The Pitch

 

ENTER THE REAL WORLD HERE

Going into the pitch, I had a million and one ideas of how I would approach it with an emphasis on storytelling that fit the narrative of my idea.

A still image from my sizzle reel; the flowers that fly across the screen were illustrated and animated by me using Procreate.

I'd had an idea to try and present the pitch live, using deepfakes, from outside of the room as I thought this would be the best way to highlight the power and believability of the technology that would be used in the final product. 

In an ideal world, I'd have gone big with the pitch and had considered hiring a 'lookalike' actor to act as me, reading the pitch and presenting the idea without acknowledging the peculiar nature of the situation. I think that this would have related well to my idea of how quickly we can begin to accept something out of the ordinary, with the audience initially being hyper-aware of the presence of a stranger, and then quickly becoming desensitised to their presence, or 'truth' of the situation being presented to them.  

This idea was initially heavily influenced by my short ventures into AI image-making prior to the start of the unit, and I thought it was only appropriate to pay homage to this influence by including some of the AI images that I'd created. Using Midjourney to create AI imagery, and speaking to the ChatGPT bot made me acutely aware of the potential of AI, and how we're right at the cusp of a huge shift in how we consume technology (It's worth noting that I'm revisiting this post again on the 9th April 2023, and both ChatGPT 4.0 and Midjourney v5.0 have now been released with some incredible advances you can check out here, or here.)

A Midjourney AI-produced image based on a "Korean Horror"prompt 

There were certain obstacles that presented me issues around achieving both the pitch, and delivering a final product; some of which I was aware of from the outset, and others that presented themselves along the way. The most prominent technology available publicly right now for Deepfakes, is 'DeepfaceLab', a free downloadable software found online. It isn't as straightforward as simply downloading though- especially for Mac Users, as it is created for Windows computers and it incompatible. There is a way around this, however, but with every step came more and more complex hurdles. I initially installed 'Parallels' on my Mac, a software that emulates the Windows operating system (OS), after installing however, there were additional 'packages' that needed to be downloaded to help the program run and some of this required knowledge of coding in order to install and set-up- something that I have no knowledge of whatsoever! It became clear that in the short deadline before the pitch, this simply wasn't going to be possible; especially when taking into consideration the creation of a sizzle reel and other parts of the pitch presentation.

Another hurdle was fairly apparent from the beginning; in order to produce my idea, we'd have needed the whole group to upskill and learn different software including Metahuman, Unreal Engine and Deepfacelab, as well as the operational side of handling this software in a live environment. Within the timeframe we had, this simply would have been far too difficult to ensure that everyone could learn within the allotted time, or that everyone would have felt passionate enough about the project to invest so much energy in it.

A screenshot of one of Midjourney Prompts; and the resulting image.

With the current absence of whatever I like to call 'Thinking' TV in the mainstream, I thought about what Channel (Rather than a streaming service) might best suit this idea, it was critical, self-aware and cynical of the practices of TV and Media and would need the channel to be willing to explore this project of self-flagellation. The market shows a trend of declining trust in mainstream media (Person & Coster, 2022) and it seems like an interesting and appropriate time to tantalise the thoughts of those would-be cynics.

My 'REAL TALK' one-pager

I created a one-pager to accompany my pitch that was visually interesting and took the panel one step into detached reality- a QR code that opened the website I created, a metaphoric step inside of non-reality. I also found deepfakes of celebrities and decided to let the panel play a game and try to decide who was real, and who was computer generated. I felt that this appropriately demonstrated the power of the technology that I wanted to use and how easily things can be falsified.

Beautiful Baroque paintings, all created by 'Midjourney'.

For me, the sizzle reel was one of the biggest accomplishments of the Pitch and it really pushed my editing knowledge to another level! Choosing not to use pre-made transitions/effects, I made it my goal to learn how to create a glitch effect that enhanced the footage without detracting from the overall message; The glitch was representative of the shift between 'constructed reality' that we are presented by the media, and the 'reality' of a situation. Whilst I acknowledge that both terms could prove to be potentially problematic, it acts as a clear parameter to measure the conflicting imagery in the reel against. 

The juxtaposition between both of these forms of imagery needed to be recognisable, on the nose and also,  deeply cynical; painting the world 'behind the scenes' of Television and other media texts as completely entropic, the media baring responsibility for the packaging of these stories and making them into easily digestible morsels for the audience to eat up.

We're living in a time of tremendous technological advancement, (Which, of course, could have been said about the steam engine or the lightbulb) with AI advancing rapidly from infancy to something much, much bigger. The implications of this advancement, and the debate around it, should not be ignored, nor understated,  on the 19th February, Bing unveiled their own AI model, which has yielded some incredibly questionable results. (Yerushalmy, 2023)

(Vincent, 2023)

Well in retrospect of finishing my trailer,  I was watching a video on trailer editing, and came across the trailer for Stanley Kubrick's "Dr Strangelove". I was amazed by some of the similarities between my trailer and this one! This trailer gave me some ideas that in retrospect, I'd have loved to have implemented- still, it's a reassuring thought to have created something that bears any resemblance to a Kubrick feature.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Person and Coster, H. (2022) More people are avoiding the news, and trusting IT less, report says, Reuters. Thomson Reuters. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/more-people-are-avoiding-news-trusting-it-less-report-says-2022-06-14/ (Accessed: April 18, 2023). 

Yerushalmy, J. (2023) 'I want to destroy whatever I want': Bing's AI chatbot unsettles US reporter, The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/17/i-want-to-destroy-whatever-i-want-bings-ai-chatbot-unsettles-us-reporter (Accessed: February 19, 2023). 

Vincent, J. (2023) Microsoft's bing is an emotionally manipulative liar, and people Love it, The Verge. Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/15/23599072/microsoft-ai-bing-personality-conversations-spy-employees-webcams (Accessed: February 19, 2023). 

Dr. Strangelove (2018) YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPU1AYTxwg4 (Accessed: February 26, 2023). 

Iconic movie trailers, explained by a trailer editor (2023) YouTube. VOX. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r01fv4IXZ68&t=283s (Accessed: February 26, 2023).