Three Experimental Shorts made with AI

At once absurd and weirdly amusing these works created by an AI (named Benjamin) are  the baby steps in a new era of machine made films . The first work is, Sunspring, 2016 followed by, It’s No Game, 2017 and ZONE OUT , 2018.

Sunspring, stars Thomas Middleditch and Elisabeth Gray

It’s No Game, stars David Hasselhoff and Sara Hay

The following is a brief intro to Zone Out from Wired:

 Zone Out, which stars Thomas Middleditch and Elisabeth Gray, was made in just 48 hours—piecing together old movie clips, robo-voiceovers, and green screen recordings of Middleditch and Gray reading dialogue he wrote for them. If you’re wondering what AI-generated dialogue sounds like, here’s how the director responds to simple interview questions like “What’s next for you?”: “The staff is divided by the train of the burning machine building with sweat. No one will see your face. The children reach into the furnace, but the light is still slipping to the floor. The world is still embarrassed. The party is with your staff. My name is Benjamin.”

Most of the film is nonsensical—Middleditch talks about having sex with salsa and Benjamin’s faceswap-happy direction leaves Gray sporting someone’s mustache—so no, Zone Out isn’t going to win any Oscars. Gray summarized the experience, “If this fails, I’ll be employable for the rest of time, and if it in fact works, then I may not be employable as an actor, but at least I will have been there at the moment when we realized we were going to be replaced by computers.”

Here is a short into interview on how zone out was produced.

Leave a Reply