In TraumnovelAI was used to create a key dream sequence in the film, and the director claims to be one of the first filmmakers to use the technology to completely generate a scene.
Generative AI has been a controversial topic in recent years. Many have denounced the technology altogether, including beloved comic book publisher Dark Horse. Others fear it, with iconic actor Nicolas Cage saying he was “terrified” of AI being used to animate digital scans of his body. But some fans and artists have embraced the technology, using it to create all sorts of strange cinematic experiences, such as fan trailers for canceled projects like game of Thrones spin off Snow that never saw the light of day. Some say it could even be used to remake old movies. Now, it seems that Artificial Intelligence in Cinema is No Longer a Hypothesiswith Traumnovelwhich will open the 31st Oldenburg Film Festival, using technology to create a dream sequence.
Traumnovel is an adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's short story of the same name. The original story was also the inspiration for Stanley Kubrick's latest film Eyes tightly closed. The story follows an upper-middle-class couple who become involved in an underworld of eroticism. The film's director and co-writer, Florian Frerichs, says that “This film is one of the first films to incorporate a sequence completely generated by artificial intelligence” in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. The film's star, Nikolai Kinski, seemed as surprised as the interviewer to hear this, asking, “What do you mean?”
This film is one of the first to incorporate a sequence entirely generated by artificial intelligence.
“I think it’s one of the first movies that did that,” Frerichs said, referring to the sequence in which Kinski’s character, Jakob, discovers his partner’s dreams. The dreams are fully rendered with artificial intelligence. “We have this animation thing going on there,” Frerichs said.This was a very unique and very new thing because in the book this dream sequence is very surreal. […] It would have been very difficult to shoot. In fact, it was never shot in any of the other films based on the story.
The Process of Using Artificial Intelligence in a Film
“With the use and help of AI and my two friends, Sven and Victor, who ran the whole thing, we actually gave a face to this dream sequence,” Frerichs said. “Whether you like it or not, it was done with the help of AI.” However, the team faced challenges when implementing this new technology. “It was a lot of work on our team’s part what we put into this AI. It’s not like we just said to the AI, ‘Do this and that,’ and then it went out. It was actually six months of research and trial and error,” the director explained. “It was a lot of trial and error, of prodding, and then also learning the art of negative prodding, which is even more important: telling it what not to do instead of telling it what to do. So It was a truly unique experience in post-production to bring this dream sequence to life, which we otherwise would not have been able to shoot on such a limited budget..”
Kinski expressed his excitement at seeing the final film. “I haven't seen the final version [with the AI sequence] so I'm very curious to see it,” he said.
Traumanovel It's not the first film in a festival to use artificial intelligence for its images–Telepathic letterspremiered at Lorcano77, used AI-generated imagery throughout the entire film, and it won't be the last. Like it or not, and many filmmakers and viewers don't, this technology doesn't seem to be going away. Some filmmakers have chosen to embrace generative AI, either out of genuine curiosity about AI or simply to save money, while others have gone for the craft of it. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, it's important to pay attention to where the technology is headed and how it's becoming part of our media landscape.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter.