Washington [US], September 6 : Oscar-winning filmmaker Danny Boyle has confirmed that generative artificial intelligence was used for around 30 seconds in his new film 'Ink', which chronicles the rise of British tabloid newspaper The Sun in the 1970s.
The Deadline cited a Vanity Fair interview from the Telluride Film Festival, where Boyle said AI was used to animate old photographs featured in the movie.
“There’s about 30 seconds of it in our movie where we animate a couple of old photographs,” he said, adding, “Oh, and there’s some mice," explaining that AI was also used for animals shown running around The Sun newsroom, as per Deadline.
The disclosure comes after some viewers took to social media following the film’s Venice Film Festival premiere to question whether AI had been used to reanimate historical images of the Kray brothers and former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Boyle’s comments from Telluride appear to confirm that AI was involved in those sequences.
Some social media users have also said that the film’s use of AI is disclosed in its end credits. However, that detail had not been confirmed to the publication after it contacted the production.
Boyle also addressed his broader views on artificial intelligence in filmmaking. “It doesn’t really matter what I think about AI. It matters what 20-year-olds think about it. Is the honest truth,” he said.
He described AI as “a very useful tool in many ways”, while stressing that it should be used respectfully and that actors should be paid if they are replaced with an AI embodiment.
The filmmaker also recalled getting “in trouble” with PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) early in his career over the use of real chimpanzees in 28 Days Later. He said he has since tried to avoid using real animals in his films.
Earlier this week, during the Venice press conference for 'Ink', Boyle also raised concerns about the potential impact of AI on journalism. “The danger with the tech giants and their AI is that they will be able to replace journalism. They’ll be able to have an AI journalist who’s much more efficient, cheaper, etcetera, ecetera, and will that AI journalist speak truth to the power that created it?”
'Ink', starring Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy, follows the rise of The Sun under editor Larry Lamb, who was recruited from the Daily Mirror in 1969 by Rupert Murdoch, then an emerging media mogul.
The Studiocanal and Netflix production opened the Venice Film Festival this week before screening at Telluride.
It received largely positive notices from Venice. The film is set to release in cinemas in December and on Netflix in January.