Neural Rendering with fxguide Co-Founder Dr. Mike Seymour

EPISODE SUMMARY

The movie industry is not immune to the innovations of AI and machine learning, with many different technologies being developed for application in production and film. In particular, is the role of AI in inferring ‘Digital Humans’ for post-movie production processes. In this conversation, we hear all about this amazing new technology from special guest Dr. Mike Seymour, cofounder and contributing editor at fxguide, an Emmy-nominated veteran of the creative industry, writer, and podcaster.

EPISODE NOTES

Dr. Seymour aims to take cutting-edge technology and apply it to the special effects industry, such as with the new AI platform, PLATO. He is also a lecturer at the University of Sydney and works as a consultant within the special effects industry. He is an internationally respected researcher and expert in Digital Humans and virtual production, and his experience in both visual effects and pure maths makes him perfect for AI-based visual effects. In our conversation we find out more about Dr. Seymour’s professional career journey, and what he enjoys the most about working as both a researcher and practitioner.We then get into all the details about AI in special effects as we learn about Digital Humans, the new PLATO platform, why AI dubbing is better, the biggest challenges facing the application of AI in special effects.Key Points From This Episode:

• Dr. Seymour explains his background and professional career journey.
• Why he enjoys bridging the gap between researcher and practitioner.
• An outline of the different topics that Dr. Seymour lectures in and what he is currently working on.
• He explains what he means by the term ‘digital humans’ and provides examples.
• The special effects platform, PLATO, he is currently working on and what it will be used for.
• An explanation of how PLATO was used in the Polish movie, The Champion.
• He explains the future goals and aims for auto-dubbing using AI and visual effects.
• Why auto-dubbing procedure will not add or encumber existing processes of making a movie.
• Reasons why AI auto-dubbing is better than traditional dubbing.
• Whether this is a natural language processing challenge or more of a creative filmmaking challenge.
• A discussion about why new technologies take long to be applied to real-world scenarios.
• How the underlying process of PLATO are different from what is required to make a deepfake video.
• His approach to overcoming challenges facing the PLATO platform.
• Other areas of the entertainment industry Dr. Seymour expects AI to be disruptive.

Tweetables:“In the film, half the actors are the original actors come back to just re-voice themselves, half aren’t. In the film hopefully, when you watch it, it’s indistinguishable that it wasn’t actually filmed in English. — @mikeseymour “In our process, it doesn’t apply because if you were saying in four words what I’d said in three, it would just match. We don’t have to match the timing, we don’t have to match the lip movement or jaw movement, it all gets fixed.” — @mikeseymour “My attitude is, it’s all very well for us to get this working in the lab, but it has to work in the real world.” — @mikeseymour Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:Dr. Mike Seymour on LinkedInDr. Mike Seymour on TwitterDr. Mike Seymour on Google Scholar