Swedish movie ‘Watch the Skies’ to release in the US with AI dubbing

Swedish UFO movie Watch the Skies is set for a release in theaters across the United States in May. While the movie has done a little to grab attention, one detail is putting it in the spotlight. According to reports, when the movie is released, its viewers won’t be able to tell that it was not made in the English language.

According to reports, the movie will be dubbed in English using generative artificial intelligence (AI). The movie will feature a pre-record English language dialogue matched with the on-screen performance of the actors, thanks to AI. The makers mentioned that the movie features a ‘visual dubbing’ technology from AI firm Flawless. This technology enables the performances of actors to be digitally lip-synced with foreign language dubs.

Watch the Skies to feature AI visual dubbing

Watch the Skies follows the story of a rebellious teenager Denise, who teams up with a club of UFO watchers to solve the mystery of her missing father. The movie was originally shot by Swedish actors under the title UFO Sweden. However, for its release in the United States, Flawless has used its True sync machine learning technology to digitally alter their lip movements so that they are in sync with the dialogue in English. The casts have also pre-recorded their performances in English, making sure it is perfect.

Director-writer of the movie, Victor Danelle, has hailed the impact of Flawless on the movie, noting that it will help the movie reach a wider audience. “Flawless and their technology allows us to release the film for a much larger audience,” Danelle said. The filmmakers mentioned that the use of the technology and the technique has the full backing and endorsement of the SAG. The SAG is the actors’ union that went on strike in 2023 amid concerns over the threat of AI to the acting profession.

Danell mentioned that the technology may terrify a lot of actors and get displeasure from the general public, but it is entirely being controlled by the team. He added that they decided to dub the movie in English, adding that it is still the same movie and the same actors, just in different languages. “A lot of filmmakers and a lot of actors will be afraid of this technology at first, but we have the creative control, and to act out the film in English was a real exciting experience. It’s still our movie, it’s still the actors’ performance, and that’s the key part,” he said.

TrueSync technology and the displeasure of AI in movies

According to the co-founder of Flawless Scott Mann in a 2023 presentation, the company’s TrueSync technology uses deep learning to create a volumetric 3D representation of the face of the actors throughout a movie. The technology is then used to alter their faces to match the language that they want to be dubbed in. TrueSync has been previously used in the 2022 movie Fall, with the production making use of the technology to remove swearing for a PG-13 edit.

The company has also been involved in other products that could benefit the acting industry, with one of its products, DeepEditor, being used by editors to extract an actor’s performance from one scene and apply it to another scene without the need to reshoot the scene. The company also entered into a partnership with distributor XYZ Films to release other features localized using TrueSync, including Run Lola Run director Tom Tykwer’s upcoming movies The Light, horror feature Vincent Must Die, and South Korean movie Smugglers.

While this feature appears to go down with most people, there has been a wider displeasure over the use of AI in movies, with the recent one coming in the docuseries “American Murder: Gabby Petito,” which Netflix released last month. The platform faced criticism for using AI to generate the voice of the deceased character the series portrayed, sparking backlash from the populace. At the time, even the parents of the deceased mentioned that it was weird hearing an AI-generated voice of their daughter, but mentioned that they gave Netflix the go-ahead for the series.

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