Booed for Using AI: The Artist Fighting Back Against AI Backlash | Hisko Hulsing Artist and Animator

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If an artist spends 11 years making a film, employs 80 people, paints 75 original oil paintings, and then uses AI for one small part of the process, is that film still AI slop?
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Today's guest is Hisko Hulsing, an extraordinary Dutch artist and director who was booed off stage at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival when he premiered his wonderful film, Danse Macabre.
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Protesters walked out.
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People shouted accusations about AI destroying art and taking jobs and how this was a travesty of the art of filmmaking.
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And what should have been the celebration of 11 years of difficult and rewarding creative work became a controversy about his use of AI.
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And here's what makes this story so interesting to me, is that Hisco's an oil painter, a traditionally trained artist and animator, a filmmaker who spent decades developing a distinctive visual style.
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For Dance Macabre alone, he created 75 original oil paintings.
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He worked with animators, actors, riggers, lighting artists, and production teams across multiple countries.
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And then he used AI for a specific purpose, to transfer the texture and appearance of his own paintings onto the traditionally animated characters.
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He didn't do it to generate the story.
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He didn't replace a single animator.
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And he didn't use it to avoid the very difficult work presented to him.
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But he did it to achieve an artistic result he'd been trying to accomplish for years but couldn't get to with traditional tools.
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And the result is genuinely extraordinary.
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I've watched this film over and over again.
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It's haunting and beautiful and deeply unsettling.
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It's also a film about war and authoritarianism and the way humanity seems condemned to repeat its most destructive mistakes.
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And perhaps the saddest part of this whole controversy is that almost nobody was talking about any of that.
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They're talking about a tool he used in a tiny part of the process—
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And I want to be clear, the anger surrounding AI isn't entirely misplaced.
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Artists have legitimate concerns about copyright and the future of their livelihoods.
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But here's the thing, Hisco gets that better than anybody.
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He's been losing his own commercial storyboarding work to AI as well.
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So he gets it.
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But there's a difference between holding technology companies accountable for how these models were built and how they're being used, and attacking an individual artist for experimenting with a new creative technique.
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And I think that's where this conversation becomes bigger than one film.
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Because what happens when we make artists afraid to tell us how they work?
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Or worse, if these artists who understand creativity best refuse to participate in this new technology, it won't stop the technology from developing.
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It'll just develop without them.
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In this chat, we get into the unique and creative workflows behind Dance Macabre, Hisco's artistic influences, the backlash at Annecy, the legitimate concerns surrounding AI, and what this moment means for the next generation of artists.
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But more than anything, this is a conversation about the difference between protecting art and policing artists.
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And whether in our determination to defend human creativity, we might actually be discouraging the very people we should be listening to.
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And this is one of them.
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This is Hisco Holsing.
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Kisco Holsing, I am so excited to talk to you.
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We put this together quite quickly because I saw your name.
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I saw what you've done.
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And I messaged you and I was just like, please, let's talk.
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I'm so excited to talk to you.
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Yeah, so nice to be here with you.
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I've been watching your work, Dance Macabre, over and over and over again since I saw it.
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It's so beautiful.
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Thank you.
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We have viewers across film, television, animation, advertising, music, and other creative stuff.
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I'm fascinated by you because you're an artist, an oil painter, a storyboard artist, a comic book artist, a sometime composer, an animator.
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You're all of these amazing things.
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How would you describe yourself?
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Well, I think I would describe myself as an artist.
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That's the most broad way to describe what I'm doing.
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I don't have a company.
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I'm not a producer.
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I got some producing credits on Undone, for instance, a series that I directed, but I'm basically kind of an all-around artist.
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The great thing about making animated films is that you can combine all these medians.
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You can combine sound, music, paintings, acting, costumes, lighting.
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It's like the most broad kind of art form animation, I would say.
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So it's a nice container for all my interests, you know, to spend for all my obsessions, so to speak.
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Even just looking at your screen, you've got these beautiful oil paintings of yours behind you.
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On your right side, you've got a digital tablet.
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You are literally the bridge between these two worlds.
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I'm a big lover of comic books, so your work on The Sandman.
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I've seen your animated work before.
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I didn't link it to you.
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Okay.
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But I'm so impressed by your background, and where you came to my attention was at the Annecy Film Festival.
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Your film, Dance Macabre, you used a little bit of AI in a very structured production process that didn't use AI for most of it.
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You, in fact, used your oil paintings as reference, but used a little bit of AI in the end process.
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And protesters showed up.
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They walked out and people were yelling out, like, this is the bastardization of art.
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And I'm watching it going, this is...
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one of the greatest examples of ours.
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Thank you.
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Thank you for that.
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I just think it's so beautiful.
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Take us through the process of making something like Dance Macabre.
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I can only give a long answer to your question.
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When I started out in the early 90s, I was working on 35 millimeter film with cells, you know,
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I don't know if you ever experienced that, but that's hell on earth.
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I mean, there's not even a way you can really test your animation apart from flipping or filming it.
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So I come from that background.
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But the basis of all my animated films are the oil paintings that you see behind me.
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I made at least 400 of them.
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And then the hard thing in animation is how do you match the moving characters that are animated?
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In the beginning, I animated them with a pencil on paper.
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How do you match them with the paintings, the backgrounds?
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So every time there was a new technological advancement, I would find out if I could use that for my films and get the characters, the moving parts and my backgrounds done.
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feel more like one cohesive world.
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So I've always sort of combined this, my very classical painting techniques, you know, the 17th century kind of painting with the most modern techniques like projection mapping, for instance, 3D animation.
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And for this film...
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When I started 11 years ago, I started storyboarding the film.
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Then I started making the paintings.
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And usually when you make an animated film, you leave out the characters because the characters will be animated.
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But I got so fed up of the fact that I made so many paintings that I really love, but the subject is always missing.
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The other said, because they're a background painting.
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Yeah.
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So the subject is animated.
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And I have all these beautiful paintings, and there's nobody in there.
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You know, it's like Edward Hopper, but even lonelier than Edward Hopper.
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Yeah, yeah.
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So I started painting the characters in with the idea...
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that I had no clue how I would animate them.
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But I thought, if you look behind me, those skeletons, they have to look like that when we animate it.
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And that was 10 years ago when I made this painting.
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We then did a test with projection mapping.
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Projection mapping means that you use textures, or in this case, a painting, and you project it on top of 3D images.
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areas.
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Usually that works for instance in Undone we did it a lot also in The Dream of a Thousand Cats for the Sandman for Netflix but in this case with characters it doesn't really work it tends to look like game figures or something so I didn't really like it and it was also extremely expensive to do it, it was just not the right way.
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Then I was asked to direct Undone and The Dream of a Thousand Cats the Sandman episode and when I came back I started working on it again
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And I figured out, well, like, because there are different ways to make the 3D characters look painted.
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One of them is using shaders in a program like Blender or Maya.
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But those are a little bit fake to me.
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I don't really like them.
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They look sort of painterly, but in a Photoshop kind of way.
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And, well, and then I met a guy who was working with Comfy UI, which is a very, I would say it was a very crude early AI tool two and a half years ago.
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Yeah.
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And I just thought, what if we program our own shaders and we feed the machine, the beast, with my paintings and see if we can make this 3D animation that is completely animated by artists in Blender and Houdini and...
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and uh give it that texture so it looks like uh my paintings yeah and so that that took a long by the way this is this answer is way too long huh no please no no absolutely this is this is what we're here for is to find out how you did this i mean it's it's so great i mean i'm you know we're gonna put a link to it in the bottom of the show now it's like i want people to watch it and be fascinated by this is
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Okay.
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Perfect.
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Please keep going.
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Okay.
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Then I'll move on.
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Okay.
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So the hard thing.
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So first I have to stress that on Dance Macabre, there are 80 people, 8-0, 80 people on the end credits, of which about 30 animators, lighters, riggers, et cetera.
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Then there's of course the actors, because we also shot live action as a reference.
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I always edit everything in live action so we have reference for the animators, so they know how a violin player moves his fingers, how a soldier walks, all those kind of things.
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We need a reference.
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I mean, so many animation projects don't use actors.
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I mean, you know, it seems like you did everything right.
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You used actors.
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Of course, I did always.
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Yeah, exactly.
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And also the reason to shoot live action first is that I noticed that when I edit live action, I can make such fluid edits, you know, and then the film is already, when that edit is done based on the animatic that I met 10 years ago, which is also blind, by the way.
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then I just know that it's going to work out because I already edited it in live action.
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And I think that's the problem with a lot of animated films, that they rely too much on the storyboards, and then they find out the story's not moving forward very fluidly.
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Anyhow, we started experimenting, and it was extremely difficult, I can tell you that.
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So all those people online also are being attacked daily by hundreds.
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hundreds of people calling me an AI clown.
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They have no fucking idea what they're talking about.
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I can tell you that.
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It was so hard.
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It was the hardest thing I ever did in my life, actually.
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And I was not even doing it myself.
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I was working together with somebody.
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So the thing is, with those programs like Conf UI and Stable Diffusion and all those things, every image is built up out of noise.
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So there's noise.
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And then we fed all the...
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In ControlNet, which is another module, so to speak, we fed all the facets of the 3D animation from Blender.
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So the depth map, the crypto map, the normal map, the beauty, we fed them into this system to give the system as much information as possible.
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Yeah.
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That's step number one.
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Then we had a model that we trained on my paintings.
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Yeah.
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And then there are all kinds of different ways to generate, to come to a picture that looks painted.
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The problem is, it's like riding a beast.
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The more you let it go, the more it looked like my paintings and the more ice came out of skulls because it's one big hallucination machine.
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You know what I mean?
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It's not to do with intelligence.
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It's just one big hallucination machine.
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So then, and if you didn't give it enough freedom,
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It would just look like 3D animation which didn't fit with my painting.
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So there was always, it was also a matter of finding this sweet spot where it looked painted, but where it still had some errors that I would then retouch in a 2D, traditional 2D program, TV paint.
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Right, right.
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So that was what we ended up with, but to get there was extremely difficult.
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And the first test was really successful, it looked wonderful.
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And then the producers, because it's a co-production with four countries, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Hungary, they were skeptical for good reasons.
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They said, well, we don't think it can be done like this with this AI tool to create pictures for animation.
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Let's take a more difficult scene.
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And I made a mistake because I took the most difficult scene that is in the whole film.
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And it turned out to be the last scene we finished, actually.
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So hard, was it?
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So it was very hard to convince people.
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And it's now the scene that all those, not trolls, sorry, investigators on the internet are scrutinizing.
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Look, there is 10th thief, and then the skeleton has 9th thief, and the next one.
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Yeah, that's because it's so fucking hard.
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So when I would retouch those scenes,
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images, I would just make a decision, pick my battles like will this be visible, this error in etwas viewing, yes or no no, then I would leave it like that so it's a very hard process and then I have to also stress that
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almost every shell needed a different approach.
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And the good thing about, there's a lot of things that might not be good about stable diffusion that I might not have realized fast enough.
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But one of the good things, it's a free program and it's open source.
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So you can program.
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And I also include UI.
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So we were programming, or not we, but my partner, he was programming stuff to make things possible.
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So for instance,
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if there were four skeletons on a horse and they all fall off the horse, there's no way you can render that 3D animation in one part.
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You have to do the head of the horse.
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You have to do the head of the skeleton.
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And I would then have to stitch all those parts together in TV paint because I was my own intern.
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I didn't have an intern.
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I was doing all the work by myself.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Apart from making 75 huge oil paintings and direct, et cetera, et cetera.
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Not to brag, but it was just a hell of a job.
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But this is before AI slop, you know.
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So now people think, oh, I can use a prompt and there's four sculls falling off a horse.
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That's not how we worked.
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So I was kind of unfortunate in that.
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away yeah that is the classic ai learning curve isn't it it's very easy to get a keyframe out it's very easy to get reference materials that help you sell the eventual product but actually you using it in the eventual product is not very easy at all i mean it's not at all it's you know it's so much iteration it's so much working with traditional tools you mentioned maya i mean like well it's really nice
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Yeah.
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Well, Blender.
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Yeah.
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I think that what people don't understand is fine.
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You, you trained a model on your own oil painting.
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So the provenance of the, of the source data is yours as well.
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But I think that what people don't realize as well is that in Blender, in all of the tools everybody uses on a daily basis, Adobe Firefly and things like that, AI is injected into these tools anyway now.
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Whether it's usable or not.
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I mean, it's almost going to be impossible to make a film without AI, not because people are using it as slot merchants, but because it's in everything now.
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It's in everything, yeah.
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And that's the frustrating thing of...
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In the beginning, when I started getting attacked on the Internet, I was still...
211
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trying to give very detailed answers to questions.
212
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But at some point I found out it didn't help because a lot of people are so anti-AI.
213
00:16:40.733 --> 00:16:41.894
They don't listen to that.
214
00:16:42.214 --> 00:16:46.735
I would tell them things like, well, listen, you're attacking me on Instagram.
215
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That's a fully AI-powered medium.
216
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It's meta.
217
00:16:50.836 --> 00:16:52.916
Just as Facebook, it's all AI-powered.
218
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And of course, that's not a good argument.
219
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It's like...
220
00:16:56.657 --> 00:16:57.478
But it is true.
221
00:16:57.618 --> 00:17:14.747
And the thing is, you know, a lot of those tools are very, they're very good for productions because for us in Photoshop, first when I had to retouch those, because I had to get the characters out of my paintings so I could use the paintings as a background before the animation.
222
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So doing that in the old days was using clone stamp.
223
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Yeah, got it.
224
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And now you just select it.
225
00:17:21.712 --> 00:17:29.342
And like a year ago, when I would select it and generate the selection, it would look horrible, like a very bad clipper.
226
00:17:29.723 --> 00:17:31.545
And now when I do it, it looks like my painting.
227
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So it's scary, but it also helps me a lot in the product, especially because I'm just...
228
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I'm an independent artist.
229
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I don't have...
230
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I mean, we had a budget, of course, for the film, but I don't have the tools that Disney had or the budget or anything.
231
00:17:46.695 --> 00:17:48.796
So those kind of tools helped me make my film.
232
00:17:49.216 --> 00:17:52.277
And then, for instance, I'm a big fan of Da Vinci Resolve.
233
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Do you know it?
234
00:17:52.897 --> 00:17:53.137
Yeah.
235
00:17:53.497 --> 00:17:54.157
Oh, yes, of course.
236
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Jesus, man.
237
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That's completely...
238
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I've been working with it for a year.
239
00:17:59.478 --> 00:18:02.459
It's insane how much that program can do.
240
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I mean, it's like After Effects premiere
241
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it's everything in one program for only 300 years.
242
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So I'm not getting paid for this information.
243
00:18:13.361 --> 00:18:15.502
It is, I'm really enthusiastic also.
244
00:18:15.602 --> 00:18:22.944
And we did color grading and there was a tool with which we could select a moving skeleton to grade it.
245
00:18:23.664 --> 00:18:24.704
And it was an AI tool.
246
00:18:24.864 --> 00:18:27.385
And that's just two hours of work.
247
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And the color grader, he's not complaining because he can use that tool.
248
00:18:31.466 --> 00:18:32.926
So the thing is, it's everywhere.
249
00:18:33.186 --> 00:18:35.207
The thing we should talk about is the fact that
250
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All AI software, all AI applications that are being developed and used by all the companies, not all the companies, but by most companies in the world, it's all based on stolen data.
251
00:18:50.760 --> 00:18:54.162
So the thing is, I'm being attacked for it, for using stable diffusion.
252
00:18:54.923 --> 00:19:02.730
Because stable diffusion, the data sets are, the data comes from, basically it's all, you
253
00:19:03.410 --> 00:19:03.791
stolen.
254
00:19:04.091 --> 00:19:05.052
I mean, yeah, exactly.
255
00:19:05.413 --> 00:19:06.674
Well, yeah.
256
00:19:07.615 --> 00:19:11.199
But that goes for all AI, also the AI that thought should be everything.
257
00:19:11.319 --> 00:19:16.645
I know because one of my best friends sold his AI company, so I have some good information about that.
258
00:19:17.185 --> 00:19:17.846
So the thing is,
259
00:19:19.120 --> 00:19:23.683
Copyright is a big issue and there should be regulations for it.
260
00:19:23.743 --> 00:19:25.464
There should be legislation.
261
00:19:26.545 --> 00:19:32.608
The question is, am I the one to attack before this legislation is there?
262
00:19:33.409 --> 00:19:36.691
Or should it just be, I mean, I didn't do anything illegal.
263
00:19:37.351 --> 00:19:47.014
So what I think this model would be is that all those tech companies who develop AI will have to pay a bit back to the people that they got the data from.
264
00:19:47.114 --> 00:19:53.076
And you're talking about the fair use argument, which I've kind of said multiple times on the podcast, I don't agree with.
265
00:19:53.216 --> 00:19:58.617
My mom was a writer and all of her books were in the Books 3 corpus that was used as training data.
266
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I think she would have been furious about that.
267
00:20:01.158 --> 00:20:03.141
But I think that, you know, I think that you're right.
268
00:20:03.181 --> 00:20:06.245
I think that, you know, you very generously called the trolls.
269
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You stopped yourself from calling them trolls.
270
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And then you called them investigators.
271
00:20:10.090 --> 00:20:11.551
Yeah, but I think that's too generous.
272
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Because if they investigated and just went to your making of video, it would be...
273
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incredibly clear.
274
00:20:18.418 --> 00:20:30.122
And either the people yelling out, this is a bastardization of film and of art, either they don't know enough about film to be able to watch the making of and go, oh, I see.
275
00:20:30.482 --> 00:20:36.724
There was a lot of traditional work done here, not to mention, I don't know a lot of oil painters.
276
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And the ones I do know aren't very good.
277
00:20:40.466 --> 00:20:53.954
And so, you know, the fact that you have an undeniable craft, an undeniable ability to make these beautiful things that are already sitting behind you, I find that the conversation around slop is...
278
00:20:54.634 --> 00:20:59.958
usually devolves to either it's removing jobs or it's lazy.
279
00:21:00.438 --> 00:21:07.764
And I think that what's so evident looking at what you've done is that you created jobs, which is not easy on a short film.
280
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I mean, most people who do short films are making it for zero money.
281
00:21:11.727 --> 00:21:22.875
And so to have had lots of people work on it, be credited on it, and then as well to be using actors and using things that even animations don't usually do.
282
00:21:23.095 --> 00:21:23.516
No, exactly.
283
00:21:23.556 --> 00:21:23.696
Yeah.
284
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It's a high degree of specificity.
285
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It's using professionals.
286
00:21:27.938 --> 00:21:37.324
And in terms of it being lazy or you being a slot merchant, I mean, you only have to look at the oil paintings behind you to see that that's just not true.
287
00:21:38.004 --> 00:21:41.587
No, that's also, you know, I was – so what happened in Ansi was that –
288
00:21:42.327 --> 00:21:43.708
It was an organized protest.
289
00:21:44.148 --> 00:21:57.495
It's not being claimed by any terrorist jihadist group or anything, but I know that because there were people that I knew were sitting there, and they said people were gesturing them to get up, and people were walking out of the room before my film started.
290
00:21:57.715 --> 00:21:59.116
And then when they all started to boo,
291
00:21:59.816 --> 00:22:23.193
this woman started yelling at me that fuck you and I was taking our jobs and I yelled back that actually 80 people worked on this film and she was yelling this while the end credits were going on the screen like oh you stupid and then there it is yeah there is but the people couldn't hear because they were shouting so hard and that sort of um you know they wouldn't hear anything anymore and
292
00:22:23.673 --> 00:22:28.074
And then they shot Boon Ginn and I got up and I said, thank you.
293
00:22:28.094 --> 00:22:29.534
And then I raised my middle finger.
294
00:22:30.174 --> 00:22:32.535
And that was maybe not smart.
295
00:22:32.575 --> 00:22:32.895
I don't know.
296
00:22:32.915 --> 00:22:39.336
But I raised my middle finger because they went in there not doing any research on my film.
297
00:22:39.356 --> 00:22:43.857
They could have, before they started, they decided to go with this mob action.
298
00:22:44.217 --> 00:22:46.797
They could have looked at my name, Hiske Holsing.
299
00:22:47.218 --> 00:22:49.518
One minute on Google, you know I'm a craftsman.
300
00:22:49.958 --> 00:22:54.442
And I have a large history of doing, whether you liked or not, it's a different story.
301
00:22:54.702 --> 00:22:59.827
And maybe they hate my films, but I'm not exactly lazy.
302
00:22:59.867 --> 00:23:02.870
I would say that, like, I usually work seven.
303
00:23:03.170 --> 00:23:04.771
I don't even have to apologize.
304
00:23:04.811 --> 00:23:05.732
I mean, it's good.
305
00:23:05.772 --> 00:23:09.616
No, I think that this is what's so tricky about this film.
306
00:23:09.956 --> 00:23:14.821
This moment is you were incredibly transparent right up front.
307
00:23:14.901 --> 00:23:19.685
What went into it, that it took 11 years and you were working on these paintings for such a long time.
308
00:23:19.725 --> 00:23:27.953
And the people you hired and the people you worked with and all of the traditional processes, like you said, riggers and lighters and 3D artists.
309
00:23:28.473 --> 00:23:35.540
And then as well, you've trained, fine, a off-the-shelf model with dubious copyright provenance, fine.
310
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But then you locally trained, you fine-tuned it on your own work, your own hand and your own brush strokes.
311
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The fact that you were honest about that, I feel should have shielded you from that thing.
312
00:23:49.507 --> 00:23:51.468
But yet, it doesn't matter.
313
00:23:51.508 --> 00:23:53.569
It's like a five-year-old with their fingers in there.
314
00:23:53.589 --> 00:23:55.410
He's going, no, no, no, no, no, I can't hear you.
315
00:23:55.470 --> 00:23:56.271
I can't hear you.
316
00:23:56.291 --> 00:23:58.592
You know, it's childish.
317
00:23:58.752 --> 00:24:03.814
And then it brings out the childishness in us, where you're going like, oh, I shouldn't have done that.
318
00:24:03.834 --> 00:24:04.255
But it's like...
319
00:24:04.995 --> 00:24:06.215
You're not listening to me.
320
00:24:06.275 --> 00:24:07.515
I'm not being listened to.
321
00:24:07.575 --> 00:24:11.196
I've done everything I possibly can to explain it to you idiots.
322
00:24:11.276 --> 00:24:14.317
You know, like it's hard.
323
00:24:14.357 --> 00:24:15.757
I don't know how you get out of it.
324
00:24:15.877 --> 00:24:18.137
You know, we're all human at the end of the day.
325
00:24:18.497 --> 00:24:20.418
Well, no, there was no other way I could do it.
326
00:24:20.458 --> 00:24:29.939
Also, I grew up during punk and there's still a little punk in me and I have to give it to you once in a while.
327
00:24:30.199 --> 00:24:32.220
There's a Mohawk under that hat.
328
00:24:32.260 --> 00:24:32.760
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
329
00:24:32.860 --> 00:24:34.280
I've never had that.
330
00:24:34.360 --> 00:24:34.560
Yeah.
331
00:24:36.899 --> 00:24:40.802
No, it's a good mentality not to give too much fucks about things like this.
332
00:24:41.142 --> 00:24:43.104
Although I have cried.
333
00:24:43.144 --> 00:24:43.985
I was very sad.
334
00:24:44.045 --> 00:24:49.349
I mean, it was a world premiere of my film, and it's the best thing I ever did, in my view.
335
00:24:49.829 --> 00:24:52.231
And then get that response for what, you know?
336
00:24:52.672 --> 00:24:57.495
But the other thing that I would like to say is that they're not doing themselves a favor.
337
00:24:58.356 --> 00:24:58.716
Why not?
338
00:24:58.776 --> 00:25:00.478
First of all, they're...
339
00:25:01.403 --> 00:25:06.889
protesting me so hard, attacking me so hard, like thousands of people, fuck, he's closing AI slot.
340
00:25:07.450 --> 00:25:21.386
That I know that I know a lot of people in the industry and a lot of my colleague, let's say, directors who told me on NSC that they're all using AI in one form or the other.
341
00:25:21.606 --> 00:25:21.826
Yeah.
342
00:25:21.926 --> 00:25:22.107
But...
343
00:25:22.787 --> 00:25:27.892
But so what happened now is that people will think twice before they'll be honest about it.
344
00:25:28.372 --> 00:25:28.613
Yeah.
345
00:25:28.633 --> 00:25:30.875
Because they might get the same attack as I did.
346
00:25:31.235 --> 00:25:33.837
So how is that helping any discussion?
347
00:25:34.458 --> 00:25:38.261
It's not helping it because people will do it anyhow and they will just not talk about it.
348
00:25:38.762 --> 00:25:41.665
That's one reason why it's very bad if you...
349
00:25:42.145 --> 00:25:49.751
want to take an action or undertake action to get legislation done or things like that, you have to get into discussion.
350
00:25:49.911 --> 00:25:51.412
You have to discuss with me.
351
00:25:51.653 --> 00:25:53.374
Nobody came up to me to discuss with me.
352
00:25:53.414 --> 00:25:54.455
They were just saying, boo.
353
00:25:54.895 --> 00:25:56.757
And in the days after, nobody came up to me.
354
00:25:56.777 --> 00:26:02.201
So it's very weak, very weak and very damaging for my film, but also for their own cause.
355
00:26:02.902 --> 00:26:06.464
Then the other thing I find is even more important is that,
356
00:26:07.407 --> 00:26:08.027
That's what I said.
357
00:26:08.067 --> 00:26:09.609
It was a Q&A the day after.
358
00:26:09.629 --> 00:26:16.513
And there were some really nuanced questions from young, worried people, which I completely understand.
359
00:26:16.653 --> 00:26:29.562
As I just told you before you started recording, I worked for 120 advertising agencies as a storyboard artist because one day a week of storyboarding bought my freedom for six days to make my art and my films.
360
00:26:29.602 --> 00:26:30.803
That was my whole concept.
361
00:26:31.283 --> 00:26:36.690
That storyboarding work is now completely gone because art directors are using AI.
362
00:26:36.710 --> 00:26:38.813
So I know it's taking away jobs.
363
00:26:39.353 --> 00:26:48.044
That being said, if you're now a student, an animation student, and you're on an art academy or whatever, and you're like, AI is the devil.
364
00:26:48.265 --> 00:26:48.825
Don't touch.
365
00:26:48.845 --> 00:26:50.027
And if you touch it, I burn you.
366
00:26:51.332 --> 00:27:01.577
Chances will be that you will never get a job because in two years now, when people are looking for artists, they will need an animator, whatever, rigor or whatever.
367
00:27:01.917 --> 00:27:08.701
And they will also ask you, can you also use some AI tools or whatever?
368
00:27:09.021 --> 00:27:11.282
Because it will be part of the industry.
369
00:27:11.502 --> 00:27:13.643
And I've seen it because I'm so old.
370
00:27:13.903 --> 00:27:14.704
I'm 54 years old.
371
00:27:14.744 --> 00:27:16.605
And I started with 35 millimeter film.
372
00:27:17.325 --> 00:27:21.467
I saw all those steps where everybody, like the first time- The move to digital.
373
00:27:22.188 --> 00:27:23.909
Yeah, but even, yeah, exactly.
374
00:27:23.929 --> 00:27:39.076
When I was still in the academy, art academy, I knew somebody far away and he had a Commodore Amiga computer and they had this one called Take Two, a two-bits program where you can film your drawings and you could sort of vaguely see how it was moving.
375
00:27:39.116 --> 00:27:40.837
So I used it to test my animation.
376
00:27:40.857 --> 00:27:43.158
My teachers in art academy said, no, don't use the computer.
377
00:27:43.198 --> 00:27:45.840
It will make your animation look dead, you know?
378
00:27:46.821 --> 00:27:49.423
And that was even before Windows 95.
379
00:27:50.184 --> 00:28:08.620
And then Windows 95 came into the world and suddenly I had 80 million colleagues because everybody was using Flash because they could use the tweening, which also the first tool which you could use, could call cheating, actually, because I was drawing it very well.
380
00:28:08.920 --> 00:28:12.624
So I've seen all the... And then the 3D animation, I was also one of the...
381
00:28:13.324 --> 00:28:19.788
People who didn't really like the look of most 3D animation in the beginning, apart from story and those kind of really good films.
382
00:28:20.428 --> 00:28:22.550
So I've seen all the stuff everybody's against.
383
00:28:23.010 --> 00:28:25.851
And I do think that AI is different in that way.
384
00:28:25.931 --> 00:28:31.515
It's way more threatening because it's so unpredictable what it will replace.
385
00:28:31.535 --> 00:28:33.176
I understand the fears.
386
00:28:33.656 --> 00:28:35.517
The question is, am I the right target?
387
00:28:35.677 --> 00:28:39.820
An artist, independent artist, who used like 2% of the whole process
388
00:28:40.480 --> 00:28:44.222
to give the 3D animation a certain look that I couldn't do with Blender.
389
00:28:44.242 --> 00:28:45.403
That's all we did, you know?
390
00:28:45.623 --> 00:28:48.484
Yeah, and attacking a short film also seems crazy.
391
00:28:48.524 --> 00:28:52.446
I mean, like, short films are not money-generating machines.
392
00:28:52.946 --> 00:28:57.769
You know, like, I mean... No, I'm €2,000 in debt, actually, after this film.
393
00:28:57.849 --> 00:28:59.690
And then, booby, for what?
394
00:28:59.850 --> 00:29:00.850
You know, it's crazy.
395
00:29:01.411 --> 00:29:09.435
And also, why aren't they just going to the offices of OpenAI and Google and Meta and people like...
396
00:29:10.708 --> 00:29:26.449
you know who I mean, the owner of X. Yeah, those people are, some of them are really dangerous, you know, and they should be fought, not an artist who is using his own artwork to train a model, to make a short...
397
00:29:27.290 --> 00:29:41.560
artistic film with a very important message also i mean my film is that's the whole tragedy about what happened till now because it's just the premiere was just two weeks ago so i don't know if this is being broadcast maybe something completely different
398
00:29:42.300 --> 00:29:47.783
But right now, there was not nobody, almost nobody talked about the content of the film.
399
00:29:48.463 --> 00:29:52.485
And that is very sad because when I started the film, is it okay if I talk about it?
400
00:29:52.605 --> 00:29:53.706
Of course, please.
401
00:29:53.746 --> 00:29:55.787
Yeah, because I mean, I think that you're right.
402
00:29:55.807 --> 00:30:01.350
Like, it's such a haunting film, especially with everything that's going on around the world right now.
403
00:30:01.370 --> 00:30:01.850
It's like a war effort.
404
00:30:02.130 --> 00:30:06.893
We're watching wars happen so often now on the news.
405
00:30:07.374 --> 00:30:09.295
We've become very desensitized.
406
00:30:09.335 --> 00:30:18.021
I remember watching, you know, the war that happened when I was at college and there was a news item where a car was driving down the street and then it exploded.
407
00:30:18.341 --> 00:30:23.325
Everybody I was watching it with because we were all college kids and we were all just standing around kind of watching the news.
408
00:30:24.369 --> 00:30:28.011
I went, oh my God, like they just showed somebody died.
409
00:30:28.031 --> 00:30:30.872
Like that wasn't just a car that blew up.
410
00:30:30.932 --> 00:30:34.314
There were people in the car and that was on the news.
411
00:30:34.554 --> 00:30:44.920
And that's what's so haunting about your film is it, it does the death comes into homes and it's very, it's quite hard to watch on that level.
412
00:30:45.340 --> 00:30:45.880
And you're right.
413
00:30:46.020 --> 00:30:48.962
That should be the commentary that is coming out of this.
414
00:30:49.482 --> 00:30:56.792
Not that, oh, AI was used to texturize some of the back end of this after it was made by a bunch of artists.
415
00:30:57.072 --> 00:30:59.555
You know, it's sad to see that.
416
00:30:59.916 --> 00:31:01.598
You know, how does that make you feel?
417
00:31:01.838 --> 00:31:07.846
It's so bizarre that I don't have, somehow I'm very relaxed about it because I think,
418
00:31:08.386 --> 00:31:13.469
that once this storm has gone down, people will watch the film the way it was meant to be.
419
00:31:14.069 --> 00:31:17.431
And as you say yourself, I had the same experience.
420
00:31:17.471 --> 00:31:20.393
I showed it to just a guy here from the street.
421
00:31:21.033 --> 00:31:23.474
And he started, well, crying.
422
00:31:23.494 --> 00:31:25.295
He got wet eyes when he saw my film.
423
00:31:25.656 --> 00:31:27.857
And I asked him, how come?
424
00:31:27.937 --> 00:31:36.902
And he said, well, the thing is, we see, as you just explained, we see so many of these horrible pictures that we almost get numb to it.
425
00:31:37.522 --> 00:31:41.223
It's like this endless stream of misery that we see.
426
00:31:41.263 --> 00:31:44.044
And we sort of shut off.
427
00:31:44.424 --> 00:31:46.124
Unconsciously, we're creating this harness.
428
00:31:46.184 --> 00:31:52.706
And when you make a film like this, you're showing a different window on the same, like a different view on the same thing.
429
00:31:52.766 --> 00:31:53.906
And it gets in.
430
00:31:54.466 --> 00:31:56.246
And also, the music is very strong, of course.
431
00:31:56.266 --> 00:31:57.047
It helps a lot, too.
432
00:31:57.687 --> 00:32:00.807
So that was how I wanted the film to be.
433
00:32:01.388 --> 00:32:05.429
And I started working on the film in, I think, 2015 or 2014.
434
00:32:07.569 --> 00:32:09.892
when Russia invaded Crimea.
435
00:32:10.713 --> 00:32:16.301
And I was shocked that in Europe, hardly anyone was really responding.
436
00:32:16.321 --> 00:32:23.030
The most political leaders said something like, well, thoughts and prayers, what they do in the United States when there's a school shooting.
437
00:32:23.370 --> 00:32:24.652
We're not going to do it.
438
00:32:24.692 --> 00:32:25.193
We're with you.
439
00:32:26.033 --> 00:32:28.435
And then he started following what was happening in Russia.
440
00:32:28.495 --> 00:32:36.361
And I could see that Russia was actually militarizing and Putin clearly wants to have his empire back.
441
00:32:37.462 --> 00:32:39.063
Maybe not completely the Soviet Union.
442
00:32:39.524 --> 00:32:42.466
And so I saw it as a resurrection of fascism.
443
00:32:42.986 --> 00:32:44.608
And that was the first title of my film.
444
00:32:44.648 --> 00:32:45.849
It was called Resurrection.
445
00:32:46.809 --> 00:32:48.110
Now it's called Dance Macabre.
446
00:32:49.051 --> 00:32:52.614
And then what happened is they started interfering with all kinds of elections.
447
00:32:52.854 --> 00:32:53.715
And suddenly...
448
00:32:54.635 --> 00:33:01.780
There was a leader in the United States who had the same kind of slogan, like make, make, make America great again.
449
00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:06.203
And this whole wave of populism that, that flood the world.
450
00:33:06.403 --> 00:33:14.129
But that, I mean, I started the film because before all this happened is I'm not saying I'm, I'm a prophet or anything, but I can see it coming.
451
00:33:14.189 --> 00:33:22.775
It was, it was there in the air, you know, and now the film is finished and it almost looks like a commentary on what's happening now with the horrible war in Ukraine and,
452
00:33:23.355 --> 00:33:28.759
and America attacking Iran and what's happening in Gaza.
453
00:33:29.499 --> 00:33:37.965
But the thing is, I've tried to make the film in a way that it doesn't depict a specific city or place on Earth.
454
00:33:38.005 --> 00:33:39.005
It could be anywhere.
455
00:33:39.706 --> 00:33:41.867
Well, so you started making it 11 years ago.
456
00:33:41.907 --> 00:33:45.750
It's an interesting commentary on how we haven't come very far.
457
00:33:46.210 --> 00:33:47.631
We're worse at this moment.
458
00:33:47.651 --> 00:33:48.251
We're worse because...
459
00:33:49.392 --> 00:33:54.595
at least, I mean, the people now that are in charge in a lot of countries have this.
460
00:33:54.675 --> 00:33:57.977
So, I don't believe that an apocalypse is coming.
461
00:33:58.057 --> 00:33:59.798
So, it's a very apocalyptic film.
462
00:33:59.878 --> 00:34:09.344
But what I'm afraid of is the people that are in power and that also some of them own those AI companies that have apocalyptic vision about the world.
463
00:34:09.404 --> 00:34:11.645
Like, we have to fight this holy war in the Middle East.
464
00:34:11.685 --> 00:34:14.507
Those kind of very dangerous ideas.
465
00:34:14.547 --> 00:34:16.228
So, that's why I use a lot of
466
00:34:17.008 --> 00:34:27.313
let's say, religious imagery in my film in the beginning to explain that, that it's almost like a religious thing to start these kinds of wars.
467
00:34:27.394 --> 00:34:32.356
I mean, I think the Ukrainians should fully defend themselves.
468
00:34:32.516 --> 00:34:45.263
I'm not a pacifist in that way, but people like Putin and others that are just invading countries, killing people for some very strange power game is something I think is scary.
469
00:34:45.603 --> 00:34:46.524
Where did you begin?
470
00:34:46.664 --> 00:34:49.105
You started creating these incredible oil paintings.
471
00:34:49.305 --> 00:34:50.746
What was the first painting?
472
00:34:50.806 --> 00:34:51.867
What was the first thought?
473
00:34:51.907 --> 00:34:58.911
Like, talk to me about the inspiration that got you to commit to an 11-year journey.
474
00:34:58.971 --> 00:35:00.031
I mean, it's incredible.
475
00:35:00.311 --> 00:35:06.015
Well, the inspiration is 100% comes from Dmitry Shostakovich, the composer of the music.
476
00:35:06.775 --> 00:35:15.101
So I heard his music when I was about 20 or something, 21, and I already saw these clear images in my mind when I heard the music.
477
00:35:15.141 --> 00:35:16.983
I'm a big fan of Shostakovich.
478
00:35:17.043 --> 00:35:18.324
My wife is a violin player.
479
00:35:18.364 --> 00:35:19.504
My son is a violin player.
480
00:35:19.605 --> 00:35:22.286
I'm drained in music, you know.
481
00:35:23.267 --> 00:35:23.547
Drenched?
482
00:35:23.627 --> 00:35:25.128
I don't know what you are.
483
00:35:25.828 --> 00:35:26.969
Not a native speaker.
484
00:35:27.549 --> 00:35:28.089
Drenched.
485
00:35:28.489 --> 00:35:29.430
Drenched, not Drenched.
486
00:35:29.570 --> 00:35:30.730
Drenched in music, yeah.
487
00:35:31.251 --> 00:35:41.075
And the interesting thing about Shostakovich is that his whole career took place under communism during the Stalin years for the largest part.
488
00:35:41.875 --> 00:35:50.799
And in the 30s, that was a period where millions of people in Russia got deported, tortured, killed by Stalin.
489
00:35:52.112 --> 00:36:06.399
it was called The Great Terror, Shostakovich would sleep in his bed fully clothed with his suitcase with all his belongings next to him because he was convinced that he like his friends would be during the night he would be arrested.
490
00:36:07.100 --> 00:36:09.281
So the interesting thing about Shostakovich is that
491
00:36:10.261 --> 00:36:14.123
He always had to sort of, there's a lot of dark layers in his music.
492
00:36:14.183 --> 00:36:18.826
It's clearly about dark shit going on in Soviet Union.
493
00:36:19.186 --> 00:36:31.794
But he also had to make sure that he didn't get arrested and that he could sort of, so there's always this, that he could sort of, let's say, that the communist party had plausible deniability.
494
00:36:31.854 --> 00:36:34.095
You know, like there was, you know, it was a subtext.
495
00:36:34.866 --> 00:36:35.066
Yeah.
496
00:36:35.846 --> 00:36:40.729
And so there's always these layers in his music, these ambiguous layers.
497
00:36:40.829 --> 00:36:44.310
And I found it extremely inspiring for this film.
498
00:36:46.391 --> 00:36:55.435
And the other thing is, and I found out much later when their storyboard was already done, that this exact piece of music, this four and a half piece of music,
499
00:36:56.075 --> 00:37:04.206
was actually seen by many as a terrifying portrait of Joseph Stalin himself because he wrote it just after Stalin died.
500
00:37:04.366 --> 00:37:10.435
I didn't know that, but if I would have known that, it would even make me feel more convinced of what I was doing.
501
00:37:10.495 --> 00:37:12.357
This is about the kind of
502
00:37:13.335 --> 00:37:20.439
well, let's call them authoritarian terror regimes, terroristic regimes, state terror, I would say.
503
00:37:21.079 --> 00:37:22.160
That's the basis of the film.
504
00:37:22.180 --> 00:37:24.561
So the music is the basis of the film.
505
00:37:25.121 --> 00:37:28.563
I would sit here, listen to the music.
506
00:37:28.663 --> 00:37:31.805
Nobody on this planet listened to that piece of music more than I did.
507
00:37:32.345 --> 00:37:33.546
I'm 100% sure.
508
00:37:33.606 --> 00:37:36.367
I must have listened to it like 4,000 times or something.
509
00:37:36.567 --> 00:37:37.628
Because I would listen to it.
510
00:37:38.540 --> 00:37:43.023
come up, see what ideas it brought to me, just based on music.
511
00:37:43.523 --> 00:37:48.447
Also, I felt confident about that because I did compose orchestral music for two of my films.
512
00:37:48.627 --> 00:37:55.051
I'm not saying I'm a good composer or anything, but I have a good sense of music and what it might mean, you know.
513
00:37:55.211 --> 00:38:03.617
But I would make those drawings pretty detailed because I knew that the drawings might give me new ideas for other storyboards.
514
00:38:03.637 --> 00:38:07.480
And at the same time, I had to think about the structure of the whole film
515
00:38:08.340 --> 00:38:12.901
And that was a difficult thing because it's just a four and a half minute piece of music.
516
00:38:13.261 --> 00:38:21.484
There's no three-act structure there, even though I just noticed that I did put in a three-act structure, but without really... Yeah, there is one actually.
517
00:38:21.544 --> 00:38:24.705
But yeah, I didn't realize, but I forgot how it goes.
518
00:38:25.305 --> 00:38:31.246
But the problem was that big climax in the music is after two minutes and I already had this bomb explosion.
519
00:38:32.067 --> 00:38:34.447
And then where to go from there?
520
00:38:34.767 --> 00:38:37.188
I already blew up the whole world, you know, in my storyboard.
521
00:38:38.115 --> 00:38:41.217
I was stuck for months and months, a complete blackout.
522
00:38:41.717 --> 00:38:50.441
I mean, I had ideas, but they didn't really help my story until my producers, then producers from Illustrator, they said, Hizko, what are you doing?
523
00:38:50.461 --> 00:38:53.123
We have to deliver the story which is in two weeks at the Film Fund.
524
00:38:53.643 --> 00:38:56.865
And suddenly, no, something happened in June, it streamed out of me.
525
00:38:57.585 --> 00:38:59.266
It's so crazy how deadlines come out.
526
00:38:59.286 --> 00:39:02.867
Last minute panic is a really good inspiration, isn't it?
527
00:39:03.147 --> 00:39:03.807
Exactly.
528
00:39:03.907 --> 00:39:10.269
Also, I saw Paul McCartney saying this in this Peter Jackson film, Get Back.
529
00:39:10.309 --> 00:39:11.609
Did you see it on Disney Plus?
530
00:39:11.629 --> 00:39:11.849
Yeah.
531
00:39:12.269 --> 00:39:19.932
Where he says, well, in his last performance there on the roof, and he says, well, we always perform the best when we're with our backs against the wall.
532
00:39:19.952 --> 00:39:23.693
And that was how I experienced it.
533
00:39:24.805 --> 00:39:26.526
So it all comes from the music.
534
00:39:26.646 --> 00:39:42.875
And also, there's a lot of ideas and layers in the film that come from philosophers that I read while I was storyboarding it that are about, for instance, like this huge chimpanzee monkey destroying a whole town, which leads to a bomb explosion.
535
00:39:43.215 --> 00:39:48.017
It's sort of my comment on the fact that we're primates with very destructive technology.
536
00:39:48.057 --> 00:39:49.898
We're still kind of primates.
537
00:39:50.219 --> 00:39:53.160
And it has just been proved by all the trolls in the last week.
538
00:39:53.220 --> 00:39:54.481
I mean, Jesus Christ.
539
00:39:56.281 --> 00:40:14.846
you've done all these tremendous paintings you then sell it through to i think the netherlands film commission was first right um and then you got buy-in from from other countries and film commissions um that that provided you the funded to go ahead with the animation yes the comfy ui and the ai part of it
540
00:40:15.726 --> 00:40:18.908
Is that something that came after you started production?
541
00:40:19.048 --> 00:40:28.734
Or was it the introduction of the AI that allowed it to be done for a price that meant that the money that you were being given was actually going to make it work?
542
00:40:28.874 --> 00:40:30.635
It was an entirely creative decision.
543
00:40:30.835 --> 00:40:31.696
So that's the...
544
00:40:32.176 --> 00:40:37.499
unfair thing that people on internet say that I did it to save money or to save work.
545
00:40:37.519 --> 00:40:38.959
That's absolutely not true.
546
00:40:39.680 --> 00:40:43.402
The only thing was that I saw something that has never...
547
00:40:43.762 --> 00:40:47.023
I saw that we could do something that has never been done before in history.
548
00:40:47.764 --> 00:40:48.904
And that's...
549
00:40:49.104 --> 00:40:51.726
So my whole career in animation is this...
550
00:40:52.486 --> 00:40:59.652
journey into make sure that the animation is integrated in the painting.
551
00:40:59.672 --> 00:41:08.338
And the way you can do it, you could, in theory, like the Loving Vincent film, you could have 200 painters that paint it frame by frame.
552
00:41:08.799 --> 00:41:12.181
That's possible with Van Gogh, Van Gogh, as we say.
553
00:41:12.241 --> 00:41:13.342
Yeah, of course.
554
00:41:13.362 --> 00:41:13.923
Van Gogh.
555
00:41:14.363 --> 00:41:15.665
I go style.
556
00:41:16.006 --> 00:41:18.409
You can do it because it's quite, it's a simplified style.
557
00:41:18.790 --> 00:41:22.115
With this kind of 17th century, it's just not possible.
558
00:41:22.155 --> 00:41:22.475
Yeah.
559
00:41:22.675 --> 00:41:26.221
Not even if you would hire a whole country, it's just not possible.
560
00:41:26.281 --> 00:41:28.504
So this was my way to make,
561
00:41:29.305 --> 00:41:35.286
make sure that the whole film look like the paintings that are the basis of the film, which are all in the film.
562
00:41:35.306 --> 00:41:41.987
That's something that also people forget is that only the moving objects have gone through this style transfer, as we call it.
563
00:41:42.307 --> 00:41:43.768
So it was never to save money.
564
00:41:43.908 --> 00:41:49.669
And we started developing this technique before we started to get into production.
565
00:41:50.269 --> 00:41:52.909
And the other studios were very skeptical about it.
566
00:41:53.809 --> 00:41:57.290
And when people tell me I can't do something...
567
00:41:57.970 --> 00:42:02.172
And I get extra, you know, motivated to prove them wrong.
568
00:42:02.233 --> 00:42:03.833
And then we did prove them wrong.
569
00:42:03.913 --> 00:42:05.254
And that's what we did.
570
00:42:05.554 --> 00:42:16.641
But I didn't, the thing is, I just worked with one guy on this style transfer, one artist who is an animator himself and a painter.
571
00:42:16.661 --> 00:42:24.245
He should get all the credit, but he wants to stay out of the spotlight for a little while.
572
00:42:29.517 --> 00:42:31.519
Yeah, I can imagine.
573
00:42:31.539 --> 00:42:33.902
Yeah, you're getting arrows to the chest.
574
00:42:34.042 --> 00:42:36.764
I'm sure he's very keen to stay in the background.
575
00:42:37.425 --> 00:42:39.007
But he did a tremendous job.
576
00:42:39.027 --> 00:42:39.927
I mean, I think that's the thing.
577
00:42:39.947 --> 00:42:42.330
So how was the handover between...
578
00:42:42.710 --> 00:42:52.337
The traditional animators, because I've seen in your making of video, there's beautiful imagery of a skeleton going over somebody's balcony and into their house.
579
00:42:52.417 --> 00:42:57.161
And that seems to be rigging and traditional animation.
580
00:42:57.561 --> 00:42:58.582
And then they're doing that.
581
00:42:59.788 --> 00:43:00.329
Oh, it's not.
582
00:43:00.549 --> 00:43:03.171
It's all traditional animation.
583
00:43:03.211 --> 00:43:03.852
Yes, exactly.
584
00:43:04.132 --> 00:43:05.413
So where is the handover?
585
00:43:05.453 --> 00:43:13.180
Where does the handover happen between the traditional animation and then the AI stylistic skinning, let's say?
586
00:43:13.200 --> 00:43:21.428
What happens is they had either my layout, my 2D layout or my painting, because I was still painting while we were in production.
587
00:43:22.909 --> 00:43:35.278
And then the first step would be that somebody from Aux de Menuis, a French studio, or Gauss-Chan, a studio in Africa, actually, in La Réunion, they would make a 3D layout that I had to approve.
588
00:43:35.298 --> 00:43:36.199
We used Kitsu.
589
00:43:36.239 --> 00:43:37.700
I don't know if you know Kitsu.
590
00:43:37.760 --> 00:43:43.965
It's kind of an online platform like what used to be Shotgun or ShotGrid or something like that for free.
591
00:43:44.645 --> 00:43:57.711
So everybody just puts on their animation there and I approve or I give notes, you know, and I'm very precise because a 3D layout has to fit with my painting, prospectively, et cetera, and exact positioning of character.
592
00:43:58.211 --> 00:44:09.636
Then an animator would animate the 3D skeleton or whatever object there was or a tank until I was happy with it.
593
00:44:10.097 --> 00:44:12.778
And they were all, I mean, everybody did...
594
00:44:13.678 --> 00:44:34.716
such fantastic work because I think at some point people felt that this was going to be something special and then people are getting really motivated you know and that 3D animation would be lit also so that's another piece of misinformation that I see now on Instagram sites where people say I use the AI to light anything we didn't light anything with AI complete bullshit
595
00:44:35.196 --> 00:44:53.442
we were the animation it was really just the texturing it was it was trying to bring it was trying to transfer the the hard hand work that you did onto the the film in a way yeah it's just that uh yeah that's it it's very simple so everything is um
596
00:44:54.625 --> 00:45:09.093
done actually and then we have this style transfer so the the French studio they suggested to use shaders in Blender I I just didn't like them that's the problem so that's why we did this
597
00:45:09.733 --> 00:45:10.654
It's very simple.
598
00:45:11.214 --> 00:45:18.998
Actually, it's so simple that the whole controversy right now feels so ridiculous.
599
00:45:19.338 --> 00:45:24.220
Of course, I have been sad after all the booing and all the attacks on Instagram, etc.
600
00:45:24.781 --> 00:45:29.003
But I am pretty relaxed about it because I didn't do anything wrong.
601
00:45:29.243 --> 00:45:31.184
And I'm actually very proud of what we did.
602
00:45:31.224 --> 00:45:34.366
And I think my partner should get a medal for what he did.
603
00:45:34.386 --> 00:45:35.106
It's so...
604
00:45:36.375 --> 00:45:40.259
so incredible how he made this possible, you know?
605
00:45:40.520 --> 00:45:40.800
Yeah.
606
00:45:41.340 --> 00:45:47.527
I saw that the, the head of the Annecy film festival spoke out and said, I think the way the protests are happening is wrong.
607
00:45:47.787 --> 00:45:48.048
Sorry.
608
00:45:48.228 --> 00:45:49.830
You said it was a rich hunt actually.
609
00:45:50.410 --> 00:45:51.071
Yes, exactly.
610
00:45:51.111 --> 00:45:53.333
I mean, he was, he was very supportive and yes.
611
00:45:53.974 --> 00:45:54.234
Yes.
612
00:45:55.235 --> 00:45:56.696
No, well, not only he.
613
00:45:56.736 --> 00:46:04.401
So that's the other sad thing for the protesters is that I went to an academy party at Hennessy where there were a lot of academy members.
614
00:46:04.802 --> 00:46:09.044
A lot of them know my work, and they said they couldn't believe what they had witnessed.
615
00:46:09.064 --> 00:46:11.306
They said, it's such a beautiful film.
616
00:46:11.386 --> 00:46:12.907
It's so disgusting what happened.
617
00:46:13.707 --> 00:46:19.631
And so I get a lot of support from people that matter to me at least or that I respect, you know.
618
00:46:20.132 --> 00:46:21.773
And the directing festival...
619
00:46:22.413 --> 00:46:24.836
He came up to me three times actually.
620
00:46:25.077 --> 00:46:25.798
He comforted me
621
00:46:28.208 --> 00:46:29.929
Just after the screening.
622
00:46:30.690 --> 00:46:33.272
And yeah, and he, sorry.
623
00:46:34.453 --> 00:46:36.855
No, please.
624
00:46:37.516 --> 00:46:40.598
He comforted me and he said he would release a press statement.
625
00:46:41.299 --> 00:46:41.959
And he did so.
626
00:46:42.119 --> 00:46:44.441
And he said, well, he's also a respected artist.
627
00:46:44.581 --> 00:46:51.727
And it's wrong to attack him for like exploring new ways or for experimenting.
628
00:46:52.367 --> 00:46:52.568
Yeah.
629
00:46:52.608 --> 00:46:54.169
And I was very happy with the statement.
630
00:46:54.189 --> 00:46:54.809
The only thing is.
631
00:46:55.710 --> 00:47:02.039
Every time something like this happens, there's a new eruption of hate.
632
00:47:02.079 --> 00:47:08.908
So now I want to, I mean, this will be streamed much later, many weeks from now.
633
00:47:09.449 --> 00:47:12.513
But right now, I don't want to respond to anything anymore.
634
00:47:12.573 --> 00:47:13.174
It's just...
635
00:47:13.594 --> 00:47:23.179
I was at a closed door meeting at a studio and I won't mention which one, but they said, everybody says they hate AI, but everybody comes back from the bathroom with really good ideas.
636
00:47:25.120 --> 00:47:30.443
And I think that there's this level of...
637
00:47:31.043 --> 00:47:34.025
There's hypocrisy and ignorance surrounding the whole thing.
638
00:47:34.105 --> 00:47:44.910
And to be honest, I actually see a lot of people who I wish were leaders in AI, like people who have worked at great advertising agencies or been artists or whatever else.
639
00:47:45.330 --> 00:47:49.653
You as an oil painter and who's traditionally trained...
640
00:47:50.673 --> 00:47:58.919
you know, saying, I'm going to pick it up and see what's happening with this and see how it can help me transfer my art into a different medium, which is that's what it is.
641
00:47:59.260 --> 00:48:04.784
You started in one medium, the canvas, and you're moving into expressing yourself in a different medium.
642
00:48:05.264 --> 00:48:10.268
And you want that to be as seamless and as reflective of your artistic choice as possible.
643
00:48:10.848 --> 00:48:11.910
That's a good thing.
644
00:48:12.130 --> 00:48:20.220
And people like you coming forward and using it and saying that you're not embarrassed about it, and I think is what's required.
645
00:48:20.540 --> 00:48:26.027
Because I see so many people who are traditional artists going, this is disgusting and I'm not going to use it.
646
00:48:26.067 --> 00:48:27.709
And I don't think anybody should use it.
647
00:48:27.729 --> 00:48:28.089
I'm like...
648
00:48:28.850 --> 00:48:39.475
Yeah, the problem with that is I'm seeing people who are doing very bad work, who have never done anything else before, getting applauded at AI festivals and things like that.
649
00:48:39.855 --> 00:48:43.317
Because the AI crowd is like, oh, my God, you did something.
650
00:48:43.397 --> 00:48:44.918
And it's like, well, it's not good.
651
00:48:45.778 --> 00:48:49.040
No, but they're very often the only ones doing it.
652
00:48:49.060 --> 00:48:50.801
They're the only ones learning at the moment.
653
00:48:50.821 --> 00:48:53.202
And so I think it's fantastic that you're out front.
654
00:48:53.522 --> 00:48:54.343
Oh, thanks so much.
655
00:48:54.383 --> 00:48:55.163
Yeah.
656
00:48:55.443 --> 00:49:07.131
But I think that's where the confusion comes from, is that the first thing that happened to me is, I think, one and a half year ago or something, I was at a festival, and I showed some of my paintings on my phone.
657
00:49:07.871 --> 00:49:09.752
And some people said, oh, is it AI?
658
00:49:10.093 --> 00:49:10.933
What?
659
00:49:11.193 --> 00:49:12.394
Well, why would it be AI?
660
00:49:12.414 --> 00:49:18.618
I mean, you can see now it's not AI, but I mean, when you show it on your phone, that confusion started then already.
661
00:49:19.379 --> 00:49:22.761
So, for instance, people on Instagram or Reddit,
662
00:49:24.462 --> 00:49:28.788
who say like, oh, look at the headlights of that painting.
663
00:49:29.088 --> 00:49:30.990
They don't make sense, it must be AI.
664
00:49:31.090 --> 00:49:34.354
And my reply is, I'm just very bad at painting cars.
665
00:49:36.806 --> 00:49:37.727
I can show it to you.
666
00:49:38.047 --> 00:49:42.710
And then, yeah, the eyes of the, you know, the muses, as I call them, angels.
667
00:49:43.050 --> 00:49:54.196
In my film, there's this army of, let's say, the death from maybe previous wars or whatever it is, or maybe old ideas like make Russia great again.
668
00:49:54.677 --> 00:49:56.838
And they're being led by these people.
669
00:49:57.438 --> 00:50:00.339
sort of utopian muses or angel-like figures.
670
00:50:00.799 --> 00:50:09.461
So when we first had got in the animation from Hungary, from the Hungarian studio, the muses looked too cute.
671
00:50:10.421 --> 00:50:16.863
And my worry was that people would think that those muses are leading this army to some right cause.
672
00:50:16.983 --> 00:50:21.024
I want to make sure that people understand that these muses are kind of...
673
00:50:21.924 --> 00:50:23.165
Our worst instincts.
674
00:50:23.745 --> 00:50:32.369
Yes, they're like the propaganda, the propagandists that lead the army to full destruction and to attack humanity as a whole.
675
00:50:32.389 --> 00:50:33.409
That's what my film is about.
676
00:50:33.830 --> 00:50:35.390
So I had to make them more creepy.
677
00:50:35.430 --> 00:50:37.591
So I did that frame by frame in TV page.
678
00:50:37.651 --> 00:50:41.773
I painted it and sometimes copy pasting something or whatever, all the tools I could use.
679
00:50:43.574 --> 00:50:47.196
A lot of people pointed that out to say, dang, you can see it's AI.
680
00:50:47.497 --> 00:50:48.537
It's not.
681
00:50:49.098 --> 00:50:49.818
I made it.
682
00:50:50.118 --> 00:50:56.843
So people are very confused, and especially because my film looks so detailed or something.
683
00:50:57.183 --> 00:51:00.045
That was what my mother told me to comfort me.
684
00:51:00.065 --> 00:51:04.188
She said, it looks so good that people can't believe it's done by Unibus.
685
00:51:04.925 --> 00:51:05.725
But she's right.
686
00:51:06.145 --> 00:51:09.366
I'm not your mother, and I'm not a family member.
687
00:51:10.007 --> 00:51:10.907
And it's true.
688
00:51:11.087 --> 00:51:13.388
It looks so, so good.
689
00:51:13.608 --> 00:51:24.571
When you look at an animation come together, and you see storyboards, and then storyboards go to rigging, and rigging goes to texturing, and texturing goes to lighting, and you're always having to fill a gap in your mind.
690
00:51:24.591 --> 00:51:26.192
And I was shocked at how...
691
00:51:26.912 --> 00:51:29.033
impressive each stage looked.
692
00:51:29.433 --> 00:51:33.153
People were doing that with Rembrandt on his gold and his water.
693
00:51:33.234 --> 00:51:38.815
People used to get up close to the painting and go, how does he make the metal look so good?
694
00:51:38.915 --> 00:51:40.215
Is he using gold leaf?
695
00:51:40.315 --> 00:51:41.715
Is he not using gold leaf?
696
00:51:42.036 --> 00:51:42.996
And of course he wasn't.
697
00:51:43.016 --> 00:51:44.676
He was just using lighting techniques.
698
00:51:44.736 --> 00:51:48.177
And that's always been, it used to be the joy of art.
699
00:51:48.677 --> 00:51:49.897
Now it seems that it's
700
00:51:56.899 --> 00:52:04.925
Yeah, and the strange thing, I mean, with Rembrandt, in a way, it was different because it was really all suggestion created with paint.
701
00:52:05.746 --> 00:52:08.748
And there was no real gold leaves in it or anything.
702
00:52:09.029 --> 00:52:12.511
Well, then, but with the invention of film...
703
00:52:13.372 --> 00:52:18.355
There was always some new development that people would reject, even sound.
704
00:52:18.736 --> 00:52:22.078
When sound entered the cinema, people rejected it.
705
00:52:22.898 --> 00:52:28.502
And, well, you know the story about the Luddites and the people who started building the weaving machines.
706
00:52:30.663 --> 00:52:31.463
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
707
00:52:32.384 --> 00:52:34.425
Apart from film, sorry, I'm a bit messy.
708
00:52:34.465 --> 00:52:35.645
No, of course.
709
00:52:36.185 --> 00:52:37.026
Yeah.
710
00:52:37.166 --> 00:52:39.187
Photography is a good example, you know?
711
00:52:39.227 --> 00:52:40.007
Yeah.
712
00:52:40.527 --> 00:52:49.791
And photography is a good example because people expected the art to die, the painting art, and it exploded after that in a different way.
713
00:52:49.811 --> 00:52:51.812
Yeah, Impressionism began.
714
00:52:51.952 --> 00:52:52.832
Yeah, exactly.
715
00:52:52.892 --> 00:52:55.393
Everybody went, I'm not going to do a bowl of fruit.
716
00:52:55.773 --> 00:52:57.134
There doesn't seem much point.
717
00:52:57.694 --> 00:52:58.175
Exactly.
718
00:52:58.215 --> 00:53:04.339
Yeah, and that was an unpredictable thing that happened.
719
00:53:04.559 --> 00:53:07.681
And when you look back, it looks predictable, but it was not predictable.
720
00:53:07.701 --> 00:53:10.322
And we can't predict what AI is going to do.
721
00:53:10.763 --> 00:53:14.045
But one thing that's not being taught, I mean, I have to say one more thing.
722
00:53:14.665 --> 00:53:15.406
Sorry, this is my mind.
723
00:53:15.426 --> 00:53:16.346
I'm going all over this.
724
00:53:16.366 --> 00:53:17.167
No, go for it, please.
725
00:53:17.187 --> 00:53:17.527
Okay.
726
00:53:17.547 --> 00:53:17.767
Okay.
727
00:53:17.947 --> 00:53:18.728
Well, yeah.
728
00:53:18.928 --> 00:53:24.191
First of all, I don't like working with AI or with stable diffusion or comfy UI.
729
00:53:24.211 --> 00:53:24.771
That's the thing.
730
00:53:24.851 --> 00:53:26.332
I really love painting.
731
00:53:26.512 --> 00:53:27.713
I enjoy it so much.
732
00:53:28.894 --> 00:53:33.536
I use comfy UI and stable diffusion to get to a certain goal.
733
00:53:33.556 --> 00:53:39.520
And that's sort of almost the tragedy of making animated films is that there's a lot of hard work in it.
734
00:53:40.960 --> 00:53:44.764
I mean, when I made my first film, I think I made 15,000 drawings.
735
00:53:44.824 --> 00:53:50.470
That's not always fun to make a drawing and then make a drawing that's almost the same as the last one.
736
00:53:50.490 --> 00:53:52.753
I mean, it's really repetitive.
737
00:53:52.793 --> 00:53:56.878
There's a lot of torture involved that attracts certain kinds of people.
738
00:53:56.938 --> 00:53:59.881
And this new tool is helping me
739
00:54:00.782 --> 00:54:04.507
getting something done which was not possible before.
740
00:54:05.107 --> 00:54:08.091
I just really don't enjoy working with it.
741
00:54:08.552 --> 00:54:12.717
But maybe the tools, this was a very early form of AI that we used.
742
00:54:12.757 --> 00:54:15.720
We were pioneering and maybe some tools will get better.
743
00:54:15.740 --> 00:54:17.002
So that's the first thing I want to say.
744
00:54:17.463 --> 00:54:18.864
The second thing I want to say is that,
745
00:54:19.685 --> 00:54:33.055
It might be true that, for instance, I gave storyboard lessons in Nigerian a year ago, which was really great because it turned out into a huge four-day masterclass where I would give them as much as possible.
746
00:54:33.075 --> 00:54:35.657
It was really nice because they were so eager to learn.
747
00:54:36.518 --> 00:54:41.842
But I found out that most of them didn't even have a laptop or an iPad or anything.
748
00:54:41.882 --> 00:54:42.903
They mostly wanted a phone.
749
00:54:43.363 --> 00:54:44.845
And I was thinking about it.
750
00:54:45.465 --> 00:54:47.427
It will enable people like that
751
00:54:48.107 --> 00:54:59.897
Well, they have to have a laptop, of course, but it will enable people that don't have the financial means, but that have really good ideas and artistic view to make stuff.
752
00:54:59.958 --> 00:55:01.959
And not enough people talk about that, I think.
753
00:55:02.900 --> 00:55:07.384
It's not just serving the big studios and the tech bros.
754
00:55:07.884 --> 00:55:11.047
There's also a thing like the invention of the film,
755
00:55:11.948 --> 00:55:16.311
video cameras where people suddenly could make their own films and didn't need very exclusive...
756
00:55:16.592 --> 00:55:18.973
It's somewhere in that realm, too, you know?
757
00:55:18.993 --> 00:55:20.955
And I hear a lot of people talk about that.
758
00:55:21.275 --> 00:55:34.345
I'm so impressed by it with you, and I'm sorry you've had to go through this thing at the festival and this protest, and I can see you choked up earlier, and I can see it means a lot to you, and it should.
759
00:55:34.405 --> 00:55:39.929
You've birthed this thing over 11 years, and then that's the feedback.
760
00:55:39.969 --> 00:55:40.670
But I think it...
761
00:55:41.450 --> 00:55:48.857
This conversation in art is one that requires people like you who have trained.
762
00:55:49.397 --> 00:55:57.665
You are undeniably a wonderful, I mean, artist, composer, animate, you know, I mean, you have multiple different skill sets.
763
00:55:58.145 --> 00:56:03.647
the basis of which your oil painting is stuff that most people don't know how to do.
764
00:56:04.107 --> 00:56:10.309
And I just think it would be simple to think that the work you did was the work to get the film made.
765
00:56:10.649 --> 00:56:14.790
I think the work you're doing now is almost more important, is being there...
766
00:56:15.830 --> 00:56:18.152
taking it, describing what you're doing.
767
00:56:18.272 --> 00:56:22.996
I would hate to see you, for example, on your next film, not talk about how you did it.
768
00:56:23.197 --> 00:56:28.021
I think that that would be a tragedy to the conversation that needs to be happening.
769
00:56:28.061 --> 00:56:30.022
And I think that that's what so many people are doing.
770
00:56:30.182 --> 00:56:33.385
All the producers I talk to, they say the same thing.
771
00:56:33.786 --> 00:56:36.148
If I don't do it, the competition will do it.
772
00:56:36.688 --> 00:56:38.409
It's almost like within this...
773
00:56:39.110 --> 00:56:44.253
let's say, economical system we're in, they almost don't have a choice, so to speak.
774
00:56:44.573 --> 00:56:46.134
Artists still have that choice.
775
00:56:46.154 --> 00:56:49.116
They can still make their film every way they want.
776
00:56:50.056 --> 00:56:55.279
And I might go back to all the techniques if I think the project requires it from me.
777
00:56:55.940 --> 00:56:57.460
But it is true.
778
00:56:57.540 --> 00:57:00.122
I don't want to bow for the bullies, so to speak.
779
00:57:00.282 --> 00:57:03.344
I don't know if it's an English expression, but that's what I'm not planning to do.
780
00:57:03.864 --> 00:57:05.025
But when I'm working...
781
00:57:05.745 --> 00:57:33.945
for somebody else and the message of that film is very important i don't want it to be overshadowed by an ai compensation or controversy standing up for it uh for the use of of this in the way that you're doing it uh i think is incredibly important as well so you know my my hats off to you for both what is the biggest question or or attack that you get most often
782
00:57:34.305 --> 00:57:37.586
The tag that I get the most is, fuck you, HiscoHolz.
783
00:57:37.646 --> 00:57:37.906
No, no.
784
00:57:37.926 --> 00:57:39.767
Well, this is one of them.
785
00:57:39.847 --> 00:57:40.587
Fuck HiscoHolz.
786
00:57:40.747 --> 00:57:41.447
Fuck AI.
787
00:57:41.807 --> 00:57:44.428
This is AI Slop is what the most...
788
00:57:44.648 --> 00:57:49.449
So there's a Reddit post called AI Clown Got Boots in Unsee.
789
00:57:50.130 --> 00:57:56.191
So those things, they're so fucking ridiculous that I stopped reading them.
790
00:57:56.271 --> 00:57:57.932
And who do you think...
791
00:57:58.752 --> 00:57:59.713
is posting that.
792
00:57:59.753 --> 00:58:04.896
Do you think that that is somebody who is a filmmaker who is disgusted?
793
00:58:05.256 --> 00:58:10.700
Or do you think it's just somebody who likes getting karma points on Reddit?
794
00:58:10.880 --> 00:58:12.141
Well, there are different people.
795
00:58:12.181 --> 00:58:19.886
So first of all, I know, I cannot prove this, but I'm 99% sure that this was an organized protest.
796
00:58:20.607 --> 00:58:22.908
It's like the anti-sexers, you know?
797
00:58:23.188 --> 00:58:24.910
There's these people that are so...
798
00:58:26.150 --> 00:58:32.772
convinced that AI is going to destroy the world and I'm just a tool, the fascist tech bros.
799
00:58:33.272 --> 00:58:37.092
So these aren't film AI people.
800
00:58:37.112 --> 00:58:40.653
These are just general, you know, AI is bad.
801
00:58:40.673 --> 00:58:46.774
We want it gone from everything and any time where it's... That's one part of the attackers.
802
00:58:47.055 --> 00:58:48.175
The other part...
803
00:58:48.355 --> 00:58:53.856
So they don't, I mean, even if they watch the making of video, they wouldn't really understand the difference between...
804
00:58:54.536 --> 00:58:56.259
Lazy use of AI in what you're doing.
805
00:58:56.519 --> 00:58:58.061
Yes.
806
00:58:58.281 --> 00:58:59.283
But I don't know.
807
00:58:59.343 --> 00:59:02.267
Some of them are also just trolls or anti-AI people.
808
00:59:02.287 --> 00:59:03.268
And then there's the people.
809
00:59:04.450 --> 00:59:11.319
And the people that booed me at the NSC Festival, I think most of them are students.
810
00:59:12.260 --> 00:59:18.165
and the students are afraid of their jobs for a good reason, of their future.
811
00:59:18.185 --> 00:59:26.532
I do understand all the fear and the frustration and the anger, but they shouldn't have used me as a target.
812
00:59:26.752 --> 00:59:28.434
But I do empathize with them.
813
00:59:29.935 --> 00:59:33.898
I told you before, I lost my commercial storyboard work.
814
00:59:34.018 --> 00:59:38.282
I know it's a real issue and it should be dealt with.
815
00:59:38.442 --> 00:59:39.123
And so...
816
00:59:39.763 --> 00:59:44.226
There should be policy protecting people, protecting copyrights.
817
00:59:45.146 --> 00:59:49.969
I'm in for all that stuff, and I want to be part of the discussion if necessary.
818
00:59:49.989 --> 00:59:52.310
I mean, yeah.
819
00:59:52.410 --> 01:00:00.055
So there's the real anti-AI movement who think it's bad for the planet, bad for the environment, and I might have a point there, definitely.
820
01:00:00.075 --> 01:00:00.835
Yeah.
821
01:00:01.015 --> 01:00:06.580
Then there's people who are afraid that it will completely disrupt our society, which is also a valid point.
822
01:00:07.160 --> 01:00:11.003
And then there's the people who are afraid for their jobs, which is also, they all have valid points.
823
01:00:11.083 --> 01:00:13.265
It's just why take me as a target?
824
01:00:13.325 --> 01:00:15.767
That's the way it's there, you know?
825
01:00:15.787 --> 01:00:22.193
And why being so fundamental about it, so radical about it, not just try to look for nuances.
826
01:00:22.573 --> 01:00:23.133
How can it help?
827
01:00:24.794 --> 01:00:49.189
medicine or hospitals or treatments and just like every new technology technological development it can use for good things and for bad things i remember when the 3d printer came out the first reaction of most people was now you can print your own gun and shoot everybody well how many times did that happen it did happen though but not too many it's just people are so afraid of technology you know
828
01:00:49.549 --> 01:00:53.471
The backlash against you feels inappropriate on two levels.
829
01:00:53.711 --> 01:01:04.076
One is because anyone who understands film will watch your making of and know that you undeniably did this in a very defensible film, respectful way.
830
01:01:04.617 --> 01:01:06.277
But also you're an artist.
831
01:01:06.597 --> 01:01:08.498
What are they expecting to get out of you?
832
01:01:08.518 --> 01:01:11.440
I mean, do you feel that all of this is just misplaced?
833
01:01:11.720 --> 01:01:15.701
Well, I think the anger and frustration and the fears are not misplaced.
834
01:01:15.761 --> 01:01:27.844
People are really afraid of losing their jobs, and they are afraid that their work is being stolen by these AI companies to create these models.
835
01:01:28.405 --> 01:01:29.645
So that is justified.
836
01:01:29.925 --> 01:01:33.986
The thing is that it should be dealt with by legislators.
837
01:01:34.046 --> 01:01:37.067
There should be laws, international laws,
838
01:01:37.727 --> 01:01:39.108
about how to deal with that.
839
01:01:40.528 --> 01:01:46.511
One of the models could be that those AI companies pay back artists with funds, for instance.
840
01:01:48.352 --> 01:01:51.273
But I, as an artist, am not in charge of that.
841
01:01:51.714 --> 01:02:00.738
I can be part of the discussion, but I'm being attacked of using a program and I have no idea what data went in there exactly.
842
01:02:00.858 --> 01:02:04.660
I know it's all scraped from the internet like all AI companies do.
843
01:02:05.860 --> 01:02:09.542
And all the AI that people use has been built in that way.
844
01:02:09.562 --> 01:02:12.543
It's all based on data scraped from the internet.
845
01:02:13.023 --> 01:02:17.225
So I think the people who are attacking me are attacking me for the wrong reasons.
846
01:02:17.585 --> 01:02:18.305
I'm an artist.
847
01:02:18.345 --> 01:02:19.465
I want to make my work.
848
01:02:19.946 --> 01:02:22.407
I train the model based on my own paintings.
849
01:02:22.827 --> 01:02:29.329
And the legal side of it should be dealt with by politicians, lawmakers, etc.
850
01:02:29.369 --> 01:02:31.150
But I'm not the one who is in charge of that.
851
01:02:31.450 --> 01:02:38.979
It feels like there are these groups who are attacking people like you, and they should be going after OpenAI or the government.
852
01:02:39.079 --> 01:02:39.540
Exactly.
853
01:02:39.560 --> 01:02:44.125
And I use it purely for aesthetical reasons.
854
01:02:44.245 --> 01:02:47.950
I saw the possibility to do something that was never possible before.
855
01:02:48.090 --> 01:02:49.832
That's my only reason that I did it.
856
01:02:50.793 --> 01:02:53.254
And it was just a very small part of production.
857
01:02:53.355 --> 01:03:00.318
It was only a style transfer of the animation that was done by animators in four countries.
858
01:03:00.879 --> 01:03:05.561
And I do think that the protesters picked the low-hanging fruit.
859
01:03:05.941 --> 01:03:15.146
I mean, they could have gone to the offices of OpenAI, Google, Meta, X, to protest there, do something.
860
01:03:15.847 --> 01:03:17.488
They could have a discussion with me too.
861
01:03:18.288 --> 01:03:18.828
that's not a thing.
862
01:03:19.208 --> 01:03:24.829
They could have walked over to me and have a discussion and tried to convince me that whatever I did was wrong.
863
01:03:25.149 --> 01:03:28.870
But instead of that, they're just booing me and just attacking me.
864
01:03:29.010 --> 01:03:34.631
And another one horrible thing is refuel bombing me on Letterboxd.
865
01:03:34.952 --> 01:03:37.932
Like hundreds of people giving me a half a star.
866
01:03:38.392 --> 01:03:40.513
I mean, that's so fucking sick, you know?
867
01:03:40.593 --> 01:03:41.273
I mean, why not?
868
01:03:41.613 --> 01:03:43.733
If you want to have a discussion with me, do it.
869
01:03:43.993 --> 01:03:45.674
Or if you're against AI...
870
01:03:46.634 --> 01:03:56.526
go talk to the people who are developing it and implementing it or talk to politicians to tell them that it's a huge problem.
871
01:03:56.826 --> 01:03:59.789
But I'm not in charge of those things.
872
01:03:59.970 --> 01:04:02.833
I'm just an artist finding new ways to...
873
01:04:03.814 --> 01:04:07.256
to make my art as I've always been done since the last 30 years.
874
01:04:07.916 --> 01:04:19.842
I started with a 35 millimeter film and every time there was a new technological, how to say it, development, I would look into it and see how it could help me realize my vision.
875
01:04:19.902 --> 01:04:20.602
That's what I do.
876
01:04:20.662 --> 01:04:21.223
I'm an artist.
877
01:04:21.703 --> 01:04:23.484
Do you think it's hurting the reach of your film?
878
01:04:23.644 --> 01:04:24.804
That's one of my worries.
879
01:04:24.844 --> 01:04:29.387
Yeah, I can, because they never, when they reject the film, they never tell you why they rejected it.
880
01:04:29.427 --> 01:04:29.647
Mm-hmm.
881
01:04:30.327 --> 01:04:31.808
And it's the same with the jury.
882
01:04:32.429 --> 01:04:36.032
Like the jury, honestly, I'm sure they did their work professionally.
883
01:04:36.192 --> 01:04:36.992
I'm 100% sure.
884
01:04:37.593 --> 01:04:47.341
But there's always this, there might be this subconscious fear, like what if we give it the award and all the haters will target us, you know?
885
01:04:47.361 --> 01:04:50.944
So I think there could be, I had some other...
886
01:04:51.644 --> 01:05:07.464
feedback there was this man from the Sofia Film Festival and he came up to me he said I love your film and it was so horrible that you got booed I want your film to be the opening film of my festival oh great so there's so many different kind of people there's courageous people yeah
887
01:05:08.305 --> 01:05:13.950
and who do some research into my film and into my career.
888
01:05:13.970 --> 01:05:25.001
And there's, of course, there's also people that might be nervous, and maybe for good reasons, maybe because they fear that they will have problems getting their subsidy.
889
01:05:25.321 --> 01:05:25.742
I don't know.
890
01:05:25.782 --> 01:05:28.104
It's too early to say, but it is definitely a worry.
891
01:05:28.124 --> 01:05:28.224
Yeah.
892
01:05:29.147 --> 01:05:33.971
However, I have been transparent from the beginning.
893
01:05:34.771 --> 01:05:36.412
I'm very proud of the film.
894
01:05:37.973 --> 01:05:39.715
And I want to be optimistic.
895
01:05:39.815 --> 01:05:46.820
I want to show the film to the world, wait a little bit till all the negativity has gone, and then try something.
896
01:05:46.840 --> 01:05:48.221
So for instance, somebody told me,
897
01:05:48.901 --> 01:05:56.643
that maybe you should get an executive producer, somebody like James Cameron or something who approaches his name to your film.
898
01:05:57.003 --> 01:06:00.804
That might... would change the whole discussion and the way people view the film.
899
01:06:01.384 --> 01:06:02.805
But those are all things that are still...
900
01:06:02.865 --> 01:06:08.046
I need some time and some... Well, time and also to think about those things, yeah.
901
01:06:08.066 --> 01:06:10.007
But it is damaged, definitely.
902
01:06:10.027 --> 01:06:11.887
The film is damaged and I'm damaged.
903
01:06:12.427 --> 01:06:15.588
But I see that I get a lot of support.
904
01:06:16.208 --> 01:06:17.709
And if you look at the comments...
905
01:06:18.409 --> 01:06:23.573
then there's the haters and they're just shouting and the people who defend me often have very nuanced opinions.
906
01:06:24.093 --> 01:06:25.334
Yeah.
907
01:06:26.074 --> 01:06:29.657
And also your reaction also is very helpful for me.
908
01:06:29.817 --> 01:06:31.258
I mean, you react to the film.
909
01:06:31.939 --> 01:06:32.179
Yeah.
910
01:06:32.219 --> 01:06:32.859
Yeah, really.
911
01:06:32.899 --> 01:06:35.381
I mean, your reaction is so important for me.
912
01:06:35.801 --> 01:06:45.048
You watch the film, you like it, you see it over and over again and you do your research before you start talking to me and that is what we need, you know?
913
01:06:45.068 --> 01:06:45.208
Yeah.
914
01:06:45.228 --> 01:06:50.826
We need research and people that are informed and educated, you know, and not just shouting online.
915
01:06:50.846 --> 01:06:51.067
Yeah.
916
01:06:51.734 --> 01:06:54.576
Well, that's the whole purpose of this podcast.
917
01:06:54.757 --> 01:06:58.420
And that's why the moment I saw it, I messaged you immediately.
918
01:06:59.841 --> 01:07:02.563
And I was so, so glad you did this.
919
01:07:02.823 --> 01:07:04.305
It's just been such a treat for me.
920
01:07:04.845 --> 01:07:06.346
I'm so impressed.
921
01:07:06.406 --> 01:07:09.149
And I hope that it goes to many more festivals.
922
01:07:09.729 --> 01:07:11.951
I hope it does so well.
923
01:07:12.611 --> 01:07:16.575
And I think the conversation that you're having as well is so important.
924
01:07:16.595 --> 01:07:19.057
And so I really respect you for having it.
925
01:07:19.337 --> 01:07:20.059
Thank you so much.
926
01:07:20.721 --> 01:07:21.302
Of course.
927
01:07:21.563 --> 01:07:22.224
Thank you, Isco.