The Brutalist

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This year, it’s anticipated that “The Brutalist” will make a significant impact at the Academy Awards and might even win the prestigious Best Picture award. However, before the nominees are officially announced later this week, it’s been disclosed that the film employed AI to elevate the performances of actors Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones. This revelation comes amidst heightened scrutiny regarding AI in the film industry, with many now doubting the authenticity of director Brady Corbet’s grand period drama.

In an interview with RedShark News, David Jancsó, editor of The Brutalist, openly stated that Artificial Intelligence was employed to enhance the authenticity of Brody and Jones’ Hungarian accents in their roles. “Being a native Hungarian speaker myself,” he explained, “I understand that it can be challenging to master the pronunciation of this language.

If you’re coming from the Anglo-Saxon world, certain sounds can be particularly hard to grasp.

In a recent turn of events, Brody clinched the Best Actor award at the Golden Globes for his movie role, whereas Jones was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, alas losing to Zoe Saldaña who played Emilia Pérez. Interestingly, this same film employed AI technology to improve Karla Sofia Gascón’s vocal performance. Meanwhile, production team of the film The Brutalist initially attempted to correct Brody and Jones’ accents post-production but found no success. Instead, they collaborated with Ukrainian company Respeecher to complete the task before the movie’s release.

Initially, we attempted to re-record the more challenging parts with the original actors. However, when we tried re-recording these sections entirely using different actors, it didn’t yield the desired results. Consequently, we explored alternative methods to improve the scenes without compromising their performances significantly. Essentially, we were substituting certain words here and there while maintaining the essence of their delivery. This process can be performed in ProTools, but given the abundance of dialogue in Hungarian, we opted to expedite it to avoid prolonging post-production.

Social Media Reacts to the News of AI Used in ‘The Brutalist’

Discussions surrounding the use of AI in “The Brutalist” have been quick on social media, with viewers commenting that the film utilized AI not just to save on visual artist costs but also to alter the actors’ accents, a significant aspect of acting. The tweet from @onlyafortnight read, “They used AI in The Brutalist not only to avoid paying visual artists for their work but also to manipulate the actors’ accents, a core element of… performance.” Another user, @bvckystjames, posted, “The Brutalist employed AI to modify actors’ accents and design the architecture… in a film about an architect.

In a more lenient take on the news about The Brutalist utilizing AI, user @stockpiledclay stated, “From what I understand, The Brutalist’s AI-generated content appears to have been created by a group of artists who drew inspiration from AI images. This doesn’t sit badly with me; it seems like the issue of AI is causing unnecessary alarm.” Few favorable responses have been voiced in this discussion, as most people believe that Brody and Jones should be excluded from Oscar consideration due to their use of AI to augment their vocal performances.

It seems unlikely that “The Brutalist” will experience any consequences regarding this year’s Academy Awards, given that voting wrapped up as early as last Friday. The official nominations will be revealed on January 23rd, and we’ll find out then how everything unfolds.

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2025-01-20 20:02