Darren Aronofsky, the director of Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream, has released the first episodes of an AI-generated animated series through his Primordial Soup studio, and the response from viewers and fellow filmmakers has been scathing, with critics labeling it “AI slop” and a “complete betrayal of cinema.” When we covered Aronofsky’s partnership with Google DeepMind last year, there was genuine curiosity about what one of cinema’s most visually distinctive directors might do with generative AI tools. Now we have an answer, and it’s not what anyone expected. On This Day… 1776, a weekly series chronicling the American Revolution on its 250th anniversary, premiered on TIME’s YouTube channel on January 29 with two episodes. The comment sections filled up quickly, and not with praise. Before we dive in deeper – watch for yourself: The production model According to Variety, the series uses a hybrid workflow that combines “traditional filmmaking tools and emerging AI capabilities” from Google DeepMind. The visuals are generated by artists using various AI tools, while SAG-AFTRA union actors provide the voice performances. Composer Jordan Dykstra created an original score, and Primordial Soup’s post-production team handled editing, color grading, and mixing. The writers room is led by Lucas Sussman, with Aronofsky serving as executive producer. Deadline reports that the production utilized Salesforce’s Slack platform to coordinate its global team of writers, designers, and AI specialists. Salesforce also serves as the series sponsor, a detail worth noting since Salesforce co-founder Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne Benioff...
Published By: CineD - 2 days ago