Who's In This Podcast
Helen Todd is co-founder and CEO of Sociality Squared and the human behind Creativity Squared.
Nem Perez is a distinguished film director, with 20 years of expertise in creative technology and a decade as a distinguished film director.
Sway Molina is a dynamic force in the creative world, seamlessly blending his roles as an actor, filmmaker, and technologist.
Ben Nash is a visionary Full Stack Creator who marries design, code, and artistic flair to craft digital products, websites, fabricated signage, and A.I. art.
YouTube 
Ep33. “OUR T2 REMAKE”: Discover How 50 A.I. Artists Collaborated on this A.I.-Created Feature Film to Reimagine Terminator 2 as a Parody with Nem Perez, Sway Molina, and Ben Nash
For our last episode of 2023, we have a special holiday edition of Creativity Squared featuring the amazing minds behind “OUR T2 REMAKE,” which is one of the first full-length feature films created using only artificial intelligence. You’re in for a treat to hear the making of this innovative Terminator 2 parody that flips the script on A.I. Instead of destroying the world, “OUR T2 REMAKE” showcases how A.I. can empower artists, open a new genre of filmmaking, and reimagine what’s possible with human creativity powered by A.I. tools.
Join today’s conversation with the film’s executive producers Nem Perez and Sway Molina, and another A.I. artist, Ben Nash, who’s also a previous Creativity Squared guest.
Nem and Sway collaborated with 50 of the best A.I. video artists from around the world to bring this film to life. “OUR T2 REMAKE” reimagines the classic film through the creation of 50 unique, original works, each lasting 3 to 4 minutes. This experimental film, which has no affiliation with the Terminator franchise or its creators, celebrates the A.I. artist community by showcasing each artist’s own unique style for each of their scenes.
With 20 years of expertise in creative technology and a decade as a distinguished film director, Nem Perez is a trailblazer in the entertainment industry. Born in Chicago and now based in Los Angeles, Nem seamlessly blends his passion for technology with compelling narratives. Nem’s portfolio boasts collaborations with notable clients like Disney, Walmart, and Converse, showcasing his versatility and adaptability. He’s also directed music videos for Mac Miller, Nipsey Hussel, and Chance The Rapper. In 2023 Nem founded Storyblocker, an A.I. company geared towards helping filmmakers visualize their stories with ease. With an eye on the future, Nem Perez remains committed to pushing the envelope, breaking new ground, and shaping the narrative of tomorrow’s creative landscape.
Born in Los Angeles and of Latin American descent, Sway Molina is a dynamic force in the creative world, seamlessly blending his roles as an actor, filmmaker, and technologist. Renowned for his innovative approach, he leverages Generative A.I. to craft compelling narratives marked by humor. Sway is at the forefront of merging film, animation, and cutting-edge technology. Based in Miami and a dedicated father of three, his work stands as a testament to his unique perspective and unwavering creative prowess.
Ben Nash, a visionary Full Stack Creator based in Cincinnati, Ohio, marries industrial design, code, and artistic and musical talents to craft digital products, websites, fabricated signage, art, music, and video content. As a Full Stack Developer by day and an artist by night, Ben is a force to be reckoned with in both domains. He is an expert frontend developer, UX designer, and an accomplished artist using A.I. tools, embodying his mantras: “Form Follows Function, Add Style” and “Thinking Big and Iterating Daily.” When Ben isn’t contributing financially to open-source web development tools or leading Cincinnati’s burgeoning A.I. scene, he extends his expertise to hosting intellectual conversations about A.I. and A.I. art on various social media platforms, including hosting thought-provoking Twitter/X Spaces.
In today’s episode, you’ll hear how they are using artificial intelligence as a tool, a creative outlet, and a form of self-expression. You’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the “OUR T2 REMAKE,” including their innovative Discord workflows, and what message these artists have for Hollywood.
They just wrapped up the principal photography and are aiming to announce when the film will be released very soon, so follow them online to learn how to watch it this holiday.
Sign up for our newsletter to not miss any of our weekly A.I. news until we’re back with new interviews in 2024. For the Creativity Squared podcast, this is Hasta La Vista until February 2024!
Just as the T-800 saves humanity in Terminator 2, this remake demonstrates A.I. unleashing creativity, not destruction — Enjoy!
The Origins
So, how did this all start?
Nem was the one responsible for the birth of the idea, which he envisioned while he was on vacation this past summer.
“It was actually inspired by watching the community.”
Nem Perez
At the time, he was heavily involved with the A.I. community, which had been booming all around the world. More specifically, he was also intrigued by Sway’s own thriving A.I. community that he had been building. As Nem explains it, every day, there were more and more artists showing their amazing talents in the A.I. space in incredible, new, and inspiring ways. And he thought, ‘What can we all do together?’
With that curiosity pioneering the way, Nem explains that he recalled a film that came out a decade prior, where filmmakers got together and recreated the movie Robocop as a parody. They added their own style and their own vision in rewriting the whole film.
With the idea and the inspiration in place, Nem reached out to Sway to officially get the ball rolling on the new project, and as they say, the rest is history.
From Sway’s perspective, he explains how A.I. at that time was absolutely taking over the Internet in a way that couldn’t be ignored, especially on one of his favorite social networks, X (formerly Twitter), a central hub of community building and activity.
“Many people started to notice the shift. The shift of the climate inside of Twitter wasn’t that toxic, crazy Twitter anymore. It was very creative, like the internet in the 90s kind of type of thing.”
Sway Molina
Sway wanted to tap into this exciting new landscape. Acknowledging Nem’s own work and engagement in the A.I. space, the duo teamed up to learn more and dive in headfirst.
One of their first steps led them to connect with Ben, as he was one of the early A.I. art influencers in the space, especially on X. This connection introduced them to the vast community of other creative A.I. artists as well, collaborating and learning from each other online.
“Now I’m nurturing my own community and connecting with so many people. And I’m just impressed by the technology. While there’s another group of people who are fearing A.I., we’re embracing it. And we’re seeing the power and how it’s bringing everyone together. And ultimately, that’s what the Terminator 2 remake is all about. It’s just collaborating and bringing creators together.”
Sway Molina
The Project Timeline
The idea was born in August, and the website was created simultaneously. Outreach to artists was the next step. Some were hand-selected; others were given the opportunity to audition. A Discord community was formed, and the project was off to the races in only a month or so after the idea came to fruition.
In late September, they had an international kick-off call with all of the fifty chosen artists, which Ben describes as an incredible launch to the project.
“It was the first time most of us had seen any other person’s faces or even heard each other’s voices. We’d all been friends online. That was one of the most magical moments I’ve ever had on the internet ever, was this call alone.”
Ben Nash
After the kick-off call, the artists chose their scenes through an innovative “store” that Nem put together. Each scene was chosen on a first-come, first-serve basis, with one scene assigned to each artist.
Showcasing A.I. Artists
One of the most important and prominent parts of this project was the artists themselves getting the opportunity to showcase their talents.
“The goal was always to bring a bunch of creators together to do this. Because it was all about the community from the beginning. It was all about showcasing the artists that are in this space just blowing me away with their talents. So it was always about the community.”
Nem Perez
The featured artists in the film brought different perspectives to the work from their diverse experiences. They ranged from graphic designers, directors, producers, painters, people with absolutely no creative background, and more. It even gave some an outlet to showcase their artistic ability, whereas otherwise, they may not have felt comfortable doing so.
“A lot of people will hide behind avatars because they’re so involved in the industry, and since A.I. is such a touchy subject, but they’re still curious to try. And they actually embrace the technology. They do have to hide behind these identities.”
Sway Molina
Innovative A.I. Film Workflows
The project’s Discord server functioned as a central command hub through the production process. Using Discord in this way was innovative, and a wildly successful way to be collaborative, to learn together, to offer tips and resources when needed, and to celebrate each other’s wins.
Nem, who has worked on large million-dollar film projects throughout his career, explained how using the platform this way was something that he loved doing and also something that he had never seen done before in the movie production industry.
The basic breakdown of the workflow was that every artist had their own channel, where they could present and showcase their behind-the-scenes work. The artists working on the film could click on a specific scene and see real-time updates on each of the Discord channels. This led to seamless collaboration and learning from one another, which was not only beneficial for the progression of the project but also boosted morale for everyone. After all, the artists were all contributing their time and resources on a voluntary basis, unpaid, and working for the experience and exposure of a first-of-its-kind project.
“The artists are volunteering, so we can’t demand much. So the most we could do is inspire them. Give them a space where there could be some sort of accountability, motivation, and also just to be a cheerleader.”
Sway Molina
Once the film is finished, the team is planning on releasing a behind-the-scenes video to showcase all the different tactics that everyone used. Also, it’ll dive into all the various elements and processes that are in Discord so that people can see how deep the workflows actually run.
“People didn’t just press a button, and this came out of it. People really put a lot of thought into this, a lot of craft into this.”
Nem Perez
All the Different Styles & Approaches
The artists, from a multitude of different backgrounds with complete creative freedom, tackled their scenes in unique ways, which was exactly the pair’s goal; to represent all mediums of A.I. art. Each scene was the artist’s unique representation of the original scene, with the flare of their own artistic talents and humor injected into it.
“It’s supposed to be a reinterpretation of the scene but yet still have the same narrative, right? The same progression of the film so it could feel like it’s cohesive, like it’s part of this one big thing. But it’s still chaotic. It’s still inspirational. It’s a little bit of madness when you see it. But it’s very inspiring because again, the goal is to showcase what A.I. can do and what everyone was capable of doing, with little experience, or with a lot experience.”
Sway Molina
Some created their scenes entirely in 3D, others were their own actors with a filter over them while shooting their scenes, some scenes were done only in 2D, others used traditional animation, some were experts exclusively in stills, and another used A.I. to compose the music for the trailer of the film. Not only did the artists’ approaches to their individual scenes come from different areas of expertise, but they also showcased the massive and growing plethora of tools for A.I. artists.
“When you see the film, you’ll see how each scene will progress from different styles. It could be anything. And that’s the beauty of A.I.”
Sway Molina
Ben explained that for his one scene, which was actually three scenes in one, he used at least ten different A.I. tools to complete his work. Not only did it require a range of tools to get his scenes finalized, but also an immense amount of time.
“Typically, it takes me about an hour to create one minute of video. For this, I ended up spending about 40 hours, or a whole week of work, on the two-and-a-half minute scene.”
Ben Nash
It’s safe to assume that the other collaborators expended similar amounts of time, energy, and effort. A lot of them were new in at least one way, if not entirely green, to the film production industry, which forced them to push their boundaries to learn and create something unique and, consequently, spectacular.
Why the Terminator 2?
Nem explains that he chose this specific film with a primary goal in mind.
“We wanted to make a statement.”
Nem Perez
He explains how the general public, and especially Hollywood, has a negative perspective on artificial intelligence. Specifically, Nem details how at A.I. conferences he’s attended, a common talking point is the Terminator, and its apparent portrayal of how ‘evil’ A.I. can be. Nem thinks they’ve got it all wrong. After all, people often forget that the T-800, which saved John Connor, was in fact ‘good’ A.I. in the original T2 film.
“I’ve been seeing nothing but great things from artists in this community. So with this film, we’re trying to flip the script, essentially. And to say look, A.I. is a beautiful thing. Look at the community that it’s brought together.”
Nem Perez
Most of the A.I. films that are a part of our culture, showcase it in a dark, destructive, ‘doomsday dystopian’ light. Sway agreed with Nem, and added his thoughts on how much of a disadvantage it is to us all to be close-minded when it comes to this new, life-changing technology.
“We should be open, right? We should be open to this kind of technology and just accept it, and evolve with it. So T2 is perfect. It’s a perfect example for what’s happening today’s climate.”
Sway Molina
The Challenges
With a tight deadline (two weeks!), fifty artists scattered all over the world, and a project with no precursor, obstacles were almost a given.
The need to scout talent is a hurdle that is not erased by this technology. Nothing would be possible without the talent of these artists driving the project. It takes undeniable craft (that some don’t want to acknowledge) to create something that will garner any attention. These tools are powerful, but there needs to be a master of the craft behind them.
“All these A.I. tools are doing is giving you all the pieces that you need to make a film. But it’s how you put those pieces together that make all the difference in the world, right?”
Nem Perez
The other big obstacles were: time and money. Making a full-length feature film with no money was never intended to be an easy task, but proved to be more of a lift than the team anticipated. The two-week deadline for the project eventually got pushed to three weeks. And now, six to eight weeks later, the project is still unfinished. Those who would deem a project assisted by A.I. as an easy feat, are wrong.
“I definitely invite Hollywood to come look at this film and see how it takes a lot of time.”
Nem Perez
Another hurdle is in honoring the original storyline. As Sway explains, A.I. really only works when there’s a story involved. People everyday can put together little experiments using a variety of these tools, but with the lack of a strong story to back it up, they may have an interesting standalone outcome, but that’s the end of it. When you add a storyline, it has substance that makes the viewer forgive the other parts it may be lacking in.
“It’s like watching a black and white movie. For those who don’t like watching black and white movies, when you see that the story is kind of interesting, and you’re involved, you forget about colors. Or when you’re watching 1960s documentaries, you forget about the film grain and how poor the quality looks, because you’re so immersed in it. That’s what you’ll experience when you watch this film.”
Sway Molina
The Project’s Impact on Hollywood
“We learned so much. I would say that on top of this film being a statement for A.I., it’s also a really good case study for Hollywood to look at and say, ‘can A.I. actually take over Hollywood?’ Is it really that easy?”
Nem Perez
The answer is no, according to Nem. One of the main learnings from this project was how it is extremely difficult to make a movie with artificial intelligence. That was also the consensus among the other artists involved, and all of them acknowledged the challenges in making their individual scenes come to life. Albeit not easy, A.I. did make the economics of film production much more affordable. Nem, having worked on high-end, million-dollar projects as a traditional filmmaker in the past, is very familiar with how money and the right connections can talk in the industry.
“Filmmaking has this barrier of entry that not a lot of people can get past. You need to have money, you need to know people, you need to have this, this, this, and this. A.I. is taking all that away. And it’s getting to the core of just imagination and vision.”
Nem Perez
Nem goes on to discuss A.I. ‘s impact on all aspects of the film industry, especially visual effects artists, who he argues are some of the most overworked artists in the industry. Or writers, whose jobs require endless brainpower and fatigue, all who now have tools to help alleviate it. Let A.I. do the nitty gritty heavy-lifting, and let the writers and designers focus on the craft that they love.
“A.I. is not the author of the thing that you’re asking it to help you with, which I love. There still needs to be a human behind it. And that’s what we learned with this project.”
Nem Perez
What are your hopes for your audience?
The team had three answers to this question. First, they hope their audience laughs while watching the remake. It is a parody after all, with each artist injecting their own sense of humor into their individual scenes to make the viewers laugh.
Next, they hope it inspires the audience. They hope that it garners curiosity for A.I. and the beauty it can create, and represent it in a positive, approachable light. Also, they hope it inspires Hollywood to see A.I. for what it is – a tool that is here to stay.
And lastly, but most importantly, they want this remake to give the featured artists the exposure and credit they deserve. Too often, in big motion pictures that are heavily stylized or use heavy visual effects, the artists who made it all happen are the last to be credited on screen. This film is adamant about doing the opposite. Whenever a new scene comes on screen, the artists will be credited in an obvious and clear way, which the team feels strongly about.
“I hope they laugh. I hope they enjoy it. I hope that they get inspired by this to say, wow, I can’t believe someone made this. I could maybe do something like this. I hope that it opens up their curiosity to A.I. And, the whole purpose, again, is just to showcase the art form, showcase the artist, and so I hope that they learn more about the artists.”
Nem Perez
This film is the first of its kind when it comes to an A.I. full feature film, and we’re counting down the days until release date and look forward to watching the streamed online version with you!
Links Mentioned in this Podcast
- OUR T2 REMAKE’s Website
- OUR T2 REMAKE on X
- Connect with Nem on X
- Follow Sway on X
- Connect with Ben on X
Continue the Conversation
Thank you, Nem, Sway, and Ben for being our guests on Creativity Squared.
This show is produced and made possible by the team at PLAY Audio Agency: https://playaudioagency.com.
Creativity Squared is brought to you by Sociality Squared, a social media agency who understands the magic of bringing people together around what they value and love: http://socialitysquared.com.
Because it’s important to support artists, 10% of all revenue Creativity Squared generates will go to ArtsWave, a nationally recognized non-profit that supports over 150 arts organizations, projects, and independent artists.
Join Creativity Squared’s free weekly newsletter and become a premium supporter here.
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TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Nem Perez: I hope they laugh. I hope they enjoy it. I hope that they get inspired by this to say, wow, like I can’t believe, you know, someone made this. I could maybe do something like this. You know, I hope that it opens up their curiosity to AI. The whole purpose, again, is just to showcase the art form.
[00:00:18] Nem Perez: showcase the artists. I hope that they learn more about the artists. You know, every scene at the beginning of each scene is going to have the artist’s name so that like they can know more about the artists that they want because again, it’s all about the community. It’s all about the artists. So I hope that it opens up doors for all of the artists.
[00:00:36] Helen Todd: For our last episode of 2023, we have a special holiday edition of Creativity Squared featuring the amazing minds behind our T2 remake, which is one of the first full length feature films created using only artificial intelligence. You’re in for a treat to hear the making of this innovative Terminator 2 parody that flips the script on AI.
[00:01:01] Helen Todd: Instead of destroying the world, our T2 remake showcases how AI can empower artists, open a new genre of filmmaking, and reimagine what’s possible with human creativity powered by AI tools. Join today’s conversation with the film’s executive producers, Nem Perez and Sway Molina, and another AI artist, Ben Nash, who’s also a previous Creativity Squared guest.
[00:01:29] Helen Todd: Nem and Sway collaborated with 50 of the best AI video artists from around the world to bring this film to life. Our T2 remake reimagines the classic film through the creation of 50 unique original works, each lasting three to four minutes. This experimental film, which has no affiliation with the Terminator franchise or its creators, celebrates the AI artists community by showcasing each artist’s own unique style for each of their scenes.
[00:02:01] Helen Todd: With background spanning film, technology, art, and music, Nem, Sway, and Ben are multi-talented creators leading innovation across the creative industries and are breaking the conventions of what it means to be filmmakers. Nem, who is based in LA, is an award winning filmmaker and founder of the AI startup called Storyblocker.
[00:02:24] Helen Todd: Sway, who is of Latin American descent, works in Miami as an actor and filmmaker using generative AI in his humor-driven narratives. And Ben is a Cincinnati-based full stack creator who blends design, code, industrial arts, and music into cutting edge digital products. Ben teased this project in his Creativity Squared interview, and I couldn’t have been more excited to connect with Nem and Sway through Ben to learn more about this exciting project at the forefront of AI filmmaking.
[00:03:00] Helen Todd: In today’s episode, you’ll hear how they are using Artificial intelligence as a tool, a creative outlet, and a form of self expression, you’ll get a behind the scenes look at the making of our T2 remake, including their innovative discord workflows and what message these artists have for Hollywood. They just wrapped principal photography and are aiming to announce when the film will be released very soon.
[00:03:27] Helen Todd: So follow them online to learn how to watch it this holiday season for creativity squared. This is hasta la vista until February, 2024. Just as the T-800 saves humanity in Terminator 2, this remake demonstrates AI unleashing creativity, not destruction. Enjoy.
[00:03:55] Helen Todd: Welcome to Creativity Squared. Discover how creatives are collaborating with artificial intelligence in your inbox, on YouTube, and on your preferred podcast platform. Hi, I’m Helen Todd, your host, and I’m so excited to have you join the weekly conversations I’m having with amazing pioneers in this space.
[00:04:13] Helen Todd: The intention of these conversations is to ignite our collective imagination at the intersection of AI and creativity to envision a world where artists thrive.
[00:04:30] Helen Todd: Well, Nem, Sway and Ben – Welcome to Creativity Squared. It is so great having you on the show today.
[00:04:37] Nem Perez: Yeah, thanks for having us. Thank you, Helen.
[00:04:40] Sway Molina: Thank you, Helen. Hi!
[00:04:40] Helen Todd: Well, Ben is a repeat. You’re actually our first guest who’s been on Creativity Squared twice. And I heard about them and Sway through Ben and so excited to have you all on the show.
[00:04:54] Helen Todd: Ben and I know each other from the CINCI AI meetup here in Cincinnati that I co-host with Kendra Ramirez and he got up on stage and talked about all of his amazing AI artwork and video and talked about this Terminator 2 parody and it’s been such a pleasure getting in touch and to know you, Nem and Sway.
[00:05:12] Helen Todd: But for those who don’t know you, can we do a quick round of introductions and Nem you’re first on my screen, so I’ll punt it to you.
[00:05:20] Nem Perez: Yeah, thank you. So my name is Nem Perez originally from Chicago, born and raised, currently living in Los Angeles. I am a commercial film director and I’m the, one of the executive producers of our T2 remake.
[00:05:35] Sway Molina: Hi everyone. My name is Sway Molina. I’m from Miami, Florida, born in LA, practically raised in Miami. Don’t know how long I’m going to stay here for…I’m planning to move. So, we’ll see how that goes. I’m a filmmaker. I’m an artist. I do a little bit of everything. And and I’m also one of the executive producers for our T2 remake.
[00:05:52] Sway Molina: And I’m so excited to be here and just to share with you all our stories and our project.
[00:05:59] Helen Todd: Amazing. It’s so great to have you here. And Ben, I know you’ve been on the show before, but let’s get your elevator pitch again. Yeah.
[00:06:06] Ben Nash: How’s it going? My name’s Ben Nash. I’m local to Cincinnati now and also coincidentally lived in LA for a little bit. Most of my adult life was out in California, San Francisco area. Designer and web developer is my day job. And then I picked up AIR about a year ago and haven’t stopped. It’s been my passion ever since. And I got introduced to these guys on X and became friends and I’m part of the LRT2 remake project and it’s been a fun project to be a part of.
[00:06:35] Helen Todd: Well, and this is the last episode that we’re doing of 2023. And for our listeners and viewers, we won’t actually be back until February. We’re taking January off but still sign up for the newsletter because we’ll still be publishing the newsletter. But this is a special edition interview. This is the first one where we have a panel on and also a great teaser for the film that they’ve been working on.
[00:07:00] Helen Todd: So why don’t we dive into our T2 remake and kind of tell us like the origins of it. How did it start? Cause it seemed to happen really quickly from my side of things. So, dive in on the origins of the project.
[00:07:15] Nem Perez: Sway, you want me to take it away?
Sway Molina: Yeah, take it away.
Nem Perez: Cool. So actually I came up with this while I was on vacation and I was actually thinking about this the other day because I have this pattern where like I’m always coming up with ideas while I’m on vacation.
[00:07:30] Nem Perez: So I was on a beach and I had this crazy idea. It was actually like inspired by watching the community. You know, like I was really heavily involved in this AI community that was just booming. And, you know, every day it would be like another artist showcasing their amazing talent in the AI space.
[00:07:48] Nem Perez: Right. And I was like, this is incredible. What can we all do together? You know? And then I was also inspired by sway who had his own community that he was curating on discord. Right. So it was like putting those two things together. And I remember this film that came out 10 years ago called Our RoboCop remake, where essentially a bunch of filmmakers got together and they recreated the movie RoboCop as a parody, you know, in their own style and their own vision, rewriting the whole film.
[00:08:20] Nem Perez: And so all of those things came together and I immediately contacted Sway and I was like, “Sway, what do you think of this? Is this a good idea? Like, can we do this?” And then, yeah, that the rest is, you know, as they say, the rest is history. So Sway, you want to add anything to that? I don’t know.
[00:08:36] Nem Perez: Like, is that accurate?
[00:08:38] Sway Molina: Yeah that’s very accurate. And just to add a little bit of context of the relationship between Nem and I. We were about, about a year ago, about a year and a half ago, we started working on a project that Nem was a commercial that Nem was directing. He brought me on board as one of the lead actors.
[00:08:54] Sway Molina: And that was an amazing experience so months later this whole AI craze right started taking over the internet… And I’m like what’s going on? I need to be part of it. i’ve always loved Twitter and when AI came in we you started I started to notice and many people started to notice the shift right the shift of the climate inside of Twitter wasn’t that toxic?
[00:09:15] Sway Molina: Crazy Twitter anymore. It’s very, it was very creative. Very like internet in the nineties kind of type of thing. And I wanted to learn. And the first person I reached out to like, Nem, I see you’re doing all this AI stuff, please lead me, show me. And he was like, yeah, you have to go check out mid journey.
[00:09:31] Sway Molina: And like, to me, that was just like, yeah, go learn Chinese. I’m like, okay, I don’t know what to do. I had no idea what discord was, what anything AI generative AI was. Whatever. So I just went head first and I saw that one of, you know, one of the early AI influencers was Ben Nash. I’m like, yeah, let me follow this guy.
[00:09:49] Sway Molina: I love everything he does. And I connected with him and with a lot of creative artists in the AI space and the rest is just history. And now I’m familiar with AI. Now I’m familiar with Discord. Now I’m nurturing my own community and connecting with so many people. And I’m just impressed by the technology.
[00:10:06] Sway Molina: Right. While there’s another group of people who are fearing AI, we’re embracing it. And we’re just seeing the power and how it’s just bringing everyone together. And ultimately that’s what the Our T2 remake is all about is just collaborating and bringing creators together. And now that we’re close to finishing this film is just like.
[00:10:26] Sway Molina: It just kind of just puts a stamp on it, you know.
[00:10:28] Helen Todd: I love that and I love that twitter now known as X although I still like to refer to it as twitter It brings back the old twitter days it’s such like a hub of community building and activity for you all but I guess Nem when you first had the idea and Sway when you were first talking about it Where did you contemplate, like, let’s just the two of us make it or was it always like, let’s get as many people who can be part of it as possible?
[00:10:56] Helen Todd: Because you have a lot of artists working on the project now.
[00:10:59] Nem Perez: That was always the goal. The goal was always to bring a bunch of creators together to do this together because it was all about the community from the beginning. It was all about showcasing the artists that are in this space that I was seeing on Twitter or X.
[00:11:15] Nem Perez: Really, you know, Just like blowing me away with their talents, you know, so it was always about the community.
[00:11:21] Helen Todd: And when did this idea come? Cause I think you put out the call like August, September and the timeline was super fast. I know Ben shared in our interview that I think he had three weeks for a scene.
[00:11:31] Helen Todd: So walk us through like once the idea came together, like what happened after that?
[00:11:36] Nem Perez: Yeah. So sway, what was it like August? I called Sway like mid August. That’s when I was on vacation. And then. I created the website actually while I was on vacation. You know, I’m pretty decent with Webflow. So I like, I just mocked up a quick website.
[00:11:53] Nem Perez: And then I don’t know, recall, my memory is a little blurry. So like it was August and then. We started like you started emailing people right after that. I started emailing it.. Right?
[00:12:03] Sway Molina: I started because the way we approach this project, yeah, we wanted to make a statement with the film.
[00:12:08] Sway Molina: And but we also wanted to make it an opportunity for the artists that we really weren’t connected with. So we kind of went half and half. We did some hand selection. And we also kind of did like a whole, “okay, if you’re interested just send us your email share with us your work” And we kind of auditioned people that way.
[00:12:23] Sway Molina: So, ironically enough we were both Out of town you were somewhere international I was like in New York and we were having these calls right which is like I remember clearly All these calls were like lagging because of how like far away we were from each other so yeah, we just practically just planned it formed a discord community and just pretty much started, I started reaching out to every single person that I knew in the AI space.
[00:12:46] Sway Molina: And mind you, I started diving into AI around June. So, about to make six months, you know, with creating content with generative AI. And that’s a lot of people’s history as well with AI, you know, no more than a year. So, Yeah, it’s a bit blurred, but we definitely initiated somewhere on October.
[00:13:04] Sway Molina: Right?
[00:13:06] Nem Perez: Yeah. So Sway’s been he’s been like the community I guess I don’t we never assigned any roles but like Sway has always been the one that has been like community outreach Community organizer like, you know, he’s the one that’s like putting bringing everyone together honestly, and you know wouldn’t obviously this wouldn’t be possible without him But so yeah, and then we had our kickoff call.
[00:13:27] Nem Perez: I think it was like late September, right? Like the last week of September, I want to say is when, okay we had all of our artists essentially for the most part. And then we all had a zoom call. International zoom call was great. People from Germany, from Japan, from Australia. And that was our, like our initial kickoff call where we all got together, you know, we all, me and sway discussed the details of the project.
[00:13:53] Nem Perez: And then we opened it up to the floor to have a Q and a, and everyone got to ask her questions. So that happened in last week of September.
[00:14:02] Ben Nash: Yeah, that call was amazing. It was the first time, you know, I came on as an artist to make video. You know, first of all, I had imposter syndrome. I couldn’t believe I was a part of such a big project.
[00:14:13] Ben Nash: And I think everybody in the group too, we had 40 some people in the call and it was the first time most of us had seen any other person’s faces and heard each other’s voices, but we’d all had been friends online, but, so that was, it was one of the most magical moments I’ve ever had on the internet ever was this call alone and it was about an hour long and we were all glowing, you know, you could tell we were all just happy and smiling and.
[00:14:38] Ben Nash: And it worked, it really did, it brought us all together, put us on the same page, your agenda was nailed, and we went from there, and yeah, I think that was the last week in September, and what was the next step, I think we picked our scenes the following week, and then the following week we started, is that what happened?
[00:14:56] Nem Perez: Yeah, the call was on a Friday and everyone had a chance to look over all the scenes over the weekend so that they can decide what to pick. All the scenes were numbered one through 50. And on Monday, what I did was I set up a web store. It was basically a web store where people can go on there and then they can click their scene and then purchase it for free.
[00:15:20] Nem Perez: And after purchasing and that essentially secured their scene so that took care of, like, if two people wanted a scene, it was like basically the first one to buy it gets it. And it was actually really exciting because. It was almost like a sneaker drop or like, you know, this thing comes out this really exclusive thing and you want to like, get on there first thing in the morning.
[00:15:39] Nem Perez: So, yeah, like, I think it was like 7AM PST. I like dropped the link on discord and I said, okay go. And then I put out a newsletter at the same time. And it was really interesting looking at my inbox because it was just like all these purchases coming through, you know, so that it was like, I was a little like nervous, actually, because I wasn’t sure if it was going to work.
[00:15:59] Nem Perez: You know, I was scared that like the website was going to crash or like, I was going to get emails of like people like upset that they couldn’t, you know, buy their thing. But like, actually, from what I saw, everyone was like, really excited about that whole process. So I’m really happy that worked out.
[00:16:14] Sway Molina: Yeah, I got my scene.. haha.
[00:16:17] Helen Todd: And you have 50 artists, right so the original idea was one scene per artist you know and aside from ben and you both, contributing a scene Can you tell us a little bit of some of the other artists? Are they all AI artists are there any traditional? videographers that have transferred over to a AI video?
[00:16:39] Helen Todd: So tell us a little bit more about the other artists involved in the project too.
[00:16:43] Sway Molina: We have people from all sorts of backgrounds. We have graphic designers, we have directors, we have producers. And one, one of the funny things about this and what you’ll notice, and if you’re, AI space, a lot of people hide behind avatars because they’re so involved in the industry.
[00:17:00] Sway Molina: And then. And since AI is such a touchy subject, but they’re still curious to try and they actually embrace the technology, they do have to hide behind these identities. And we do have those kind of people there in part of our community doing it, producing amazing things. So people from all sorts of backgrounds, we have painters, designers, people who have absolutely no creative background.
[00:17:20] Sway Molina: We just started picking up things as. You know, because it would be the beautiful thing about the discord is we it was collaborative too, so anyone who needed help who needed resource who needed to be pointed out to a specific service We did that as well. So, it was a learning experience. We all celebrated each other’s wins We helped each other whenever we needed to help really bad And yeah.
[00:17:41] Nem Perez: I want to get to the discord part later, but like the way that we set up the discord server, it’s really cool.
[00:17:49] Nem Perez: Like I’ve never seen a movie being produced like this, but to go back to this question… We actually have some people that have created their whole scene entirely in 3D. We have one artist who he actually didn’t use AI he like created his whole scene with I think it was Unity or Blender maybe Blender.
[00:18:08] Nem Perez: Yeah, so he created his whole scene in 3D with blender, and then we have other artists that essentially shot their whole scene, but then like, they ran like a gen one filter over it so that it looked like whatever character they wanted to represent personally, I did that. So I shot all of my scenes recording myself against green screen, and then I’m animating everything with after effects.
[00:18:31] Nem Perez: So I’m doing traditional animation and I’m just using AI to generate the assets. so Yeah, we’ve got all kinds of people. And it also to like, to just clarify, it’s 45 scenes, four movie posters, because we want it to represent all mediums of AI and some AI artists, they only do still images, just like traditional art.
[00:18:55] Nem Perez: Right. So there’s four artists that are only doing stills. And then we have one slot assigned for the trailer. You know, and then we have another artist who isn’t really part of the official roster, but we have a composer who’s composing the music as well.
[00:19:12] Helen Todd: And it seemed like a pretty tight turnaround time too.
[00:19:16] Helen Todd: If I remember Ben saying like three weeks for the one scene. So Ben, can you kind of walk us through that experience of cranking out a scene that quickly?
[00:19:27] Ben Nash: So my scene, scene eight I believe, was about two and a half minutes, maybe 2:40. And you know, before working on this project, I got my processes pretty dialed in to where I noticed it takes me about an hour to create one minute of video, whether that be a music video or a short story.
[00:19:46] Ben Nash: And that’s pretty fast and phenomenal there, but in this case, I’ve never tried to recreate… now again, this is a parody and it didn’t need to be a one to one recreation of the film, but there was my scenes was actually three scenes and all three scenes had a big challenge that I took upon myself that I wanted to recreate.
[00:20:07] Ben Nash: So I’ve never purposely tried to recreate something like that. Exactly. And so I ended up spending about 40 hours on the two and a half to 40 minutes. So a whole week of time went into it. And again, that was, I think the original window was actually two weeks. And then after the first week, I think you guys extended it another one.
[00:20:26] Ben Nash: And yeah, I got my 4k video posted the soft deadline date. And it was fun to cross that finish line when I did. And I in particular used about geez, probably 10 different AI tools all in all to get that thing done. And again, push the boundaries of what I’ve ever done and, you know, I actually learned a lot about film as well.
[00:20:49] Ben Nash: Or not a lot, but some things I learned the concept of a rack focus for something in the foreground is focused and it shifts to the background and back and forth. That was a new term for me. And I realized that, and again, that, you know, I’m a complete newbie at creating film. So, it was a good project to learn from as well.
[00:21:09] Helen Todd: And the point of the film is to showcase all the different capabilities of AI. And it seems like each scene really though. Did the artists get to completely choose the style of how they wanted to recreate the scene? Okay. Everyone’s shaking or nodding their heads. Yes.
[00:21:28] Nem Perez: Full freedom. Yeah. Full creative freedom.
[00:21:32] Sway Molina: So, when you get the chance to see the film, you’ll each scene, the way that it’ll progress, it’ll jump from different styles, right? Style. It could be a 2d, it could be 3d. It could be, you know, it can have a paint painter effect. It could be anything. And that’s the beauty about AI.
[00:21:49] Sway Molina: So like when the, and Ben mentioned it. So the way that, that we approach each scene is that we didn’t go word. You know, for, by word for word, right? We, it’s supposed to be a parody. It’s supposed to be like a reinterpretation of the scene, but yet still have the same narrative, right? The same progression of the film.
[00:22:08] Sway Molina: So I could feel like, okay, it’s cohesive. Like it’s part of this one big thing, but it’s still chaotic. It’s still inspirational. It’s a little bit, it’s a madness when you see it. But it’s very inspiring, you know, cause again, the goal is to showcase what AI can do and what everyone was capable of doing, you know, with AI, with little experience, with a lot of experience.
[00:22:31] Helen Todd: And at any point in time, did you think of doing a parody of a different film or was it always Terminator 2? Like this is the one and we have to recreate it. And if so, walk me through the thought process on the film selection.
[00:22:45] Nem Perez: Yeah. So I chose Terminator 2… Because with this film, we wanted to make a statement, right?
[00:22:54] Nem Perez: And the general public, Hollywood, whatever, you know, has pretty negative you know, thoughts of, about AI, right? And I’ve gone to a bunch of conferences about AI and they always talk about Terminator. They’re like, Terminator is going to happen. Skynet is going to take over. AI is evil. Right? And what I’ve been seeing in the community is the complete opposite.
[00:23:19] Nem Perez: Right. I’ve been seeing nothing but great things from artists. So with this film, we’re trying to use this movie and use that to flip the script essentially, and show, look, AI is a beautiful thing. Look at the community that it’s brought together and look at the laughs that you’re going to get from this movie.
[00:23:37] Nem Perez: You know, something that people often forget about Terminator 2 is that AI actually saved John Connor, right? Like the T800 was the good AI. So, you know, we’re trying to really highlight that with this movie. And I think that, you know, it was a perfect platform to do that with. And yeah, it was always Terminator 2 from the very beginning.
[00:24:00] Sway Molina: And when you look at the film Terminator 2 and you study The change, right? That Sarah Connor, the, her transformation, right? She’s becoming the thing that she hates. Right. And if you pay attention, a lot of people that do fear AI, they’re becoming the thing that they’re hating, you know?
[00:24:16] Sway Molina: So, you see a lot of that on X as well as not, you know, rainbows. And when you’re in the AI community, you have those traditional artists who were really anti AI. Really hating on people, calling AI artists, not artists, and you know, essentially becoming that, that thing while we should be open, right?
[00:24:35] Sway Molina: We should be open to this kind of technology and just accept it and evolve with it. So T2 is perfect. It’s a perfect example for what’s happening in today’s climate.
[00:24:45] Helen Todd: I know I’ve started a presentation before of, you know, when you hear AI, do you think Terminator, you know, the more dystopian or the more utopian film her and someone came out to me after the film is her really that utopian?
[00:25:01] Helen Todd: I was like, well, there’s not really that many positive AI stories. And actually Joanna who was on the show before it was like, we actually need more positive AI stories out there because. All of them are these doomsday dystopian AI is going to destroy the world type thing. So, your film is a breath of fresh air in that regard.
[00:25:25] Helen Todd: It’s a good point.
[00:25:26] Nem Perez: Yeah, that’s a really good point. We need more positive AI films for sure.
[00:25:29] Helen Todd: And I would say her is positive ish, but not really the most positive on the planet.
[00:25:38] Nem Perez: The creator was actually pretty good. The creator was about AI and the trailer makes it out to look like, you know, AI is the bad thing, the bad guy, but actually it was like human humans who were the bad guy the whole time.
[00:25:49] Nem Perez: So, that was like the whole thing of the movie.
[00:25:52] Helen Todd: So, a tight deadline, 50 artists, a parody where everyone takes the scene, it seems like there could be a lot of challenges with this type of project, but can you kind of talk through maybe some of the biggest challenges, but also maybe some of the biggest surprises to maybe some unexpected things with the AI artists, or I’d love to kind of hear more about the messy middle of the project.
[00:26:16] Nem Perez: Oh, yeah. So. We learned so much actually I would say that on top of this film Being a statement for AI it’s also a really good case study for Hollywood to look at and say Can ai actually take over Hollywood right like is it really that easy and the answer is no It’s actually still very hard to make a movie with AI, and we learned that with this project, you know, like there’s not a single artist in our group that said that this was a breeze.
[00:26:46] Nem Perez: Every single one of them, even Ben today said it was like a challenge, right? He spent a lot of time, even it was easier, right? Easier, but it was not easy. And it was definitely more affordable, which is great, right? Because Hollywood and filmmaking. Is this thing, you know, again, I am a traditional film director.
[00:27:07] Nem Perez: I’ve worked on a bunch of commercials for Disney million dollar commercials. You know, I’ve done a lot of music videos and such. And filmmaking is a very expensive process, right? It’s it has this barrier of entry that not a lot of people can get past. You know, you need to know people, you need to have this AI is just taking all that away.
[00:27:31] Nem Perez: And it’s just getting to the core of just imagination and vision. Right. But still even with that, it takes a lot of craft. To make something that’s good, essentially all these AI tools are doing is giving you all the pieces that you need to make a film, but it’s like how you put those pieces together that make all the difference in the world, right?
[00:27:54] Nem Perez: We’ve had a lot of artists drop out. They just said they couldn’t do it. Most of them were like a little inexperienced. It’s funny because like. I talk to people and they go, okay, so I just press a button and the movie comes out. Right. That’s how it works. And I think that a lot of these people that were coming in, who were like inexperienced thought that was going to be the case.
[00:28:11] Nem Perez: They thought that they would just go in go on runway type in terminator movie and then out would come out what they wanted And like no, that’s not the case So I definitely invite Hollywood to come look at this film and see that it’s it took a lot of time Yeah, the deadline was initially two weeks we extended it to three weeks And it’s been now a month and a half, two months.
[00:28:33] Nem Perez: And we’re still working on a project because we’re starting to realize that it’s actually a lot more difficult than we initially thought to make a full feature film with no reason, no money, essentially we’re doing this for no money. It’s a non commercial project. Right. So yeah, we learned a lot with this project and we invented some new workflows, which is the discord, you know, which sway can get into with essentially Every artist has their own channel where they can present and showcase behind the scenes of the film.
[00:29:04] Nem Perez: So every time they are progressing, you can go into, you can click on scene 20 and see what scene 20 is doing for today. And then you could ask him questions. Hey, how did you do this scene 20? And then you can go through each scene and just check in on all the progress, you know? So. You know, there were certain rooms that were completely empty from the very beginning.
[00:29:24] Nem Perez: And it’s like, Hey, how are you guys doing? Like, is everything okay? And then, you know, Hey, sorry, I can’t do this. It’s a lot harder, you know? So we definitely learned a lot. We’re still learning a lot. I mean, we haven’t compiled the finished movie, and I’m sure that once we do that, we’re gonna, we’re gonna go We’re going to learn a lot from that process as well.
[00:29:43] Helen Todd: That’s very cool about the Discord. I’ve never heard that being used like that. But I would imagine not only is it like such a great insight into people’s progress, but also motivation. Like, oh, she’s seen so and so. Like, it’s working.
[00:29:56] Sway Molina: Yeah, we have to remember that All these people are, everyone involved, they’re volunteering, right?
[00:30:04] Sway Molina: So we can’t demand much, right? They’re not being, getting paid. So the most we could do is just inspire them, give them a space where there could be some sort of accountability, it could be motivation and just keep be that cheerleader. I, at least in the beginning, first three, four weeks that I was that cheerleader, me and now we’re like, yeah, keep going.
[00:30:22] Sway Molina: So people were sharing their two, three second clip, all the progresses that they made, you know, when they stylized their film and pass it through this AI generated to this AI generator and just, it was like Ben said earlier, it was a really beautiful thing to experience. And in the beginning, just to see the collaboration and how helpful everyone was and how intimate.
[00:30:47] Sway Molina: And another challenge that, that That people face was like this is a parody. This is comedy You have to think in terms of comedy. You’re gonna have to try to be funny and AI practically is doing the work for us because like Nem said when you watch this film It’s like, okay, it’s not it’s really not ready for Hollywood, but you can see the potential right?
[00:31:09] Sway Molina: But when you see the film like this is kind of comical just by watching You know how this face looks all contorted and like yeah, it’s trying and that’s funny And when you add that element of story, and I think this was the big takeaway, right? That ai works when there’s a story involved, right?
[00:31:26] Sway Molina: When there’s no story, it’s just because everyone is so used to and it’s still till today in the x community Everyone is just used to throwing in their little experiments and stuff like that with like the lack of story But when you add a storyline It has substance. You kind of forgive.
[00:31:40] Sway Molina: It’s like watching a black and white movie, right? For those who don’t like watching black and white movies, when you see that the story is kind of interesting and you’re involved, you forget about colors. Or when you watch that 1960s documentaries, you forget about the film grain and how poor the quality looks because it’s so you’re so immersed in it.
[00:31:57] Sway Molina: So that’s what you experience when you watch this film. And you’ll see you it has that storyline you’ll be immersed. You’ll see the potential And I think you’ll find it funny and hilarious, you know It might was hilarious. I think but I have a comedic background. So that came easy to me and just to hammer on what man said in the beginning is like when we first started auditioning people and they started showing us our their work, you know, I followed up with the question yet, but do you know how to edit?
[00:32:27] Sway Molina: To sound, to music, to dialogue. Do you know framing? Do you know cinematography? So you still had to have or learn on the job, you know, the cinematography language, you know, filmic language. So I think that was also a challenge for some and something great for those who didn’t know.
[00:32:43] Ben Nash: One of the funny parts about mine was and again, this was, I had some unintentional funny parts that I was laughing my butt off at, was really, it came down to the audio…
[00:32:53] Ben Nash: One of my scenes was when Sarah Connor’s in the mental institute and she reaches across the table and chokes the the head doctor there And just adding the sound effects to that scene was, it was ridiculous. I mean, you know, I had to find some voices and I actually, I created an AI voice for Sarah Connor and had her scream a little bit and it just sounded so funny.
[00:33:14] Ben Nash: So yeah, putting it all into the AI context of this is. It’s, you know, cartoony and not, you know, not the best voice acting going on. It added a whole nother element of humor to mine. I thought that was probably the funniest part, just the bad voice acting, to be honest. So it is a hilarious piece.
[00:33:36] Ben Nash: The trailer, it cracks me up every time I see it.
[00:33:40] Helen Todd: Yeah, and I’ll be sure to put the trailer on the dedicated blog post that goes with this interview and definitely when it launches where people can watch it in theaters and how they can watch it streaming online as well, which is very exciting.
[00:33:55] Helen Todd: And it might be too soon to ask this question, but do you have any updates on the streaming release or no.
[00:34:01] Nem Perez: No date set yet. But you know, I think that once this movie is finished, the plan is to stream it and then premiere it do maybe like a one night premiere at a movie theater, maybe multiple movie theaters.
[00:34:16] Nem Perez: We have such a global audience for this a lot of our artists are all over the world, so it’d be kind of cool if we did a live stream. Simulcast, you know, it’d be kind of fun so that we all watch at the same time and we could all comment together, so I was thinking maybe like a twitch live stream or like a YouTube live stream or something would be really fun So that this that’s this streams and we all watch it together You know, and then maybe at the same time we show it at a movie theater.
[00:34:43] Nem Perez: So I think I’m kind of liking that idea, but nothing set in stone yet because the movie hasn’t been finished yet.
[00:34:49] Helen Todd: So anxiously awaiting for the final just based on the trailer, it looks very cool. And Ben and I have talked here in Cincinnati to potentially host a screening here, but definitely we’ll be streaming it with you all.
[00:35:04] Helen Todd: And this is the first that you all know of the first like full length feature film. Generated by AI. Is that correct?
[00:35:12] Nem Perez: I thought it was actually it’s funny because You know when we started promoting this I had it on the website like the first It’s the first AI full feature film. And I guess some guy had made a movie, like, a while ago, and he, like, personally hit me up.
[00:35:28] Nem Perez: He was really offended by that. He was like, how dare you? He’s like, I did this a long time ago, I made a full feature AI.
[00:35:35] Helen Todd: So, like, the second or third ish?
[00:35:37] Nem Perez: Yeah. But, I will say, ours is, no offense to that guy, but ours is so unique and so special. And unlike anything else. Really first of its kind we could say that it is the first of its kind.
[00:35:51] Nem Perez: There’s nothing else like this, right? But also like during the Venice Film Festival, Harmony Korine did premiere as an AI feature film, you know, but it’s not a race you know, I think that it’s really just about the community and there’s nothing else out there that’s represented the community like this film.
[00:36:10] Helen Todd: So, that’s cool. And you’ve said, and you can see by the trailer that it is somewhat experimental with all the different scenes being in different styles by the different artists that were given full freedom, which I love that you gave them full freedom. What I do..what is your hope as people are watching this film that they take away from or like the experience?
[00:36:30] Helen Todd: What do you hope that the experience is for people in the audience?
[00:36:34] Nem Perez: I hope they laugh. I hope they enjoy it. I hope that they get inspired by this to say, wow, like I can’t believe, you know, someone made this. I could maybe do something like this. You know, I hope that it opens up their curiosity to AI.
[00:36:47] Nem Perez: The whole purpose, again, is just to showcase the art form, showcase the artists. I hope that they learn more about the artists, you know, every scene. At the beginning of each scene is going to have the artist’s name So that like they can know more about the artists that they want because again, it’s all about the community It’s all about the artists.
[00:37:02] Nem Perez: So I hope that it opens up doors for all of the artists, you know Yes, wait, what do you think? Like, what do you want out of this?
[00:37:10] Sway Molina: So, I mean, yeah, I definitely want to me, it’s always been about the artist is always about, it’s always been about showcasing them. So when you watch a Marvel film or Disney form, or any film that’s like heavily stylized with heavy visual effects.
[00:37:25] Sway Molina: The people involved, they’re the last ones for you to know about, right? No one stays to watch the, or at least read the names of the end credits of the people that are involved in these departments, in these visual effects departments. And here we’re doing the opposite. You know, you visit RT to remake, these are the first people you see.
[00:37:42] Sway Molina: These are the people that we want to highlight. And for you to learn, right, on the website. For you to learn about and get, and I will encourage, you know, after watching the film, go see what other works that they’re doing, because now, like. This is the scenes are scenes that we did now what two months ago and in the way that AI is evolving in is at an incredible speed.
[00:38:04] Sway Molina: Now we’re in the stage where people are doing 3D and motion capture via AI. The camera control is insane. It’s insane. So, by the time you watch this film, that artist is going to be like operating in 10x level. Yeah.
[00:38:20] Ben Nash: And yeah that’s exactly what happened to me already. You know, as soon as I finished my scene, that was about the same time that the first Cincinnati AI Meetup happened and, you know, I gave a brief intro to my history.
[00:38:33] Ben Nash: And then I ended with telling 110 people or so about this project. And as soon as it was over, I had five, six, seven people surround me to ask, whoa, tell me more. It was, you know, I felt like a superstar. It was. It had already, just that day, changed my life and it’s it’s, yeah, and, yeah, I mean, it really did happen.
[00:38:55] Ben Nash: It was hilarious. I couldn’t believe it. I’ve never had a crowd of people want to talk to me about a project. And, but, what people get out of this I, you said it first, Nem, I think people are going to laugh. And that’s all I want, too, is, it’s, cause it is, everything I’ve seen is hilarious.
[00:39:10] Ben Nash: And if I can be part of a film that makes people laugh, that makes me happy.
[00:39:16] Helen Todd: Well, hopefully it will come out around Christmas before right after. So for all of the the holiday movie going, definitely add this to your list. And this is kind of a special episode. We’ll call this the holiday movie episode.
[00:39:30] Helen Todd: And maybe every year we’ll end with a movie showcase thinking about that. I mean, the technology is always. Has already changed so much. And so fast from when you started this project, could you imagine where it will be this time next year?
[00:39:45] Nem Perez: Maybe we’ll do a sequel. Terminated.
[00:39:53] Helen Todd: Well, what were… Were there any scenes or any aspects where you’re like, wow, like I didn’t even know AI could do that. I know Ben, you said that you really pushed yourself to learn a new scene. So maybe you could share about that, but I’m curious about any of the surprises of for each of you about a scene that might’ve stood out of like, oh, I didn’t know that was possible or how did this artist do this?
[00:40:15] Helen Todd: Or, yeah, I’m just kind of curious some reactions for certain scenes as, you know, going into it that we can watch out for.
[00:40:22] Ben Nash: Well, let me talk about my, one of my challenges, scene, challenging scenes. And then also I want to mention someone else’s that I really liked the opening part, my scene was really three scenes and the opening scene was in the original movie, it was a one take for about 35 seconds long, a single take with all the actors choreographed and the camera went around in the room.
[00:40:45] Ben Nash: And I honestly didn’t notice that until after I chose it and then I said, Oh boy, how am I going to do this? So, that was my challenge that I was impressed with my solution. Cause it was a weird, you know, recreating a one take scene in AI. Where you can generally just generate a few seconds of video is definitely a challenge So that one I was impressed with the final results it’s not as impressive as the real life one take but impressive in its own right But my favorite scene that impressed me that stood out the most is one that’s completely out there.
[00:41:21] Ben Nash: It’s a I can’t recall the artist now, but it’s the 8 bit video game version of it Which is do you know the ones i’m talking about swaying them? That one just cracked me up. That one’s completely different and Not expected at all. I did not expect anything like that and sure enough and there’s a lot of unexpected scenes for sure, but that one is one that stands out to me.
[00:41:44] Nem Perez: Yeah, I’m familiar with that one. I’ll say that there is a scene. I don’t remember the artist apologies, but it is, it was like a like a 90s sitcom where, and it had like a theme song and everything. It’s in a trailer, so you’ll see it’s sort of like a family matters style Terminator scene with like an opening title sequence and everything.
[00:42:07] Nem Perez: And I was really impressed because I don’t know how, I still don’t know how to do a music and AI, but they did a whole theme song, you know, a whole title sequence. And then it was basically, it had a laugh track, which I loved. You know, there was someone else that did the Saturday Morning cartoon, but like that kind of creativity like I really enjoyed that so that was really cool to see like that someone just like went all out making a theme song and all of this.
[00:42:32] Nem Perez: So yeah, that was one of my favorites.
[00:42:34] Sway Molina: Yeah, to me it’ll be I think it was Able Art and he goes by Able Art…
[00:42:39] Nem Perez: Oh yeah, that one’s next level. Is that the one that’s like meta? The one that like, it takes, it goes like third. Yeah. It breaks the third wall. It breaks the third wall.
[00:42:49] Nem Perez: Yeah, essentially..
[00:42:49] Sway Molina: He did a great job and he just has a way of he’s a creative, he’s a creative guy.
[00:42:55] Nem Perez: He’s so good. Able is so good. Yeah.
[00:42:57] Sway Molina: Yeah, if you watch his stuff on X, and I don’t know if this is something that he, I can’t remember now if this is something that he did for his scene, but how he’s able to just turn boxes, right?
[00:43:06] Sway Molina: Like cardboard boxes into and just re stylize them using AI into actual things, you know, a shotgun, a house whatever. And it’s believable, you know, in a way. Yeah, he’s a very creative dude and a lot of people did that. We have max also who’s a producer. He can’t he challenged himself to do some acting as well He did a scene inside his car and he turned himself into John Connor, yeah, so Really impressive what people did with it.
[00:43:34] Sway Molina: There’s music, there’s different styles, there’s 2D, there’s 3D, there’s 8 bit, there’s Nam is working on a fighting Mortal Kombat style. This is something I haven’t mentioned. I turned my T 800 into a Mr. T 800. So it’s Mr. T as the, you know, as the A. I. instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
[00:43:53] Sway Molina: So, you know, that to me, that was hilarious.
[00:43:55] Nem Perez: Yeah, we’re planning on releasing a behind the scenes video to showcase just like all the different tactics that everyone, used and use all the stuff that’s in discord all the like process the making of so that people can see like look no people didn’t just press a button and this came out of it like people really put a lot of thought into this a lot of a lot of craft into this like able like he said he built cardboard sets and props to make his scene, you know, so I bought a whole leather outfit and a cop uniform for my scene, you know, like like I dressed up the T800 and the T1000 to make my scene and I went out in a green screen and I shot it traditionally.
[00:44:37] Nem Perez: So it’s not just pressing a button. It’s not just, you know, it’s not that easy. It still takes a lot of craft, a lot of work to do these things. And I think that we’re going to showcase that again with the behind the scenes video, just so people can know, again, this is what this whole project is about.
[00:44:53] Nem Perez: It’s all about showcasing the art form, showcasing artists, and really showing Hollywood be like, look like. AI is a tool, right? Like it’s just a tool. It’s not this one and done thing. It makes everything easier, which by the way, I am all for because visual effects artists are some of the most overworked artists in the industry.
[00:45:17] Nem Perez: Right? So if there is something that helps them, why not? Like, like embrace it, you know, even writers are like, no offense to writers, but like a lot of them are not happy, you know, like, It takes a lot of effort, a lot of brainpower, a lot of fatigue, right, to, to write, you know, and if there’s something out there that makes your job like that much easier.
[00:45:39] Nem Perez: Embrace it, you know, like I think that I’m gonna get a little like, I’m gonna get a little bit on my soapbox here, but essentially like I really love where the WGA landed on their negotiations, you know, i’m here in the heart of it. I’m in Hollywood So i’m really affected by the strikes and everything.
[00:45:56] Nem Perez: So I support the strikes by the way but I really do appreciate like where the negotiations landed So where the strikes landed is essentially that ai is not the author of the thing that you’re asking it to help you with, which I love, right? There still needs to be a human behind it. And that’s what we learned with this project.
[00:46:16] Nem Perez: Same with the SAG AFTRA, right? Like, we’re not trying to replace actors here. We did make a movie without actors. However, I look at This whole even the whole space AI space as a whole brand new medium, right? It’s not traditional film. It’s not animation. It’s a new thing. You know, when film was first invented, people emulated place stage place, right?
[00:46:42] Nem Perez: Because that’s all they knew right now. What we’re doing is we’re emulating traditional film. We’ll probably see this art form evolve into something completely different and then we’re gonna start realizing that this is a entirely new medium, you know, like I Can’t say that this film that we’re making is going to compete with a traditional film in any way, you know It’s not a traditional film.
[00:47:07] Nem Perez: It’s its own thing. So Personally, I don’t think that Hollywood has anything to worry about. I think that Hollywood should embrace it. We should put restrictions Which are already in place so that people don’t take advantage of others. But I think it’s a beautiful thing. I think it makes working a lot easier.
[00:47:28] Nem Perez: It makes you get to the thing faster. It’s a, the process makes the whole process flow much easier. And that’s what this whole project is about. It’s about showcasing.
[00:47:39] Sway Molina: I think you could be the most experienced Hollywood director, the most experienced writer, VFX artist, cinematographer, editor. When you watch this film, you’re going to pick up and learn something from someone who just recently picked up the skills that you’re a master at.
[00:47:55] Sway Molina: And you’re going to see the potential. And if you’re not a craftsman of film or visual storytelling, well, you’ll definitely be inspired by it and you’ll embrace it. So just to give you an example I mentioned earlier how writing for comedy or for parody was one big challenge for other creators, but well, you know, chat GPT makes it easy.
[00:48:17] Sway Molina: You know, you can easily go to ChatGPT and say “Hey, I want to make a parody version of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Can you give me some ideas list 10 ideas of what I can do with these with the main characters?” And well ChatGPT…He’ll do it for you. Now, these ideas are not the best ideas but it’s a great place to start, right?
[00:48:37] Sway Molina: It’s a great place and another thing that I love that we did Earlier before we started doing the scenes. Oh, we started asking for it to do a breakdown I asked chat to bd to give me a breakdown of all the props Of all the cars of all the iconic things in the film and it did just that You know, I didn’t have to go watch the movie and jot everything down.
[00:48:55] Sway Molina: Oh, yeah, they have this semi truck here that you know, they have this. Oh, this car is this model. No, ChatGPT knew that information already. It was this year this model You know, Arnold Schwarzenegger was wearing this leather jacket this brand boom So I had this list that I can just kind of play off from you know with in parody form so as a writer, that’s amazing.
[00:49:16] Sway Molina: Like what you can cut your research by like more than half Wow, and you can actually start focusing on the thing that you love and I think you know This is also something that even animators that will take advantage of like if you really start digging into what animators actually do You’ll see that it’s not as inspiring as you think there’s a lot of labor, right?
[00:49:39] Sway Molina: Although we’re now like in, you know, computer generated still, it’s a lot of work rotoscoping, animating key frame by frame. Like the animator didn’t get into animation for that. You know, they want to bring things to life. They want to tell the story. And I think what AI now will help you tell the story and the technology is only going to get better.
[00:49:59] Helen Todd: Well, I love what them said about just from our imagination to vision is like all you need with AI. And, you know, something that was said on another interview that Marshall McLuhan had said something about every old medium feeds the new medium from stage to movies and TV. So I’m really excited.
[00:50:20] Helen Todd: You know, once we get past the just replicating what we know of film and video now, like what’s next, you know, what’s over that horizon, which is really exciting to think about well, I know we can keep going on and on, and I’m so excited to, to see the film once it comes comes out and is released and streamed online.
[00:50:42] Helen Todd: One thing that I like. To ask all of my guests before a sign off is if you want our viewers and listeners to remember one thing from our conversation today or from the our T2 remake project what is that one thing that you want them to remember?
[00:50:59] Ben Nash: I’ll jump in first. I would say. As a, someone who just got into AIR last year and creating the images first and then video and now music, I would say that yeah, this is a whole new opportunity for our generation to, you know, start doing a lot more with less and like you said, Sway, it’s not the nitty gritty of animating one frame to the next.
[00:51:22] Ben Nash: That is why animator gets into it. They usually want to showcase a story or show some creative stuff. Art and that’s what I got out of this project is I learned a lot of skills that I can now take on to you know Tell more stories and show more videos and create more so I think this is a huge opportunity and time for everybody.
[00:51:44] Sway Molina: For me, it’s echoes.. what Ben says is that there are tools now ready available for you to tell your stories and I like to kind of approach it from this angle.
[00:51:56] Sway Molina: I suffer a lot with dyslexia. So with reading and writing and tools like chat, GPT I’m very visual, very kinetic. I just like being hands on. And I’ve done many stories where I’m just kind of writing on the fly and just generating images on the fly videos on the flight that really helps me, you know, pre visualize pre write.
[00:52:23] Sway Molina: You know, rather than sit here with my arms crossed crying and like, well, I don’t know what, you know, what’s like writer’s block. And the tools are there, you know, to help you with that. So, when you’re feeling down and when you’re feeling up, when you’re feeling uninspired, I mean, it’s just, that is available at a click of a button and I’ll just inspire you so much.
[00:52:42] Sway Molina: So the tools are there and that our T2 remake is just proof of that.
[00:52:46] Nem Perez: Yeah. I will just say that AI could be your friend. Embrace it. It will make your life easier. Simple as that.
[00:52:55] Helen Todd: Oh, it has been such a treat getting to know all three of you and learning about the project. I’m so excited. I’m so glad that you’re doing a behind the scenes.
[00:53:05] Helen Todd: That was actually going to be one of my questions because that sounds like just a treasure trove of content and steps in that Discord group. That I’m sure a lot of people are just as interested seeing the making of as the actual output. But congratulations. I know that this was an ambitious project and you’re so close to getting it over the finish line.
[00:53:26] Helen Todd: So thank you all for. Kind of taking the charge, jumping into the deep end, showing us what’s possible with AI and filmmaking. And just for your time today and teasing the film when it comes out so thank you so much for being on creativity squared.
[00:53:42] Nem Perez: Thanks for having us. This is so much fun.
[00:53:44] Nem Perez: Thank you. I’m super excited. Thank you.
[00:53:47] Helen Todd: And since this is our last episode for the end of the year, happiest of holiday wishes for everyone who’s listening, it has been a wild year for AI in my corner too. I launched the podcast, which has been an amazing platform to meet amazing artists like on today’s show, and I’m so excited for all that’s in store next year.
[00:54:09] Helen Todd: Just..also to see amazing talent and where AI will take us. So, but happiest of holiday and New Year’s wishes, and we’ll see you in February of 2024.
[00:54:22] Helen Todd: Thank you for spending some time with us today. We’re just getting started and would love your support. Subscribe to Creativity Squared on your preferred podcast platform and leave a review. It really helps. And I’d love to hear your feedback. What topics are you thinking about and want to dive into more?
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[00:55:24] Helen Todd: I really appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. This show is produced and made possible by the team at Play Audio Agency. Until next week, keep creating.