One of the probable front-runners caused controversy a few days before the Oscar race officially began when the editor of the movie acknowledged utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to improve Hungarian accents in “The Brutalist.”
Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones feature in director Brady Corbet’s post-World War II drama, which centers on an architect who escapes Europe to America to rebuild his life after surviving the conflict.
Editor Dvid Jancs said in an interview with tech magazine Red Shark News that artificial intelligence was employed to improve the main actors’ Hungarian accents, sparking controversy over the weekend.
Ahead of Thursday’s Academy Award nomination announcements, the controversy around the use of the technology is intensifying, prompting some to wonder if “The Brutalist” deserves to be nominated for some of the most prestigious honors. The movie recently won several major Golden Globes, including best picture and drama.
How was AI used?
According to Jancs, the Ukrainian software business Respeecher was used in the film’s development to improve Brody and Jones’ Hungarian accents when they speak the language.
The directors said that the English-language speech, which is utilized for the majority of the movie, was not enhanced by the AI technology.
“I am a native Hungarian speaker and I know that it is one of the most difficult languages to learn to pronounce,” Jancs stated to Red Shark News. It’s a very distinctive language. We wanted to make everything flawless so that even locals wouldn’t notice the difference, even though [Brody and Jones] performed an amazing job as our coaches.”
Jancs claims that several letters and sounds in Hungarian are difficult to pronounce. He claimed that the first thing the directors did was “ADR these harder elements with the actors.”
(A post-production technique called Automated Dialogue Replacement, or ADR, is utilized to re-record dialogue.)
In the event that it failed, Jancs stated that the team “tried to ADR them completely with other actors but that just didn’t work.”
According to Jancs, “so we looked for other options of how to enhance it,” Red Shark News reported.
According to Jancs, “Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there.” Brody and Jones both used the AI software to capture their voices.
“We took great care to preserve their performances. The majority of it is simply changing letters here and there,” Jancs stated.
According to the editor, AI was also utilized to produce “a series of architectural drawings and finished buildings in the style of” Brody’s persona at the end of the movie.
“It is controversial in the industry to talk about AI, but it shouldn’t be,” Jancs stated. “The movie uses AI in a way that has never been done before. It simply speeds up the process considerably.
What has the film’s director said?
Corbet, who won a Golden Globe for best director for “The Brutalist,” responded to the internet debate about the use of AI in the movie by claiming that his lead actors’ performances are “completely their own” and that they spent “for months” honing their Hungarian accents with a dialect coach.
“Only dialogue editing in the Hungarian language was done using Innovative Respeecher technology, primarily to improve the accuracy of specific vowels and letters. The English language remained unchanged. According to a statement from Corbet, “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.”
According to Corbet, every image in the movie is hand-drawn and none of the buildings were created or rendered using AI.
“To clarify, in the memorial video featured in the background of a shot, our editorial team created pictures intentionally designed to look like poor digital renderings circa 1980,” Corbet stated.
“Human effort, ingenuity, and teamwork were the driving forces behind the production of The Brutalist, a film on human complexity. Our team’s accomplishments here have us immensely proud,” Corbet stated.
Requests for comment on Monday were not answered by Brody or Jones.
Representatives for the film cited Corbet’s response when asked if Jancs had any additional comments.
AI in Hollywood
The Oscar favorite “The Brutalist” is not the only one that uses AI.
According to a Facebook post by the software company, Respeecher was also utilized in the musical “Emilia Perez,” which tells the story of a Mexican cartel commander who transforms into a woman and received a huge prize at the Golden Globes.
The Facebook post didn’t make it apparent how Respeecher was employed in “Emilia Perez.”
Hollywood has always embraced artificial intelligence (AI), but in the wake of the two 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes, the technology has made a stir.During talks between the various unions and studios, AI was a topic of contention since creatives wanted guarantees that the technology wouldn’t replace their work. Many people are still worried that Hollywood has not and might not entirely recover from the months-long strikes, despite the industry’s efforts to return to routine.
Online users also criticized two AI-related agreements inked by two Hollywood firms last year, voicing worries about the potential consequences.
As Variety noted at the time, the company Lionsgate, which is responsible for franchises like “Hunger Games,” said in September that it would let filmmakers to “augment” their work with AI in an attempt to save money. This left many online disappointed and wondering what this would mean for filmmakers.
Blumhouse Productions faced criticism on the internet in October after revealing that it has teamed up with Meta to create short films utilizing the AI technologies of the company.
The decision was justified by Jason Blum, the founder and CEO of Blumhouse, who claimed that his organization “enables artists” and that “artists always come first.”
“Tools are what artists seek. And in my opinion, it would be reckless if we didn’t at least know about the tools, and I also believe that it would be reckless if we didn’t learn about them,” the statement read.
Blum continued, “I know nothing about AI, but I wanted to do this to learn about it.” In order to at least have a “reasonable answer” when filmmakers approach him in the future with questions about utilizing AI, he stated that he wants to establish this collaboration.
“It is here to stay. So, even though I don’t understand it yet, I want to,” Blum remarked.