Paul Walhus, Austin, Texas
Written with assistance from Gemini, Grok, perplexity, NotebookLM and ChatGPT
Queston on OfficeHours.global on 1/21/25
[General Questions] The making of The Brutalist has sparked a debate about the role of AI in filmmaking, Should it be eligible for The Oscars due to the use of AI technology in dialogue editing using “respeecher” https://wholetech.com/brutalist
Adrien Brody & Alessandro Nivola in The Brutalist.
- The making of The Brutalist has sparked a significant debate about the role of AI in filmmaking, raising questions about its eligibility for The Oscars due to the use of AI technology in dialogue editing. The movie is playing in theaters and is not yet streaming.
- Editor Dávid Jancsó revealed that AI from the Ukrainian company Respeecher was used to improve Hungarian pronunciation in actor dialogue, which led to backlash on social media about AI’s involvement in the film.
- Director Brady Corbet clarified that while AI was used for specific language editing, the actors’ performances remained intact, and no English dialogue was altered; all architectural blueprints were created by hand, despite some digital references used during the design process.
- The controversy highlights broader concerns regarding human creativity and the implications of AI use in film, with an ongoing conversation about how to navigate its integration into the creative industry as technology evolves.
- The film also used Midjourney to create some architectural blueprints shown in the film.
There is a massive debate about the role of AI that even questions whether the film should be allowed into The Oscars mainly it was about the use of VistaVision in the film and how it was the first Hollywood movie to shoot in the format for over half a century. But it also used AI from Ukrainian company Respeecher to improve the Hungarian pronunciation – specifically the vowel sounds – of the some of the actor’s dialogue.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/the-brutalist-ai-backlash-adrien-brody-1236113015 Dávid Jancsó said the filmmakers used AI tools from Ukrainian specialist Respeecher to tweak Brody’s and Jones’ Hungarian dialogue in the film to make it sound more authentic. That AI was used in the film in any form has sparked online outrage, with many suggesting it should disqualify it for awards consideration.
https://www.reddit.com/r/oscarrace/search/?q=brutalist is a Subreddit that predicts Oscar winners, with Redditor after Redditor saying the movie should be thrown out of Oscar contention for using AI. Others argued against this, and the pile on spread onto twitter and began to be picked up by media outlets. https://x.com/search?q=brutalist is a link to the heated debate on twitter.
“Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own,” he said. “They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents. Innovative Respeecher technology was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed. This was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production. The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft.” source Redshark
He also addressed the fact we mentioned that genAI was used to create some architectural blueprints at the end of movie. “[Production Designer] Judy Becker and her team did not use AI to create or render any of the buildings. All images were hand-drawn by artists,” he said. This seems to be the case, but the lines here are perhaps a bit more blurred, as this December 2022 article in Filmmaker Magazine shows.
Becker says architecture consultant Griffin Frazen used Midjourney “to create three Brutalist buildings quite quickly” by using references to key figures in the movement along with other architectural terms. “Now I will have these digital prints redrawn by an illustrator to create mythical buildings.”
Spoiler Alert Section
</begin spoiler> Holocaust survivor and architect Laszlo Toth emigrates from Hungary to America in search of freedom. Fleeing the violence in Europe with his wife Erzebet, the couple struggle in their early years in America until Laszlo meets a mysterious new client. In a life-changing exchange, Laszlo and his new patron undertake to build one of the most important and recognizable monuments in American history. </end spoiler>