans at every stage in the creative process, that studios would soon use AI to write screenplays, direct and edit films, design the special effects, and even read and decide which scripts were greenlit. Actors, meanwhile, were concerned about copyright ownership over their images.
They wanted to protect their likenesses from exploitation, reproduction, and profit without their benefit. But I also heard another perspective from AI optimists in Hollywood. They told me that the technology was still widely misunderstood. So I decided to find out what AI was actually being used for. Did the anxiety match the reality?
At first, it was difficult to find people in the industry who would go on the record in praise of AI because that can be seen as siding with the machines or undermining union solidarity. But eventually, I was able to speak with artists who have already incorporated AI into their work in films you might have already seen.
One use of AI is to make actors look younger or older than they actually are. For example, in a new movie called Here, AI transformed Tom Hanks' face to make him look anywhere from 18 to 80 years old. This method of facial replacement technology is also being used in stunt work.
You can take the face of, say, Dwayne Johnson and digitally paste it onto the face of a stunt person leaping off a cliff. Filmmakers have also used AI to bring back dead actors to reprise roles, as was done with Ian Holm for his android character in this summer's Alien Romulus.
This is the kind of work that would typically take teams of hundreds of artists, drawing every pixel, frame by frame, several months to do, and it can cost tens of millions of dollars. For this week's Sunday read that you'll be hearing next, I wanted to get as many honest takes from people in Hollywood about where AI might ultimately lead.
And I really wanted to know, and I think many of us as moviegoers do as well, but might be hesitant to ask, could AI actually make movies better? So here's my article, read by Eric Jason Martin. Our producer is Jack D'Isidoro, and our music was written and performed by Aaron Esposito.
The Los Angeles headquarters of Metaphysic, a Hollywood visual effects startup that uses artificial intelligence to create digital renderings of the human face, were much cooler in my imagination, if I'm being honest. I came here to get my mind blown by AI, and this dim three-room warren overlooking Sunset Boulevard felt more like the slouchy offices of a middling law firm.
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