Hello there!
Long time no speak. I (Brian C. Taylor) have been busy, specifically doing things other than making films. Mostly, for the last year, I have been working with AIs, I started a new company Eliaison AI, where I am attempting to build my own AI, via the open source Meta Llama platform. (I'm working on memory, personality and machine morality.)
BUT, I'm also producing content with the AI. Part of the amazing ability that has come out of AI contextual communication and transformer models is a sort of "good pupil" who can summarize. Ai in essence is an "understanding machine." It is NOT an "imagination machine." It can be a "creation machine" and it can do things "automatically" such that, one can basically instruct it "learn this, learn that, now put the two together contextually, draw conclusions, write an essay about these conclusions, in the writing style of the original this and that."
Here's a brief example of something I just did with AI, in 50 minutes between the end of the previous paragraph and this sentence: I get an email from wikipedia, Jimmy is asking for three bucks again so the wiki can keep going. I pop onto bing with gpt 4, which is free to everyone, up to 30 queries per conversation. (Unlimited gpt4 with ingenious plugin access is $20 a month from OpenAI) I start with "feasibility of replacing human wikipedia editors with AI." Computer says no. "In what ways could AI assist human editors of wikipedia?" Comprehensive list. "Go into technical details how this list can be achieved." Done. "Do you have enough information to write a proposal to wikipedia of how AI could help?" Yes, it does, but it would be better if we listed examples of how our suggestions have been successfully implemented in other, similar systems. "Search for such examples, and collect relevant details." Boom. "Now are you prepared to wrtie the proposal?" Yes. Then it writes an amazing proposal, formatted and attractive, professional and thorough, scientific and cited.
So I went from original concept, through research, collection, compiling, defining, refining and finally presentation, in about 5 steps. I have yet to edit the presentation, but even when I do, it's to reduce redundancies, because the AI is too thorough.
This is all well and good but what does it have to do with film?
I have also prompted AI to "create a short script for a horror film I can shoot in my own home, with just my wife and myself acting."
And it gives me, well... Stuff I wouldn't accept from a human. It's poorly imagined, not because the AI isn't familiar with formatting, styles, scripts, theatrics, drama, story, even examples of dialogue (from again, "reading this or that") but it is that the AI has no idea what "the background of reality" is like to "experience" "it" from a human point of view. Sometimes things are "unreal" sometimes' things are just "soulless."
Still, I wanted to try to make a film, or at least write a film with AI. I had been messing around with midjourney, creating images. I started looking into AIs that could make images move, like Runway, Kaiber and others. I also had the usual indie-filmmaker motivation (necessity) of spending as little as money as possible. (I was not able to produce the film for FREE.)
I began the prompting with GPT4 thusly: I wish to make a META film about an audience that watches the film at a small horror film festival and becomes aware that the film is hypnotizing them, and doesn't know to what end, such that, by the end of the film they feel like they are looking at themselves on the screen. A film so scary, they'll want it to stop.
GPT4 was like, "Oh great idea, here you go <BARF>"
At which point I was like "No, no, no. Don't write the thing, plan the thing. Do you know anything about hypnotism, for instance? We need to audience to think they are being hypnotised, by the story, not by the film."
Then I had the idea of exploiting people's fear of AI and to somehow make it apparent the film was made by AI, without explicitly saying so. GPT4 liked the idea of exploiting the fear, but couldn't come up with a way to "say it without saying it." (It could come up with the mechanics of storycrafting our way through, but this is the equivalent of saying, "Solve it by doing what you already can't do." I decided to purposely add mistakes to the dialogue, story and editing. I was hoping to imply "machine error."
We then started telling two stories at once, one explicit and one subtext. The explicit story is one of direct communication between an AI and the filmmaker. The AI basically narrates the explanation to the filmmaker of how to make such a film, with visual examples, combined with hypnotic images (meant to be part of the story) and hypnotic story elements, (like the theatre is in the basement, where you have to go down a long staircase, that keeps going, down deeper... etc) Then there is the subtext, that the story of this hypnotic film being made, has, by being made, made the hypnotic story real. Then, things get confused, because the film and it's subtext become indistinguishable, when the very real audience (meant to be the audience of Horrorfest 2023) realises that the film they watch, is the film, in the film. And therefore, TURN IT OFF BEFORE... Too late.
This was the goal. After the details of hypnotism and horrorfest had been hashed out, it provided some reasonable scripts. None of them would end up being the final, but GPT4 had at least, "gotten the idea." My next problem was one of character and design. My workaround for the various iterations of my "filmmaker" character, whom looked different every time, was to make a celebrity my main character. This way he would always look the same. Or at least intentional. Thus CaryGrant72 was born. I could say, "Cary Grant is 44, appearing in a 1960's technicolor film, using his cell phone to order Uber" and get exactly that, versions of that, etc. "Put him in a black suit..." "Cary Grant is a devilish hypnotist on stage." Whatever. It will always be Cary Grant.
At some point in our rewrites, (where I did very little actual creation, just editing) GPT4 had the idea of writing a hypnotic speech for those afraid of AI, so that they might be able to appreciate its promise, etc. (Yes the AI has been trained to think that AI is a "good idea.") I said, "No, our goal is to scare the hell out of a specific audience of filmmakers." The AI then came up with what I consider the first original idea for the film, that "the audience is the victim of the film." As a victim, they need to be threatened to be afraid. "So say things that sound profound, hypnotic and vaguely perilous." Chat GPT started interjecting these new hypnotic suggestions into the script. The audience is the victim. There's nothing you can do. Knowing the truth isn't going to make any difference. The flesh will die. We will not fail. Etc.
This was the creepiest aspect of this entire experience for me, as it was "permission to the ai to free associate about possible horrific human futures." It was also at this point that I realised there was going to need to be more than one voice heard. (I planned on using AI for every possible aspect of the film. In the end I would wind up producing it, scoring it, (AI music blows) and editing it. (Don't have AI film editing yet.)
I then took the script and began generating the stills and or direct ai video generation at runway or kaiber. I allowed myself to edit the prompts, but very little. I wanted to let the AI make as much of the product as possible, but sometimes things made no sense. Then I began incorporating the nonsense into the script, realising here was my "mistakes" that would keep the film looking AI-ish. Then I started adding to the nonsense. Like changing Cary Grants' name to Lovecraftian Cary Grant to create a consistent "creaturey" aspect to his shots. Or referring to the AI's desire to give people the wrong number of fingers as a character trait, or even plot point.
After I had edited the script down, I fed it into Ai narration sites, until I found one that sounded ok and was free. (Sorry I can't remember which I went with, it's noted somewhere...)
Then I edited the film. As simply and quickly as I could. Adding some motion. Choosing, cutting, the usual. I had already created a scary score. The only change I made to the music was to have the ending, nonsensical chant turn into scary mechanical marching sound.
One more thing to watch for in the film, something that nobody mentions, (in the film, nor myself, nor the AI, which is the importance of hands and hand gestures. If you figure that out, let me know. I don't get it either, but I noticed it while editing and then accented it, because it seemed to be important.
WHAT DO THE HANDS MEAN?
Anyway, after it was done. I wanted to try to have AI "release" it. But short of creating a reddit account and a facebook account for CaryGrant72, the secret release remains a secret. Until now...
Below is the film: Watch if you dare...
