Deep Fakes

What is a deepfake? Is a piece of footage that is manipulated by artificial intelligence with someone with the same likeness and same voice to generate visual and audio content with a high potential to deceive.

Even though they can be amusing, deep fakes are very dangerous especially used in a political agenda (for example using them as a form of propaganda as well as stealing someone's identity.)

Deep Fakes are used a lot in the world of VFX. For example in Fast and Furious, after Paul walkers death, they used his brother and used the deep fake technique to replace the brothers face with Paul walkers.

I believe it is possible to expose a deepfake. Not every deepfake is flawless and you can see in certain frames when it's blurry or when the mouth isn't moving properly. And if the actor looks completely different to the face it's going to get replaced by it can look uncanny.

Keywords: Illusion, Manipulation, Identity, Deception, Propaganda, Uncanny Valley, Trust, Clones

Potential Essay Topics?

Deep fakes, bending reality. Is everything we seem and see just a dream or reality?

- Failed deep fakes, uncanny valley and invisible effects

Developing Ideas

Reviewing a past assignment

I decided to review the essay "Invisible Visual Effects – invisible or impossible?". I believe that even though you need a description of what are Visual effects, you need to keep it short especially since the question of the essay is quite broad. Concentrate more on the topic than taking more words to describe something that people genuinely know about. It's great that they talked about special effects. The use of the film Forest Gump as an example for this essay is excellent. The topic of this essay is a really hard one, and you could debate about this for ages (just like the Uncanny Valley) because people see things differently and I don't ever think you can have a certain Yes or a certain No to the question.

Developing my essay

I have started to break down areas of what I want to research about deep fakes, for example the pros and cons of them. By using a mind map, I can have a clear visual representation of what needs to be done.

Keywords: Illusion, Manipulation, Identity, Deception, Propaganda, Uncanny Valley, Trust, Clones, Film, Visual Effects, Digital necromancy

Bibliography :
"Performing illusions: cinema, special effects and the virtual actor" Dan North
https://medium.com/the-ai-issue-weapons-of-reason/crossing-the-uncanny-valley-63dc24f78815

https://www.darkreading.com/authentication/the-rise-of-deepfakes-and-what-that-means-for-identity-fraud

Filmography:

Fast and Furious (Paul walker) https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/how-furious-7-brought-late-845763/
The Mandalorian (Mark Hamill) https://www.creativebloq.com/news/star-wars-deepfake
Star wars (Peter Cushing & Carrie Fischer) https://collider.com/deepfakes-explained-better-movies-worse-society/

Deepfakes, Visual effects trick or treat?

In this essay I will be researching the pros and cons of deepfakes, and how to debunk them.
I will do this by using examples within the film industry (Star wars, Fast and furious, etc)

Essay Proposal

Literature Review

Edwards, G (2014) ‘Visual Effects – Art or Science?’ Available at: https://cinefex.com/blog/art-science/(accessed: 28 October 2021)

Edwards questions whether Visual effects in the digital age is more scientific or more Artistic and questions if it’s more important that a shot looks artistically correct or one that obeys the laws of science. By asking visual effect artists that currently work in the industry and his own research, Edwards concludes that you need both, however artistic license still must be taken on natures laws to truly tell the writer’s story. No matter which you think is correct, both ideals exist and always will, for not every film fits in the same category or aims for the same message: for every documentary grounded in realism, its science fiction fantasy counterpart exists, and everything in between. The difference between realism and and artistic licence is a wide spectrum. It is the filmmakers that must decide where on the spectrum there work lands or fits. It has never been realistic or artistic, it has and always will be both.

Bode, L. (2021) 'Special Issue: The Digital Face and Deepfakes on Screen', Convergence, 27 (4) pp. 849–854

A human’s face has always been the first topic in the critical artistic world. Lisa Bode’s article investigates the power, consequences and responses that a deep fake and a digital recreation of a face has on our screens. Bode goes through several scenarios and instances from the last century in which the use of digital imagery either arose suspicion or aided technology: from the initial worries of actors towards the medium to the technological implication of face recognition software, lisa’s article concludes itself with more questions than answers as this is still an emerging and developing technology/ medium. For instance will the government step in and start regulating what can be done or shown on screen or whether companies around the world will jump at the opportunity that is essentially a new way to market products. Time will tell.

Strutt, D. (2019) The Digital Image and Reality: Affect, Metaphysics and Post-Cinema. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press)

Lecturer in film theory Dan Strutt, explores media and upcoming technologies and the effect it has on our relationship with reality. By researching philosophers from the beginning of time to now, Strutt asks the reader and comes to the conclusion that digital media, in a way, completely alters our perception of the world around us, even reality itself. It not only grants the audience an alternative way to perceive what goes on around them, it also enables and allows both the audience and film= makers to partake in speculative world building, ergo, possibilities to alternative realities. Digital media offers everyone taking part in it a set of tools to perceive the world in a different light but most importantly it grants us the opportunity to do the same with the worlds created by our communal imagination.

Toews, R (2020)’ Deepfakes Are Going To Wreak Havoc On Society. We Are Not Prepared’. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robtoews/2020/05/25/deepfakes-are-going-to-wreak-havoc-on-society-we-are-not-prepared/?sh=5b2b6f307494

Rob Toews approaches deepfakes technology in a way that most things have been pictured at some point or another: “this is bad for America and will destroy it from the inside out”. Completely omitting any credit to deepfakes possible creative and artistic impact, he spends the whole article listing events in that classic alarmist fashion, trying to prove how this technology will destroy the world as we know it. While there is an aspect of deepfakes which is rightfully concerning, this article fails to understand the absolute awe-inspiring progress that has been achieved in recent years with artificial intelligence, and instead focuses on the most harmful possible scenarios. From political activism forgery to pornographic imagery without consent, Toews paints an apocalyptic picture of a world where truth and witness footage are no longer trustful sources. Toews conclusion seems to be that this is an unavoidable route for the medium and society due to the anonymity and unruly nature of the internet, regulating content on the web is as impossible as the spread deepfakes is inevitable (according to Toews).