This charming short put the "art" in artificial intelligence

What can you expect when you blend the power of an AI image generator, an 98-year-old woman called Lillian as well as Harry Potter? The result is 'HAIRY POUTER is a film of a shorter length from director Chris Carboni that blends increasingly fun AI-generated images and a an analysis of the classic book by a hilarious nonagenarian.

"Lillian is my maternal grandmother," says Chris. "She and I have always had a close relationship and I've been recording her giving reviews for probably up to 10 years."

As AI image generators started to dominate the web at the mid-2022 point, Chris saw the stars align into a new project that would make the most of his long hours of listening and help him explore his relationship with this emerging technology. "I experienced a number of mixed feelings regarding these generators] and I was looking for an opportunity to learn about them in a small way," explains Chris. "At the moment I was having a conversation with my mother-in-law who had just finished reading 'Harry Potter,' that I had bought for the occasion as a birthday present."

The film began to come together with a nimble crew - "my grandmother along with my wife and me, as well as our composer and sound designer and the entire team" And the rest of it is (futuristic) the story of. The capabilities of AI remain to advance at a breakneck pace, we caught up with Chris Carboni to talk everything related to AI and art.

The quality of the images in this video is incredible. What tools did you employ to get it to give you these outcomes?

Chris: Then we tried MidJourney as it was in the first version. We started with entering in Lillian's words unedited and seeing what the program could produce from the only quotes in the interview. We really liked the art style it had come to with in only a couple of rounds of regenerating images. So, I wrote down the hallmarks of its art direction based off this picture it produced.

The first picture we got was Ron who was wafting his hair. He looked amazing. I think it was sort with shoulders up. Also, the guy clearly did not have a shirt on. He just looked like this kind of beach-god. Then, when we saw the opportunity to capture Harry and Ron together, it posed them almost embracing each other which we were thinking, "Oh, this is incredible."

The AI was allowed to come up with these interesting theories, and once we hit on one that we loved, we guided the AI to follow that line to ensure that it will remain entertaining, and easy to follow.

How was it to apply AI to this incredibly human tale?

Chris Chris: When I was making this film I was a bit of concern [about AI]. It was a pleasure working with it for this film. I believe that this was the best use case for the project because the application of AI was a key element of the story.

It was fun and interesting and special. The project was about the unpretentious but adorable interaction between AI and humans. This wasn't an instance where we chose to not spend a budget on illustrators and decided to make use of AI instead. It was a project where the use of artificial Intelligence was the basis of storytelling.

What do you think about AI becoming a creative force?

Chris: There's certainly something intriguing about this, but it's gotten obviously so much more difficult since the generators have become so widespread. The potential of these generators has been released, and expanded into every one of these uses. This means that the subject has become a lot more complex than I think that it was once with regard to my personal knowledge and opinions about the topic.

It seems that anyone working in the creative field is going to have to determine what this means to their job, and adjust to the fact that things are probably going alter. Along with this change, will bring opportunities to create amazing innovative things. But also the automatedization of many of the craft we as artists admire. It does make me sad, if I'm being honest. I am worried about art being diminished and made more commodified than it already is.

Would you use this technology to help you in the future?

Chris Christopher: Okay I enjoy making use of AI to enhance my emails and as a sort of personal assistant capable of answering questions, giving explanations to complex concepts and completing repetitive chores. In terms of creative work though, I don't fully understand. I don't intend to use it to the extent which would substitute human talent within my teams. It is my opinion that the result would not be as good.

Much of what makes our work great comes from collaborating with other people. The entire process from beginning to finish using AI is dependent on inputs coming from a person's mind. In some cases that might be okay However, most of the time the productions are aided by a team of specialists that work in tandem, each one bringing their unique knowledge and unique insights to the table.

Some of the most interesting uses I see are for generating preliminary ideas as well as kicking off the process of creating. It could be for raising money for an idea and displaying the initial concepts to get something off the foundation. But for animation, you need so much control over the minutiae of your scene in terms of production and artistic motives. The level of control you need will likely be coming soon, but it's certainly not that far off.