Over the course of his career, both as an actor and director, Andy Serkis has never been shy about using cutting edge technology for art. According to the performer-turned-director, A.I. is just another technology that folks need to explore. And he’s going to be one of the people to do that.
Speaking at the UK’s Labour Party conference (via Deadline), filmmaker Andy Serkis says he is working on a new feature that will include “A.I. characters,” and he’s not nearly as scared of artificial intelligence used in filmmaking as a lot of creators today.
READ MORE: 2024 Fall Film Preview: 50 Movies To Watch
Serkis was vague on details about the new film, but called it a “narrative driven story” that begins with 2D characters being voiced by real actors before they “come out into the AR [augmented reality] world.”
“At that point they become ‘AI characters’ authored by artists and directors,” Serkis added. “They are in a world where you can have direct relationships with these CGI characters.”
Again, not much else is known about the project. That said, it’s clear Serkis is more open to using A.I. than many of his filmmaking peers. We’ve heard warnings from all sorts of folks about the failures of artificial intelligence when it comes to film and TV work. Many people say A.I. lacks the heart and soul that is used to create real art. For Serkis, he just sees it as a new technology that folks shouldn’t be scared of using.
“It is another form of magic that is frightening people,” said Serkis. “Even the biggest VFX companies are not creating as great things as individuals in their basements. It is much misunderstood, much maligned and lumped together in the same way that people probably felt the internet was going to destroy everyone’s lives.”
Serkis has always been on the cutting edge when it comes to technology use in films. Who can forget his amazing work as Gollum in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy. The technology used in those films was way ahead of its time and holds up wonderfully today, more than 20 years later. Now, we see that technology used in a ton of different ways, perhaps most famously in the more recent ‘Planet of the Apes’ franchise.
So, is A.I. just the new technology that people shouldn’t be afraid of using? We’ll have to wait and see as studios and artists begin to experiment with it. Perhaps Andy Serkis is correct.