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Uzone.id – Respeecher Technology make the film ‘The Brutalist‘ who directed by Brady Corbet has been a hot topic. After winning three Golden Globes, the internet then found out that this movie was using AI in post-production to smooth out the Hungarian accents of Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones – and the rest of the cast.
Seeing his film becoming a topic of conversation everywhere, Corbet opened his voice. He explained that what Brody and Jones performed was their own. The entire film cast has been practicing for months with dialect coaches to perfect their accents.
“Innovative Respeecher technology is used only in the editing of Hungarian dialogues, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters to be accurate. No English has been changed. This is a manual process, which is carried out by our voice team and Respeecher in post-production. The goal is to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s appearance in other languages, not to replace or change it,” said Brady Corbet, quoted from Deadline.
What’s Innovative Respeecher Technology?
Respeecher Technology itself is a speech synthesis software based on Ukrainian artificial intelligence. Alex Serdiuk developed this technology as CEO with Dmytro Bielievtsov and Grant Reaber with an investment of $150,000 in 2018.
Respeecher first became known to the public after they altered the voice of Mark Hamill (Star Wars star) to sound younger for Disney’s hit show, ‘The Mandalorian’.
When the show aired, none of the viewers of ‘The Mandalorian’ noticed it. It was only six months later that Disney itself revealed this fact.
Respeecher helps film producers use the voices of deceased actors. It also assists laryngectomy patients by recreating their voices for electronic voice boxes. Respeecher is a top choice for Hollywood studios. It has over 300 clients, including Sony, Netflix, and Warner Bros. The company has worked on more than 170 projects.
The production team of ‘The Brutalist’ used AI to smooth accents during editing. They also used generative AI to create architectural blueprints and buildings for the film’s closing sequence.
Brady Corbet emphasized that he and his team did not use AI to create or render buildings. In ‘The Brutalist,’ artists deliberately designed all images to look like bad 1980s digital renderings.
What ‘The Brutalist’ does is a common practice that many production houses follow. Similar to what the ‘Emilia Perez’ production team did—both using Respeechers—to increase the reach of Karla Sofía Gascón’s singing at the time, who played the character of Emilia Pérez.
However, what exactly makes these two films a conversation?
The controversy started because AI was a key issue in the negotiations. This occurred during the SAG-AFTRA strike. The Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild of America were protesting against Hollywood studios in 2023.
At the time, the SAG-AFTRA union went on strike after it disagreed with AMPTP on working conditions, compensation structures, and threats to its work, including AI. The SAG-AFTRA union revealed that the presence of AI has raised various difficult creative and legal questions.
Seeing what is happening in Hollywood today, while using AI in film production is still a serious and sensitive conversation, it is unsurprising that ‘The Brutalist’ is a conversation. Moreover, ‘The Brutalist’ has just received a significant award, one of which is for Adrien Brody, who won Best Actor.
In an interview, Dávid Jancsó, a film editor, revealed that talking about AI should be an open discussion, not something controversial.
“This film does not feature any unprecedented AI applications. AI just makes the process a lot faster. We use AI to create small details that we can’t record because we don’t have money or time,” said Dávid Jancsó as quoted by Deadline.
