Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1517009
j a n u a r y • f e b r u a r y • m a r c h 2 0 2 4 c g w 2 5 How does it work? I asked just how AI works to do these miracles—it's based on a mul- titude of models and training from them. "So the model basically is trained on an original image and thou- sands of those model pairs," Yamnitsky explains. AI examines these model pairs and extrapolates needed correc- tion based on the cleanest iteration. But doesn't this require memory capacity out of the range of desktop users? "This is where the most challenge comes in, because you see, all those models require a very large footprint on your computer," says Yamnitsky. "If you install all the soware that's necessary to run that, it's like gigabytes and gigabytes, where typically, a lightweight plug- in product, which is easily downloaded, installed within seconds on your machine is much smaller…Our goal is to have everything on your editing machine right there, isolated. So we streamline the data points in each filter to enough memory to handle a limited amount of AI computations for each particular filter." Looking toward the future "In the future, many of the image restoration and cleanup tasks will basically be integrated," says Yamnitsky. "It can do things like beauty shots. It can do things like color correction, de-noising, sharpening, anything that makes your clips look better. For color grading, you will be able to put a model of a look you want from a film, or choose from a preselected group of images and have AI process, like a LUT. I can- not say it will take the place of a good colorist, but it will be pretty good. They may come from different cameras. They may come from different formats, shot at different times of the day, with different lighting. It's happening. It's just a matter of development." How soon? "I think 2024 will be a very big year for AI and tools," states the BorisFX founder. "There are already titles on the market that kind of attempt to do that. And there'll be many more because the technology is out there. The algorithms are out there. It's just a matter of programming them, writing code, implementing them." What does this mean for the editor? "This is the beauty of it," says Yamnitsky. "If you look at Continuum, the noise filter is basically drag and drop. Noise filters usually require a lot of tweaking. But here, you drag and drop, and it knows every- thing. There is very little that you can control. You can probably make [it] stronger or weaker. That's about it. You play it back. You don't like something, you go back to your project, open that filter, move the slider and now render again." Text-based effects "We're experimenting with text-based prompts to drive the effect," shares Yamnitsky. "You should be able to describe the desired out- come as text prompts, as opposed to just numerical parameters to mess with. Make the flare wider or glow purple…things like that." The future of BorisFX Over the years, BorisFX has grown through the acquisitions of com- panies like Mocha, SynthEyes, Silhouette, and Optics, corralling the market for 3D camera tracking, effects creation, rotoscoping, and more. I had to ask Boris whether there was a grand plan, and how he chose these companies. His answer surprised me, as I thought it was the technology that attracted him. "The people," he explains. "People who are talented. People who are capable, knowledgeable, cool, and driven. Yeah. People who want their products to succeed. I never buy to destroy. Okay? I always want the new company to flourish and the soware to do extremely well." What's next? "In the future, I envision that you should be able to just go around with a camera, shoot random things, shoot some people…I want a movie about something like this. And then AI will actually make that movie for you. Not entirely. Not without supervision. Right? But it will help create something that is your vision as the creator." "I always hear this argument: AI [is] replacing people. Is AI cre- ativity replacing human creativity? No, absolutely not. Actually, it's a powerful technology [that] will allow us to make better and more advanced visuals as humanity advances forward." "The company has grown. [It] started in 1995, and has grown from one person to about 70 people worldwide. It's a different challenge and a different kind of excitement to build a company of that size, and to serve so many customers in so many different markets and so many different workflows. I'm extremely excited about what I'm doing now. And like I said, 2024 is going to be a big year for everybody, and for AI."