Journal 13

There’s part of me, throughout this whole research and analysis project, I had a major bias towards AI, to a degree. For many, and many others, can’t help but think of AI as a disease of sorts, something that actively makes whatever thing it is associated or worked with seem ‘degraded’, as I often found myself saying. While there’s a part of me that still stands with that, considering everything I’ve learned about AI being integrated into animation, I think a bit of my distaste has been misdirected, to say the very least. More so, I would actually say that AI not only gives animator and people who work in animation a lot of potential for creativity and work effort, but also how it has already, over the years.

Firstly, I want to go over the bad that I have seen in my research, which includes a film that has had heavy usage of AI, called ‘Where The Robots Grow’. To give a quick synopsis, it’s about a robot goes to a deserted plant to ‘farm a new world’ for the last survivors on Earth. Not an exactly new premise, but something that has potential. The actually content of the movie is definitely passable and I would say has some strong stylization. However, the actual structure of the movie, along with how it looks when in motion is where it really falls off. The framing for certain shots seem a bit oddly placed or shifted, like when the frame focuses on a character’s face, but be doing some sort of motion that damns attention. The movement itself feels choppy and looks as if there’s some sort of lag. The voice acting also a bit off, with the voice of robot being very unfit for a robot. The tension with the story feels a bit awkward too, like the story isn’t very present, or with it being fairly straight forward.

WonderDynamics, Minimax, and Adobe Firefly have all been mentioned regarding what AI software was used in the film, visual wise. The writing was also heavily AI generated, from what I can tell, with it being very stagnate.

Overall, while I would say the visuals are decent, It’s a mess of a movie.

There’s an interview with the director of the movie I previously mentioned, Tom Paton. One thing that he mentioned that sort of stuck to me is ‘the tools are out there for people to use.’. The good that AI has done doesn’t come from of a movie, but in the form hardware and software. One of the earliest piece of AI technology that is now used in animation is Computer Generated Imagery (or CGI). CGI has allow, not only for animated elements to be integrated in live action movies, but create 2D, vector-base animation and 3D animated films. Such is the case like Toy Story and Frozen. Though it would be easy to compare ‘Toy Story’ and ‘Where the Robots Grow’ to show how AI has ruined animation, but that not what I took away from this whole thing.

AI is a tool, when it comes down to the many root of it. Though many people are guilty of blaming AI, myself include, for making bad animation, it’s important to note that the AI did not create it sole by itself. There was a person, or for some cases a group of people, who told and guided what the AI should produced. With some people, maybe they would just present whatever is create, some could work with the end produce, or, more realistically, use AI to help edit and modify their own work to look better and work more efficiently.