‘Memory of Princess Mumbi’ Director on using AI to make a movie that ‘AI could never make’
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“Princess Mumbi” was mostly filmed on location on the coast of Kenya — “the lighting, the shadows, everything was real,” says Hauser — with the director utilizing AI to build out the backdrop of his futuristic world, using “old techniques from the ’80s and ’90s where they just painted into the image,” he says.
The software could generate images in a flash, but the director found it far more challenging to make those images “work in a cinematic context.” “I had shots that took weeks because of rotoscoping, compositing and making static images feel alive,” he says. Hauser used a mix of tools — “one for generating, another for upscaling, another to convert images into motion” — a “patchwork process” that seemed in keeping with the low-fi, mash-up nature of the film.
AI is developing by leaps and bounds — had he started “Princess Mumbi” today, Hauser estimates he would’ve wrapped up post-production in half the time — and the director is guardedly optimistic about where it’s heading.
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