The AI Robot creative apocalypse is coming!!
“Before we work on artificial intelligence why don’t we do something about natural stupidity”
We have as a species been fascinated by the possibility and threat of AI and automata (robots) for millennia. One of our favourites is a chess-playing robot in 1770, the Mechanical Turk. that wowed the courts of Europe until exposed as, in fact, a series of grandmasters hiding in a box. So when Amazon was humiliated after it was revealed that their AI-powered physical drop-in shop was fraudulent, and actually powered by 100s of underpaid and under-credited people in India, the seed of this project was firmly planted.
Charlie gets ready!
Lensing Leon
“The sad thing about artificial intelligence is that it lacks artifice and therefore intelligence.”
But why make a little film that lampoons us as much as our industry? The simplest answer, and perhaps most collectively true, is that we were quiet at 16oz (as much of the media world was in early 2024) and wanted to have some fun! It truly was that - it was amazing to watch our actors taking big swings at their lines, and an unforeseen delight in being a little bit crap with some of the technical aspects of our filmmaking. Overall, it was a wonderful and somewhat cathartic experience.
If this film finds an interested audience we have many more comic and informative journeys for Laika to take. So please do encourage us if you want to see these realised!
the future is
Now, we do always start any new relationship or collaboration focusing on the creative (the important bit) and try to be as straight-forward and honest about the technology and tools we use as filmmakers. However, we are sometimes incentivised to collude with the all-pervasive, ongoing, creatively impotent fetishisation of many different innovations and technologies that is systemic throughout the film and TV industry.
Don’t worry, we’re not active evil conspirators. A boring version of Hanlon’s razor applies: “Never attribute to malice or stupidity that which can be explained by moderately rational individuals following incentives in a complex system.” Despite a lack of malice, this film in some way serves as a penance for any collusion with our client’s desire to believe we are ‘trend coherent’ in our process. This film is also an open invitation to have more honest conversations with us about both our true abilities and the sometimes amazing tools we use.
Charlie and Steve!
Of course, film is a technology-bound medium, both in its construction and in its distribution. So creatively curious people are often excited by any fresh technology, especially anything that allows the advancement of film’s ability to capture, create, or explore the world in new ways. When asked in a 1958 interview for Cahiers du Cinema why he exclusively used Angenieux’s brand new 18.5mm lens for his film Touch of Evil, Orson Welles answered with frustrating prosaicness, “it was because no one else had.”
Red heads and HMI's working together
We are not disputing the world is being changed significantly with the use, and more confusingly the promise, of AI technology. But the muddled and desperate claims being acted upon within the film and TV industry show us to be a confused, insecure community that has perhaps forgotten (if we ever truly knew) what film’s true strength and purpose is.
“By far, the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.”
Our studio obviously made the little drinks ad partly spoofed within the piece. If creatively limited, it is always only by the why, not usually by the how. We never want to forget this as we explore new AI tools. For what it’s worth, we also use and love robots! (Robots have always especially delighted this author, and he was as excited by Can’t Help Myself by Sun Yuan and Peng Yu as he was seeing Robbie in Forbidden Planet as a 6 year old…).
So is there an easy moral to this story? Yes and no. But to slightly misquote Akira Kurosawa, if we could tell you in words, we wouldn’t have had to make the film ;-). Anyways, we do hope you get a little laugh.
“The true creative apocalypse will be fuelled by a curious mix of anthropocentric arrogance and the fetishizing of technology.”
This Story's Characters:
GEORGIA RICHARDSON as “Laika”
LAIKA is the attractive face of youthful ambition, trying desperately to work her way into the industry using new media, positivity and performative curiosity. Perhaps it is her subconscious that protects her commercial interests and allows her to see the Emperor’s new clothes.
LEON OCKENDEN as “Gunter Glass”
Everyone in film has met a GUNTER: as much a salesman as a real “creative,” hiding in new tech cloaked in masculine myths, subconsciously terrified by his looming irrelevance.
RITA ROSA MONTEIRO as “Jerk" and ”CHARLIE PERERA as “Jolt”
The robots remind us that behind it all are people! JOLT and JERK are working in an unsustainable situation, making others look great but ultimately without credit or opportunities.
ELIZABETH BOWER as “Linda”
Hardworking LINDA has ended up with an impossible H+S job. She needs others to hear her and take her job seriously, but unfortunately she doesn’t know what her real role is.
The little incredulous boy is played by the camera person in this tale.
Of course this film is a re-working of the HCA The Emperor's New Clothes and the role of the small boy is played out mute by the camera’s incredulous lens.
Played by:
GEORGIA RICHARDSON “Laika”
LEON OCKENDEN “Gunter Glass” / Associate producer
ELIZABETH BOWER “Linda”
CHARLIE PERERA “Jolt Robot” / GUI Designer
RITA ROSA MONTEIRO “Jerk Robot” / Art Director
Natural stupidity by:
MICHAEL LINDSAY “Junk Robot” / Director + Writer
TAMSIN LOWER Producer
BRENDAN MCGINTY “Camera Operator” / DP
STEVE HOPKINS Sound Recordist
SERKAN NIHAT Editor
TRAVIS HEFFEREN Sound Designer
HASADRI FREEMAN “1st AD” / Script Supervisor
DAVID WYATT “Tech Nerd” / BTS Videography
CRISTIANO ABIS Playback / GX
PANOS DAMASKINIDIS BTS Photographer
SOPHIE COHEN “Drink Stylist” / Wardrobe
ABI LAWAL “Tech Nerd Assistant”
VIOLA WYSZYNSKA “Gaffer“
EMMA JANSON “Production Assistant”
PAUL GILL AI Consultant
Firestone Walker 'Krieky Bones' Ad created completely in-house with robotic movement provided by Richard Taylor.
We really do hope you enjoy this little film and please shout out if you would like to see (or even help in) Laika-woof’s future film adventures!
Michael Lindsay