This delightful short places the "art" in artificial intelligence

What happens when you combine an AI image-generating machine, an 98-year-old woman called Lillian as well as Harry Potter? The result is 'HAIRY POUTER,' a short film made by director Chris Carboni. It blends increasingly fun AI-generated images with an analysis of the classic book written by a funny nonagenarian.

"Lillian is my grandma," says Chris. "She and I have always enjoyed a great relationship and I've been recording her reviews for about up to 10 years."

When AI image generators started to take over the internet around mid-2022, Chris saw the stars collide to form a new venture that would make the most of his long hours of audio and aid in understanding his connection to this new technology. "I was surrounded by doubts about these machines] and I was looking for an opportunity to learn about them," explains Chris. "At the at the same time, I was talking to my mother-in-law who had just finished reading 'Harry Potter,' that I had bought for the occasion as a birthday present."

After that, the movie was put together in a flash with a nimble crew - "my grandmother as well as my wife, and also our sound designer and composer and the entire team" - and the rest of it is (futuristic) time. The capabilities of AI remain to advance at a breakneck pace We caught up with Chris Carboni for a chat about everything related to artistic and AI.

The quality of the images that you see in this video is amazing. What did you use and how did you get it to give you these result?

Chris Chris: We used MidJourney, back in its initial version. The first step was to enter Lillian's words unedited and seeing what the program could produce using just the words from the interview. We loved the artistic style that it had come up with through only a couple of rounds of making new images. Therefore, I had written down the characteristics of the art direction based off this photo it created.

I think the first image we saw was Ron with his really wafting hair, and he looked stunning. It was a bit of shoulders up and it was clear that he didn't have a shirt on. It was like he looked like a kind of beach-god. And then when we had an image of Harry and Ron with each other, it showed they were almost hugging and we were like, "Oh, this is wonderful."

It was up to the AI to come up with these interesting ideas, and then when we hit on one that we liked we coached it to follow that thread to ensure that it will remain entertaining, and simple to follow.

Was it like applying AI to this actually human story?

Chris: At the time I created this film I had a fair amount of anxiety about AI]. But I certainly enjoyed using it on this project. It was, in my opinion, a good use case for the project because the application of AI was fundamental to the narrative.

This is what made it exciting, interesting and unique. It was kind of about the awkward but delightful interaction between AI and human beings. The project was not one in which we decided not to put a dollar into an illustrator and tried to employ Artificial Intelligence instead. It was a project where the use of artificial intelligence was foundational for the storytelling.

How do you feel about AI being a part of the creative process?

Chris Chris intriguing about this, but it's become a lot more difficult since the generators are used in a wide variety of ways. They've been fully unleashed in the various use cases. This means that the subject is becoming more complex than I think as it used to be from my personal perception and understanding of the subject.

Anyone who is in a creative space will have to find out the implications of this for their work, and adapt to recognizing the fact that things will likely be changing. With that change comes be opportunities for doing amazing innovative things. But also the automatedization of many of the art that we artists love. It does make me sad, if I'm being truthful. I am worried about art being diminished and made more commodified than it is already.

Would you use this technology for your job in the future?

Chris Chris: Well I am a huge fan of using AI to improve my email and also as a personal assistant capable of answering questions, explaining complex ideas, and handling rote jobs. In terms of creative work though, I don't fully know. I certainly don't want to utilize it to the extent that would replace human artists within my teams. The results would not be as good.

Much of what makes our work great is due to collaboration with other people. A project produced from start to finish with AI relies on the inputs coming from a person's mind. In some cases that might be fine However, generally speaking projects benefit from an entire team of professionals that work in tandem, each one bringing their own unique expertise and creative insights to the table.

The most compelling use cases I can think of are to generate preliminary ideas as well as kicking off the process of creating. Maybe for raising funding for a project and showing some initial concept work in order to help get something off the foundation. But for animation it is essential to have complete control over the minutiae of your scene in terms of production and artistic motives. That level of control will likely be coming soon but isn't that far off.