Does Bruce Willis exemplify what the future of film looks like? A few years ago, when the movie “The Polar Express” came out, Tom Hanks was criticized for using animation to play several of the roles at once. It was said that this put the other actors, who would have otherwise been cast, at a disadvantage because Hanks could slip into several roles at once using motion capture. Now, a fellow Hollywood actor is taking it a step further and revolutionizing the possibilities of advertising – all thanks to Deep Fake.
“Die Hard” icon Bruce Willis has a new role, and it’s in a Russian commercial. However, he did not, as you might think at first, go to Russia especially for this to make the recordings. Rather, the star’s face was projected directly onto an actor’s body thanks to artificial intelligence. So Willis didn’t have to set foot in a film studio for the Russian mobile operator’s commercial.
The commercial, which is supposed to tell the story of two agents in 15 episodes, features comedians Asamat Mussaghaliev and Konstantin Soloviev, among others. Unfortunately, the latter is not allowed to shine with his acting skills, but thanks to the so-called face swapping, Bruce Willis’ face is transferred to his body.
This is made possible by tens of thousands of images as the basis for the production. The laboratory responsible for the Deep Fakes selected the appropriate scenes, head positions and colors from 40 films of Bruce Willis and finally gave the algorithm almost 35,000 different images as a template for the commercial.
The participating agency “Instinct” and the mobile phone provider Megafon emphasize that they see the future of commercials in this experiment, since the production would not only be cheaper than having Willis flown in personally, but would also be much faster. The experts will have to tell us whether the last point is true, because it takes almost a month to render and teach the deep fake licensed by Willis.
However, it may still take some time before other Hollywood greats take a similar licensing route as Bruce Willis did with his face. So far, the possibilities are still very limited. The actors must not move too much, otherwise additional noses will grow out of their ears or eyebrows will appear and disappear mysteriously.
What do you think of this technology? Future of advertising or nice gimmick? Let me know in the comments!
Post picture: Megaphone
