top of page

The Brutalist and the use of AI in Film

Writer's picture: Andrew SichakAndrew Sichak

Oscar frontrunner, The Brutalist, was recently released nationwide in the US and it has been met with immense praise. However, it was recently discovered that the American epic used AI to tweak the Hungarian accent of Adrien Brody’s character, Lazlo Toth, who originates from Austria-Hungary in the film. 


The main editor of The Brutalist, David Jansco, recently came out to confirm that the AI software, Respeecher, was used to enhance and smooth the Hungarian dialogue in the film. The award contender’s director, Brady Corbet, defended the editor’s decision to use the program because he aimed to preserve the authenticity of the performance of Adrien Brody. The director also spoke, saying that “Adrien’s performance was completely his own,” further emphasizing how he believes that the use of AI was not to replace the work it takes to emulate an accent. Adrien Brody worked for months with dialect coaches to perfect his accent, according to Corbet. 


Jansco argues that the use of AI in film is controversial, “but it shouldn’t be.” He explains how AI is used in post-production in many software now and how AI tools can be used to speed up monotonous processes in editing. Jansco says that “there’s nothing in the film using AI that hasn’t been done before.” The use of AI in films is extremely common now as another recent film, Emilia Perez, also used Respeecher to enhance and smooth dialogue for harder-to-understand accents. 


Respeecher wasn’t the first thought when attempting to clear the dialogue accents up, as Corbet said that they first used Automated Dialogue Replacement (ADR) which is common in most Hollywood films these days. ADR is the process of rerecording lines of dialogue that were not picked up by the microphones on set, which Corbet first tried using to keep the utmost authenticity of the Hungarian accent. After this failed, Jansco turned to Respeecher for his solution which was much easier and quicker than ADR. ADR also poses extra costs for the film as actors have to come into studios to rerecord audio. This also adds more professional audio designers and editors to be sitting in, further driving the cost. With Respeecher, Jansco was able to quickly and efficiently clean up audio from the film.


While it is clear that the use of AI in film causes lots of issues with audiences, The Brutalist is still a frontrunner during awards season. Most critics still praise the film for its portrayal of the immigrant experience vs. “the American Dream”, as it is currently nominated for 10 awards at the upcoming 97th Academy Awards. However, The Brutalist isn’t the only film that used AI that is winning awards this season as Emilia Perez has been nominated for an unprecedented 13 Academy Awards. For now, the world will have to wait to see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decides to do in the future with nominated films that use AI. 

1 view0 comments

Related Posts

コメント


© 2022 by The Loveland Roar.

Find us on:

  • Grey Twitter Icon
  • Instagram
bottom of page