Deepfake in Movies | Facts, Fiction & Future of Film Industry

We’ve seen Dwayne the Rock Johnson’s face swapped onto the fat body of Sione Kelepi in the famous Hollywood comedy/action film ‘Central Intelligence’. We witnessed Robert De Niro and Al Pacino defying the clutches of time in one of the greatest mafia-themed movies ‘The Irishman’. We even saw Cody Walker and Caleb Walker replacing Paul Walker (late) to continue filming the greatest car-racing movie series The Fast & the Furious. All of this was possible through deepfake in movies and it doesn’t stop here. Deepfake technology’s concept is also marketed in movies like ‘Red Notice’ in which Ryan Reynolds explicitly used the line “its deepfake time” while spoofing into Sotto Vocce’s artifact and collection vault using his smartphone having both deepfake video and voice clone.

AI Deepfakes have revolutionized the film industry in conceptualization and as a filmmaking technology helping filmmakers in multiple ways.

Deepfake Meaning and Overview

Deepfake or ‘Deep Fake’ is an interchangeably used term that refers to an image manipulation technology through which an entirely new yet fake identity (a digital being) is created. This new fake digital person can have all the attributes of a human being except that in reality, it doesn’t exist. Deepfake is synthetic media that employs deep learning, neural networks, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to create highly realistic and convincing images, voices, and videos of real-life people or sometimes swap a person with another. 

The Use of Deepfakes in Filmmaking

Numerous films used deepfakes to enhance their filmmaking and the appearance of actors on the screen. Most Filmmakers and animation specialists have used CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) to create actor doubles of aging or dead actors. As mentioned in the beginning, many films employed CGI doubles and De-aging camera tricks. 

Here are the top 3 films that used CGI-powered deepfake technology creating deepfake of actors to facilitate filmmaking.

Movie	Details	Cover
Central Intelligence	Released in 2016, the movie used CGI to create a face swap of Dwayne the Rock Johnson over Sione Kelepi’s face to show him fat in his youth.
Fast and Furious 7	Before the movie could be released, Paul Walker (the second lead hero) dies in a tragic accident. His brothers Cody Walker and Caleb Walker were honored to complete the film and be used as CGI doubles using their facial features and matching them with Paul’s digitally, to create his deepfake.
The Irishman	The 3-hour masterpiece on mafia and American labor union portraying Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) and Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) were both aged and de-aged using CGI deepfake technology throughout the entire film.

How AI Deepfakes Helped Filmmaking?

Different technological models have enhanced the realism in the results of deepfake creation. Movies employ deepfakes to overcome the aging factor of famous actors, the resurrection of dead ones (guest appearances mostly), or to enhance the overall picture quality on a lower budget. If we dig into the concept deeply, abundant research has been published proving that deepfakes are quite helpful in filmmaking. For example, FSGAN (Face Swapping GAN) has helped in mitigating the error due to partial occlusion present on target and source pictures and create a smooth transition in deepfake videos. 

Pablo Hilman, the visual effect supervisor of the Irishman employed infrared cameras surrounding the movie camera to capture the aged actors’ faces at all times, divided two teams to develop each movie scene captured and age or de-age actor’s face appearances without interfering with their performance. Other deepfake movies are created in a much similar way except for the change of recording devices and cameras but the concept remains the same.

There’s No Need for Training GAN or Similar Models for Making Deepfake Movies

As the movie-tech has advanced, the need for training AI and Machine Learning models for deepfake has also reduced to a minimum. FSGAN’s proposed model brought eye-opening insights through its graphical demonstration and real-time video play having deepfake injection attacks using face swaps. This concept has paved the way for producing much better quality movies that can employ actors from the past or create new ones.

How Hollywood Movies Idealize Deepfake Technology in Films?

If you have watched the movie ‘Red Notice’ carefully, Ryan Reynolds plays the role of a world-class art thief who attempts to open the vault of Sotto Vocce using AI deepfake. He even uses the line “Its deepfake time.” However, one must know that the use of deepfake through a video replay as shown in red notice is a pure exaggeration as in real-world deepfakes like this won’t go undetected as facial recognition tools have also enhanced their quality.

How Movies on Deepfakes Can Contribute to Society

Movies are inarguably the most impactful tool having the power to change the mindset of the masses. Films can positively impact people by raising awareness against the negative use of deepfake technology. There’s a need to highlight the importance of facial recognition technology for detecting deepfake attacks. Documentaries, action films, and other Sci-Fi genres can be flooded with true story-based as well as fiction portraying deepfakes as a threat. The audience should also understand that deepfake technology itself is not a crime but its use for identity theft, spoofing attempts, and fraud certainly is.