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Your new movie Window
Seat - in a few words, what is it about?
Window
Seat was made to be a live action chamber piece in the vein of the hard
theater of yore. It is about three people on a plane, and
all the tension is drawn from this. The magic trick is that everything it
delves into, bullying, the scandal, the whole shebang, is all
psychological, you never question that the film is all mental. To me this
is the best aspiration a writer can realize on screen.
What
were your sources of inspiration when writing Window
Seat, and is any of it based on personal bad flight experiences or
the like?
At its core, Window
Seatis about confrontation—between past and
present, between perception and reality. It plays with those themes on
multiple levels. For example, one of the main characters is visually
portrayed in three different forms throughout the film. The beauty of
cinema is that if the emotional thread is strong, people will follow it
anywhere.
Window
Seat was made entirely by AI - to ask quite bluntly, why?
Hollywood
insiders said we are two years away from the first AI feature film.
I was
just the only one petty enough, and hungry enough to do it at the current
iteration of the technology or to realize it’s actually possible now. Now
the film, in the current state was only possible, as you said in the
review, because I turned the limitations of the technology against itself.
I was inspired by Beatles animation, Monty
Python, by classic Japanese
animation like Belladonna of Sadness. So
I am sure Russo was talking about an AI Spider-Man when he said we’re
two years away—and there is a new thing in the world that we deny the
existence of the arthouse, and that box office and viewership numbers
represent the objective metrics of filmmaking.
Do
take us through the process of what it takes to make an AI movie! And how
does one "direct" artificial intelligence? Remember
I have done it the old way, with a crew of thirty and twenty union actors
in 2014. Aimy
in a Cage had a $500,000 budget. Window
Seat
had a $190 budget and was
made by just one man. It
is not just that you are limited by reaction shots and performances by
time in tradfilm (an indie film will cost $25,000 to $50,000 per day of
production with a finite schedule), but then you are stuck with what you
shot in the editing room forever. I spent one and a half years editing Aimy
in a Cage. Window
Seat was edited as it was generated in three weeks total.
I will say that because this was the first AI feature film, I didn’t
mind to play up the flaws to remain a record of early AI films; but what
I aim to do going forward is attempting to meet the audience’s demands
for invisible craft. Window
Seat
is a one of a kind meta film for me.
What are the advantages but also challenges of making an AI film?
Point is, you are only limited by eternity. The limitlessness of AI filmmaking
gives you millions of opportunities to get the perfect shot or intonation.
That is not only huge, but it single-handedly makes tradfilm obsolete. I
find that the younger generation, when you tell them something amazing,
they shrug and go, so what? They would not even be impressed if you can
step into portals into another universe. So these benefits of AI fall on
deaf ears. Is the film good or not? That is what people will care about.
From a writing standpoint, I looked at my slate for another Window
Seat and I
couldn’t find one. The central concept of the bully carries a
psychological weight larger than the screen.
What
can you tell us about Window
Seat's look and feel, and to what extent was that informed by the
use of AI?
So whatever are the limitations of the video—and to a lot of non-creatives,
the kind who use ‘art’ as a pejorative, and believe the low-fi video
is a dealbreaker—I want to put forward one thing. There is nothing
stopping Window Seat 2.0 or Window Seat 3.0 as the tech improves, so the
rejection of low-fi video is not an indictment of the artist. However,
what a lot of people found, you forget about the
video limitations, you embrace it. This
is because I am a student of film history. All the limitations of this
tech were figured out a century ago. We went forward and backward at the
same time. This
is the impressive thing to me is you reach this sweetspot moment that the
craft disappears. Suddenly, the movie feels like a bonafide black and
white indie film, like Atom Egoyan or something.
Regarding
the look and feel of the movie, this was only possible by closing the
matte and making it black and white. This let me cut off 33 % of the frame
to get rid of any bad bits of AI, the glitches.
What did it feel like for Window
Seat to be released?
It is a feeling I will never be able to accurately describe. It is the most
powerful emotion I have ever felt. It was like having alien technology.
And people were spooked. I was spooked. For me, it was made from an
impulse to not take no for an answer. It was a war against reality, and
for a moment... reality will win every time, except that moment. That
drive had made me right for it in the eyes of the cosmos.
The $64-question of course, where can Window
Seat be seen?
I raced to get the movie out on July 21 as a protest against the Hollywood
excess of Barbie and Oppenheimer, these films with their massive budgets
ought to be a crime against humanity. There was a point such a thing,
these collectives egregores and tulpas of capitalism floating around like
monstrous parades. Today no one questions any of it or thinks what is
wrong with you? Instead they wear it like a mask. We are consumers, it is
the very oil of the human soul in this realm, but it is an ugly thing as
it interfaces with entertainment. The collective viewing habits are a
dark, not uplifting thing. So
when people were talking about Ryan Gosling’s outfits, I had a link to
the first AI movie up, and it is a feeling I will never be able to
accurately describe. It is the most powerful emotion I have ever felt. It
was like having alien technology. And people were spooked. I was spooked.
My friend later said, it does not matter who is 'first', because AI belongs
to everyone. But this concept is self-selecting. For me, it mattered,
because it was an endeavor made from an expression of both bitterness
against the film industry, simultaneously, it was made from an
impulse to not take no for an answer. The
idea that AI belonged to everyone did not matter in that moment, because
'everyone' did not have a feature.
It was a war against reality, and for a moment... reality will win every
time, except that moment. That drive had made me right for it in the eyes of the cosmos, and it is hard
to wrap one's head around this unless they know about my journey, so
people assume it is some gigantic ego trip.
The movie had been marketed hard as the first AI feature film, but it is in
fact the first. There was another production that put out a press release
that it was going into production, but it was a big sci-fi movie that did
not materialize in time to beat Window
Seat to market.
Let me put it this way, because it is a film with a story, with characters,
that crosses a threshold of artistic competence… I am not talking about
a one hour project on some guys computer with still images and narration,
but an actual filmmaker's film brought to market with performances, story,
editing, mise-en-scene, and scripting. Why
this matters, it is the very thing itself. You cannot separate Window
Seat from its symbolic making.
Anything you can tell us about
audience and critical reception of Window
Seat? Window Seat wasn’t
designed to be a crowd-pleaser, it was meant to be an experience. It was
meant to confront the idea that art needs permission from budgets,
gatekeepers, or institutions to exist.
Any future projects you'd like to share?
I am working on several AI films right now because I want to continue
to legitimize this craft. I want to represent the medium in a cutting edge
way which means we have to figure out so many different problems that
currently exist.
Your/your
movie's website, social media, whatever else?
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I am on all the social medias, so add me, make up for the ones who blocked
me for making this movie!
Anything
else you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask? AI
filmmaking becomes more meaningful when you realize the films are not made
by machines, but that the director is everyone and everything in the
movie, wearing the machines like gloves.
Thanks for the interview!
Thank you for your support and for your support for indie filmmakers over the
years!
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