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The AI Recreation of 'Notting Hill' Proves Computers Are Bad Actors
Over the weekend, a video went viral recreating the famous "I'm just a girl" scene from Notting Hill with AI. Today, I wanted to bring the discourse about this video and address the idea that actors should be in trouble. Don't worry. They're not. Let's dive in. AI Performances Suck — (@) A lot of people want AI to be some democratic tool that allows anyone in the world to upload their screenplays and have their dreams come true. I have to admit, that is a fun future to think about, but when you wake up from dreams, you're back in a reality where that's not possible.And the above video proves that. Tweeted under the guise of actors being in trouble. This AI video is merely a recreation of a scene from an all-time great romantic comedy. Without the original movie, this would be a scene that had no connection or bearing, and it wouldn't tug on our heartstrings. It's also a video that could not have been made without training the AI on the movie in question. Regardless, the performance in the AI is missing all of the humanity and subtlety of Julia Roberts's original performance. In it, Roberts smiles while crying, conveying not just some sadness, but a happiness in what could be. It's a simple plea to show her vulnerability in front of the guy she wants to be with. The smiling while crying here is key to getting all of that across. And when AI does it, we get none of it. According to the poster, they used Tavus' Hummingbird-0 to lip-sync and generate expressions and movements. I think this might be useful to remove F words or for some dubbing, but in terms of creating a scene, it falls short. We just get that looks like a TikTok filter, heavy crying with droopy cheeks. There's not even really body language here. And that's without digging into the uncanny valley of it all, where it also just looks weird. Again, for something quick, maybe it's good, but the longer you watch, the less it holds up. Also, the framing is too tight. There's a reason the initial shot is a medium close-up. The AI recreation goes in closer, taking out a lot of the range of motion of the characters and limiting what we can see. The sunlight on the actors rings false, because you can't establish a time of day; it's just rich golden rays. Whereas in the original, we have a cleaner, whiter light that brightens up the scene, and we can see more of the background outside the windows.I could go on, but I want to circle back to actors being in trouble. As I said up top, without Roberts' performance, you can't even really make a video like this. All this is is bad karaoke that tries to steal the emotions she used in the scene, without effectively understand why she used them. For now, AI is incredibly limited by its complete lack of humanity. And we're not seeing it get better. The tech above might be useful for something like CGI or VFX or use in mo-cap situations for special effects, but in terms of just recreating humans in complex scenes, it has no idea what it's doing. Let me know what you think in the comments.
Over the weekend, a video went viral recreating the famous "I'm just a girl" scene from Notting Hill with AI.
Today, I wanted to bring the discourse about this video and address the idea that actors should be in trouble.
Don't worry. They're not.
Let's dive in.
AI Performances Suck
— (@)
A lot of people want AI to be some democratic tool that allows anyone in the world to upload their screenplays and have their dreams come true. I have to admit, that is a fun future to think about, but when you wake up from dreams, you're back in a reality where that's not possible.
And the above video proves that.
Tweeted under the guise of actors being in trouble. This AI video is merely a recreation of a scene from an all-time great romantic comedy.
Without the original movie, this would be a scene that had no connection or bearing, and it wouldn't tug on our heartstrings.
It's also a video that could not have been made without training the AI on the movie in question.
Regardless, the performance in the AI is missing all of the humanity and subtlety of Julia Roberts's original performance. In it, Roberts smiles while crying, conveying not just some sadness, but a happiness in what could be. It's a simple plea to show her vulnerability in front of the guy she wants to be with.
The smiling while crying here is key to getting all of that across.
And when AI does it, we get none of it.
According to the poster, they used Tavus' Hummingbird-0 to lip-sync and generate expressions and movements. I think this might be useful to remove F words or for some dubbing, but in terms of creating a scene, it falls short.
We just get that looks like a TikTok filter, heavy crying with droopy cheeks. There's not even really body language here. And that's without digging into the uncanny valley of it all, where it also just looks weird.
Again, for something quick, maybe it's good, but the longer you watch, the less it holds up.
Also, the framing is too tight. There's a reason the initial shot is a medium close-up. The AI recreation goes in closer, taking out a lot of the range of motion of the characters and limiting what we can see. The sunlight on the actors rings false, because you can't establish a time of day; it's just rich golden rays. Whereas in the original, we have a cleaner, whiter light that brightens up the scene, and we can see more of the background outside the windows.
I could go on, but I want to circle back to actors being in trouble. As I said up top, without Roberts' performance, you can't even really make a video like this. All this is is bad karaoke that tries to steal the emotions she used in the scene, without effectively understand why she used them.
For now, AI is incredibly limited by its complete lack of humanity. And we're not seeing it get better. The tech above might be useful for something like CGI or VFX or use in mo-cap situations for special effects, but in terms of just recreating humans in complex scenes, it has no idea what it's doing.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
