The filmmakers behind The Brutalist, a likely Oscar contender currently being distributed by A24, used AI to alter actor’s dialogue and create images used in the film’s epilogue, the film’s editor Dávid Jancsó shared in an interview with RedShark News.
The epic drama follows a fictional Hungarian architect (as played by Adrien Brody) who struggles to make art under the fickle system of American capitalism (and the weirdos that run it). To make Brody and his costar Felicity Jones’ Hungarian pronunciation as accurate as possible, Jancsó says the production used AI from a company called Respeecher to alter the actor’s speech.
Respeecher was able to adjust the actor’s vocals to make them match a native Hungarian speaker’s pronunciation, though Jancsó says the process didn’t do anything you couldn’t achieve with traditional dialogue editing. “You can do this in ProTools yourself, but we had so much dialogue in Hungarian that we really needed to speed up the process, otherwise we’d still be in post.”
Generative AI was also used to help create architectural drawings used near the end of the film, according to Jancsó. Both decisions were made because of the budgetary constraints the production was under. The Brutalist is an over three-hour film with multiple stars, period-appropriate costuming, and elaborate sets, that was reportedly made for less than $10 million.
A little over a year after multiple Hollywood unions went on strike over the possibility of studios using AI to replace workers, it’s still highly controversial to use the tech, let alone be open about it. But the problem is undeniably complicated when there are so many different ways AI can be used. “The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft,” Brady Corbet, the director of The Brutalist, told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement.
Respeecher was previously used to create new Darth Vader dialogue for Disney+’s Obi-Wan-Kenobi, and this likely won’t be the last time similar tools are used to cut costs. Making movies requires a lot of resources, and while companies are trying to get AI to catch on, using AI tools will likely remain a viable options to save time and money.