First All-Artificial Feature Film Released

Hugh "Nomad" Hancock writes "Machinima.com have just released the DVD version of Killer Robot, award-winning filmmaker Peter Rasmussen's buddy movie about two mining robots who set out to protect their "meat-sack" masters from a master mining robot gone insane. The twist here is not only that it's Machinima, made in 3D Game Studio, but that even the actor's voices are computer-generated using programs like Festival, making this possibly the world's first all-artificial movie."

Comments

All-artificial?

[Compuser]

Wouldn't that be a movie written, directed,
post-produced, and distributed by bots?

Re:All-artificial?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't that be a movie written, directed, post-produced, and distributed by bots?

No, that would be a movie written, directed, post-produced, and distributed by robots who were created by other robots.

Re:All-artificial?

[badasscat]

Wouldn't that be a movie written, directed,
post-produced, and distributed by bots?

A good, semi-serious observation that brings me to the point I initially thought when I read the headline...

What about many of the avant-garde films of the 1960's, some of which did not feature traditionally "filmed" subjects at all (some of them literally just had objects pressed between the celluloid layers of film, giving a kaleidescope effect when the film was run). And what about animation? Not all animation features voices at all (witness old Road Runner cartoons) - are they not "completely artificial", at least in the same sense that the film in question here is? Does the medium itself (film vs. digital) make a difference, and if so, what if you simply digitized those old RR cartoons?

Like you, I would say that none of these films - including the one in this story - are artificial. They were all created by humans, and as long as humans are creating them there's nothing artificial about them, and to me, nothing particularly interesting either (at least not as far as the novelty; the film itself may be interesting, I don't know).

What I will find amazing is when we can apply the turing test to films - when a computer can literally write, direct, "shoot", edit, act, and do everything else itself, with no input from the humans. Even if humans programmed the applications that do it, that would still be quite an amazing feat. It would be still more amazing if these apps could then self-adapt to make better films, but then you're into talking about Matrix-like stuff :)

Re:All-artificial?

[crayz]

We'll also never see an all-human movie, given that we're evolved from non-humans.

Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

making this possibly the world's first all-artificial movie."

One hates to be pedantic (well, ok, maybe not ;-) but there have been a bunch of animated silent films made over the years...

Re:nope

[Dun Malg]

How can you claim that you've created these fractals? Aren't they rooted in mathematics? Wouldn't that mean that you just ripped off your art from Math?

FWIW, he never actually claimed to have created any fractals. He just said that "a lot of work that went into each image". One could argue, I suppose, that fractals are only discovered, not created. But then again, a lot of creativity has to be applied in the presentation to turn them into something that could be considered "art-worthy". Mandelbrot's initial graphs of the Julia Set were crappy monochrome blobs done on a dot-matrix printer with a bad ink ribbon-- you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who'd call it art. The beautiful rainbow colored images you see are carefully composed and selected representations of fractals. The composition and selection could be considered artistic. I'd say it's no less an art form than photography. Photographers don't claim to have created the content in their photographers-- they just capture images of it.

Re:nope

[ArsonSmith]

I was kinda thinking that as well, but I would say this is more similar to photography, in that you have to examine a fractal and find what inputs need to be put in to create a truely beautiful image. I have played with some fractal generators and I was never able to get some of the ones that the OP was able to generate.

What about the textures?

[bravehamster]

Seriously, did the textures they use start off as photos of real life objects? Then this isn't an all-artificial movie. The first all-artificial movie will be made by an AI that has no access to any outside materials. Everything until then is just a matter of degree of human involvement.

Re:What about the textures?

[cosmo7]

Seriously, did the textures they use start off as photos of real life objects? Then this isn't an all-artificial movie.

Photographs are artificial. If you're arguing that they are not artificial because they refer to real objects, then you might as well demand an entirely artificially-generated language be created for the dialogue.

Re:What about the textures?

[Anonvmous Coward]

"Then this isn't an all-artificial movie. The first all-artificial movie will be made by an AI that has no access to any outside materials. Everything until then is just a matter of degree of human involvement."

Oh for crying out loud. At what point did we as geeks decide that nothing's ever good enough? Are our tastes really that sophisticated? If so, then how come we all saw Episode 1 or Matrix Reloaded on opening day?

Artificial Pr0n

[beatleadam]

Together everyone. Humor intended, toungue in cheek...check...

...even the actor's voices are computer-generated...making this possibly the world's first all-artificial movie

Just Think about all the Artificial Pr0n you can create with this technology! Wait...No need for Actors or Actresses...Oh the Possibilities are Endless! :-)

nope

[Docrates]

I'm sorry, but as much as I like the geek factor in this, I like to see people in my movies. I admit that Toy Story and Monsters Inc. were really good movies, but if eventually all movies were computer generated they'd lose me as a fan.

There's magic in acting: controling your every emotion to become someone you're not, and then making other people believe it. That's art man. What they're trying to do sounds to me like trying to replace a Picasso with a fractal image. No magic.

Re:What about pr0n?

[dustmote]

You know, this just can't be that far off. Sex and war drive technology, and all that. Give them time, and I'm sure the adult industry will find a way to drive the costs of this down to levels where it's reasonable for everyone. After all, look what they did for cosmetic surgery. The question is, will people be interested in this for its own sake, or will it have to wait until things reach the point where it's indistinguishable from the real thing? I'm guessing from the preponderance of cartoon porn on the internet that it's just around the corner.

Qualifiers

[pdiguy]

This happens all the time. Given enough qualifiers, any movie is the "first" of its kind.

"This is the first computer animated movie"
"This is the first computer animated movie with photoreal humans"
"This is the first computer animated movie rendered with global illumination"
"This is the first computer animated movie rendered with global illumination, on a render farm of Linux servers"
"This is the first computer animated movie where the main character is green"
"This is the first computer animated movie where the main character is green and one of the characters is a cat"

It gets silly after a while. At some point you have to ask "is the movie any good?"

j

Re:Qualifiers

[Savatte]

At some point you have to ask "is the movie any good?"

At some point? That should be the first thing you ask.

Re:good

[Anonymous Coward]

I put the volume all the way up, and I could still only catch 2/3 of the words.

*sarcasm on*
What are you griping about? This is just like a professionally produced Hollywood movie.
*sarcasm off*

Seriously I'm a little hard of hearing but some movies these days are just total shit in their audio. Some sounds are so quiet as to be almost totally inaudible with the volume set at max and then moments later there are sounds that'll rattle your windows even with the volume turned down. No one ever seems to be able to find a happy medium. Give someone a wide dynamic audio range and by golly they gotta use every damn bit of it.

Kill Bill for instance. Right at the beginning in the kitchen where the two women are whispering at each other. I can barely frigging hear them, nevermind that I've got the TV volume cranked all the way up (which I know is a mistake because sooner or later one of the bitches is gonna pull out a gun and the gunshot is gonna wake people up at the end of my street and damage my hearing further.)

Re:porno writers

[The Queen]

I interviewed an "adult film" producer once, and you are right - there are no scriptwriters in porno. At all. Ever. The dude who scrapes together the money to make the movie is the producer, director, writer, etc. You cull your cast from the local tanning salon, borrow your aunt's bungalow for a couple days and there you go - movie. Overhead is all in the film (unless you're shooting on that fancy camcorder).

This was NOT the kind of guy who would trade being able to bang his leading ladies for a fake chick on the screen of his laptop.

Sorry for the tangent, carry on!