Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1538125
By Jennifer Walden I n M a y 2 0 2 1 , F l a w l e s s r e l e a s e d TrueSync, an AI-powered visual dub- bing tool that helps refine localization results by generating new lip movements mapped to the new language audio. It has helped to bridge the language gap of sto- rytelling because when the visual lip-sync matches the dialogue delivery, the perfor- mance feels more natural, allowing the audience to connect with the story and the characters. The development of TrueSync led the team at Flawless to apply the concept of lip-sync matching in a new, creativi- ty-driven way. Their latest tool, DeepEditor (released in February 2025), utilizes perfor- mance-based AI to match lip movements to new dialogue, enabling editors to preserve the actor's emotional delivery even when lines are altered. While TrueSync is a func- tional solution for improving localization lip-sync (i.e., changing from the original language to a new one), DeepEditor is a creative tool for changing dialogue content while preserving the actor's lip-synced performance on screen. Let's say a director wants to remove excessive profanity from the actors' on-set performances. Instead of cutting away GOING DEEP HOW CAN FLAWLESS AI'S DEEPEDITOR BE USEFUL IN POST? from an actor's face to hide dialogue edits, the director can have the dialogue editor re- move the offensive words. Then the picture editor can use DeepEditor to generate lip movements for the edited dialogue. This is precisely what director Scott Mann did for his film "Fall." Editor Rob Hall was able to use the new profanity-free dialogue scenes in his cut, effectively changing the film's R rating to PG-13, making it watchable for a broader audience. According to the F lawless website, DeepEditor uses a patented deep learning process called "DeepCapture" that takes a detailed 4D scan of the actor's existing per- formance, learns the actor's intricacies and nuances, and then creates a visual result for the new dialogue that's driven by the actor's original performance. (So, it's not "puppeteered" or faked by someone else). Scott Mann, Co-Founder & Co-CEO at Flawless, is a DGA director, WGA writer, and producer. He's worked with A-list actors such as Robert De Niro, Pierce Brosnan, Da- vid Bautista, Robert Carlyle, Kate Bosworth, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Bruce Willis. In addition to "Fall" (2022), he's directed "Final Score" (2018), "Heist" (2015), "The Tournament" (2009), and series such as "The Oath" and "Six." His passion for film- making runs parallel to his lifelong passion for science, innovation, and storytelling. Mann and Flawless Co-CEO & Founder Nick Lynes are I-X Fellows at Imperial College London, working with the institution's cutting-edge AI research center. Mann said, "Flawless has been about building technologies that transform, augment, and revolutionize the filmmaking workflow. The Flawless technologies we've been building aim to make f ilmmaking better from the filmmakers' perspective, whether that's the actors, directors, editors, and so on. Making film productions is very hard, and often there are huge amounts of creative compromise. The tools we're P H OT O : F L AW L E S S A I . MASKING TAPE: A screenshot from Flawless workflow. 36 C I N E M O N T A G E T E C H Rob Hall.