Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1518753
MUSIC VIDEOS IDLES' GRACE EMPLOYS A.I. FOR COLDPLAY-INSPIRED PROJECT British rock band Idles recently released a music video for their "Grace" track that puts an AI twist on Coldplay's Yellow music video from 2000. The project called on production studio Joyrider (www.joyriderfilms.com) and VFX experts Stone Dogs (https://stonedogs.co.uk) to alter the original video, which was directed by James Frost and Alex Smith. In the 2000 release, Coldplay's Chris Martin sings while slowly walking along a dark and foggy beachfront as the sun begins to rise. Idles' version of the visual has been retimed to coincide with the tempo of "Grace," and Martin appears to be singing the different lyrics for the song. Research and development was performed by Joyrider's director Jonathan Irwin, who used various AI solutions to land the best way of making Martin look like he was actually singing "Grace" while maintaining the integrity of his original performance. Initially, the AI tool Wac2lip, which generates mouth shapes based on audio inputs in Stable Diffusion, was used to make it look like he was signing the new lyrics, but consistency and quality proved challenging. The team then moved to an approach that used a filmed mouth singing the song, which the AI deepfake training then used. The mouth had to be synced together seamlessly with the original video, augmenting Martin's head shape and manipulating neutral faces in order to apply new mouth positions. To achieve this, Joyrider approached VFX specialists Stone Dogs to harness their Flame compositing expertise. Coincidentally, Brian Carbin, senior VFX artist and co-founder of Stone Dogs, was part of the team that worked on the origi- nal Yellow video. Wanting to make the video look more like Martin did over 20 years ago, the team was able to take the production to the next level and film the Martin at the band's studio, where he sang the Grace lyrics at double speed (50fps) with three 4K cameras. The video was then played back and slowed down, adding an additional layer of subtlety to match the original plate. The filmed material was then deepfaked further, helping to deliver a convincing AI performance. The VFX team included Brian Carbin, Dave Kiddie, Rufus Blackwell and Danny Coster. Irwin, who served as director and AI technical lead for Joyrider, led weeks of further R&D. A time/speed ramp effect was applied to a section of the film to bring the Yellow and Grace videos in sync. This speed effect was in keeping with the original creative narrative of time advancing. Additional time-warp effects were positioned over certain points of the video to take the viewer away from the original Yellow video and into an Idles-esque world. The grade was completed by Stone Dogs' colorist Mark Meadows. TAYLOR SWIFT HONORED IN SPOTIFY'S 'WRAPPED' CAMPAIGN Colorist Matthew Schwab played a pivotal role in bringing to life Spotify's "Wrapped" campaign for Taylor Swift. The work, which is gaining attention again following Swift's win for Album of the Year at the 66th Grammy Awards and the 2024 kick-off of the international leg of her Eras Tour, saw Schwab's expertise in color grading enhance the visual experience for millions of Swifties worldwide. Spotify's "Wrapped" initiative celebrates the top-streamed artists, albums, songs and podcasts of the year. It also provided users with personalized statis- tics, offering a unique reflection of their year in music. Taylor Swift was hailed as Spotify's most-streamed global artist, with more than 26B streams in 2023. The colorful work was directed by Believe Media's Floria Sigismondi and is set to sound design and a mix by Swell. The piece integrates Swift's music into the Spotify platform, where the progress bar transforms to match the color palette of each respective era. Additionally, select fans were treated to personalized messages of gratitude from Swift herself, along with exclusive shareable content. Schwab, alongside Flawless Post (https://flawlesspost.com), played an important role in ensuring the visual cohesion and impact of the campaign. Large practical sets were built to match CG backgrounds at Flawless, requiring seamless incorporation through color grading and VFX compositing. Drawing inspiration from artists such as Hieronymus Bosch, Andrew Wyeth and Chinese scrolls like Zhang Deduan's "Along the River During the Qingming Festival," Schwab employed his expertise to give the color a painterly, textural feeling, reminiscent of his own experience with oil and watercolor painting. He lever- aged tools like Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve to ensure consistency with the desired look set throughout the production process. "DaVinci Resolve 18.6 was a perfect tool for this project," Schwab explains. "For the practical video, I used a combination of layers in the edit tab, import- ing mattes, creating garbage mattes with alpha outputs and the new Magic Mask tool. For comparison to the digital art, I could grab value tones and color HEX codes to match grade. This versatility made sure the final look was consis- tent with the many practical and CG layers." Schwab's set-up included a Mac Studio M1 running Ventura, and a Sony BVM-HX310 monitor. "Working on Spotify's 'Wrapped' for Taylor Swift was an exhilarating expe- rience," says Schwab. "Being able to contribute to the visual storytelling of an artist of Taylor's caliber was truly inspiring. I'm immensely proud of the final re- sult and grateful for the opportunity to play a part in such an iconic campaign."