The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Director creates database of German designer Lagerfeld fake AI actors to play extras had ‘grace of a bullfighter’
A FILM director has created a database of 50,000 artificial intelligence (AI) actors that can be used as extras.
AIO Studios, the company of Polish director Patryck Vega, has created the images of realistic digital actors with a range of ages, races, genders, hairstyles, costumes, and styles of movement.
Vega was in Cannes to premiere a deepfake film, featuring an actor with Vladimir Putin’s image superimposed on his face, giving the impression that the Russian leader himself starred. Vega hopes AI could be used more widely.
The technology his company has created will let directors choose the profiles and number of the extras they want, and then drop them into scenes to move around in the background, removing the need for real actors.
It comes after film and TV productions were halted last year when the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Writers Guild of America went on strike in a dispute over the potential use of AI.
There were concerns that actors’ likenesses and voices could be used in their stead, costing them work.
Scores of productions were put on hold when filmmakers downed tools for nearly five months, costing the US economy an estimated $5 billion (£4 billion), until a deal was struck that included protections against images and voices being replicated by AI.
Vega said his AI extras would be available to “hire” with a range of looks and types of movement to make up the crowds in the background of preshot scenes.
‘I have made 50,000 human models that do not exist in reality, so I don’t have a problem with rights’
He said: “I have made 50,000 human models that do not exist in reality, so I don’t have a problem with rights, or a problem with strikes in the future.
“I can bring the movie industry a tool where they can keep 50 per cent of their money. Extras are the most extensive cost in the budget. It’s very risky from a production and financial aspect.”
The AI extras all have modern dress and hairstyles, but the company plans to expand the database into other eras, allowing them to be used in period films.
KARL LAGERFELD embodied the grace and machismo of a bullfighter, the star of a new drama depicting the designer’s life has said.
Daniel Bruhl, who plays the German designer in Disney+ TV show
recalled an “epiphany” he had during a conversation with one of Lagerfeld’s lifelong friends.
The moment of inspiration came when Bruhl imitated Lagerfeld for art historian and photographer Patrick Hourcade. Speaking to
Bruhl said: “[I] had an epiphany that Lagerfeld is like a torero, a bullfighter. “Because bullfighters are so feminine and graceful and elegant, but so macho and masculine at the same time. I said it to him: ‘Monsieur Hourcade, I’m thinking of a matador?’”
Bruhl recalled that the historian agreed. So, while making the series, he would get into character before shooting by adopting a matador’s stance.
“Sometimes you need something very technical to hold on to,” the German-Spanish actor , 45, explained.
Lagerfeld, who died in 2019 aged 85, was credited with transforming the fading fashion house Chanel into the world’s most successful label, as creative director for the brand from 1983 until his death.
The new series, however, will chart his life in the 1970s when he was living in Paris and forging his career and name in the industry at Fendi, and at Chloe.
Bruhl said one challenge in playing the role was contradictory information about Lagerfeld.
He said: “I took in everything I could read, watch and listen to, but his books all contradict each other, because he lied so much.”