Today on the podcast, I want to talk about using AI to remaster old films, images, videos, classics, what's going on with the industry there, because I think that there is a huge boom that's about to basically be unlocked.
You know, we've all seen an old VHS tape.
And I feel like recently, I've seen somewhere on an old TV, and I'm just like blown away by how Like, it sounds terrible, but like how low quality it feels compared to what we're so used to now.
But of course, you get that retro feel. So that's kind of cool.
And you don't really want to miss out on what it looked like back in the day.
But the way of the future is basically using AI models right now to remaster a whole bunch of these older films for higher quality.
And what's really blown me away is there's a huge project underway right now to do this for the classic Wizard of Oz movie.
And they're not just trying to, you know, increase the quality of the movie.
They're actually building an entire experience over at the Las Vegas Sphere.
So there's a ton that's going into that.
They're using AI. It's absolutely fascinating.
I'm going to dive in and I'm also going to show you some clips if you're watching on Spotify or YouTube of what it's actually looking like, which blew me away.
The special effects. but also what it means for the overall community for film in general.
Is this going to be something that happens to every movie in the past?
Are we going to try to keep some sort of historical accuracy in the quality?
Like basically, what does that look like in the future for the whole industry?
I'll be diving into all of that. But before we do, I'd love to mention that this episode is sponsored by AI Box, which is my very own AI startup.
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All right, let's get into what is going on with The Wizard of Oz.
So basically, they're blowing up The Wizard of Oz, which, by the way, if you didn't know, The Wizard of Oz is actually, according to the Library of Congress, the most watched film of all time is The Wizard of Oz.
Now, I'm not 100% sure how they calculate that.
Like, perhaps. Maybe it's true. Maybe it's true.
It is an old film, and so people watch the old films.
But I don't know. Anyways, I guess I guess I'm not questioning the Library of Congress.
I just like I actually to not if I'm being honest, I don't think I've seen the whole thing through.
I've seen a lot of clips of it. So maybe that's just me.
But in any case, it is the most watched film of all time, apparently.
And they're putting it into the Las Vegas sphere, which if you don't know, giant ball inside of Las Vegas where the whole thing inside and outside is LCD screens.
And it's 360. You look around. It's amazing, right?
So what's interesting, though, is you can't just... Like, they're not just taking the film and projecting it on, like, a 360, so you have to, like, crane your neck and look in a circle to see everything that's going on.
They are creating a whole new experience.
So they're using AI to generate the edges to increase, like, the size and doing a whole bunch of things to make it more immersive, to feel like you're inside of the movie, which is really interesting.
They had... They had like some clips where they were sharing kind of what it looked like.
They said apparently there's 2,000 people working on it.
But I'm sharing a clip where basically you're inside of the tornado and the sphere all around you is showing you like it's a tornado funnel and then it's sucking you up and it like looks really, really impressive.
But the thing that was pretty tricky with this whole movie was basically you can't just use a regular film for this experience.
And also I would say like the sphere is an interesting thing and you might be like –
Who cares about the sphere? Like it's a tourist attraction.
But I think it's interesting because this exact same concept and strategy that they're applying here is also going to be needed for VR, for Apple's headsets, for Meta's headset, or for anything else like that.
If you want to watch these 360 movies, it's going to be the same concept.
So I think it's not just going to be like, it's not like, oh man, no one else, like no other movie company needs to do this because it's just the sphere.
It's like, well, if you want to have these 360 immersive videos, I think a lot of people in the future would be interested in that.
And so this is probably something that will happen more and more.
In addition to maybe like increasing quality or other things like that, which some people argue because they just love the artistic, authentic, old quality of something.
So I mean, that's a great viewpoint as well.
In any case, this is going to be starting on August 28th, that this movie is going to be premiered.
Like I mentioned, there is a 2000 person team that is currently working on this.
And of course, the sphere is massive, 160,000 square feet. this kind of 360 experience.
And of course, like healing too, which is so interesting, right?
Because you got to like watch the movie straight ahead of you, but then like above you is going to be like whatever's in the sky of the movie.
So they got to fill that in too, which is really interesting.
So the CEO of the sphere, James Dolan, It basically says that they are using AI to both increase the resolution of the existing film, right?
They're going from like an old film to massive.
And then they're also using it to expand the footage beyond the frame that was actually shot.
So an example that they used is that this is from Ben Makuski said that throughout the entire, through the entire use of AI, you know, he said, quote, a grainy closeup of Dorothy becomes richly detailed and And then through a process called outpainting, though it seems like magic, we see the rest of the scarecrow, the yellow brick road and the mountains of Oz, right?
So basically like in, you know, the original shot when the scarecrow is kind of like dancing, his elbow goes off the screen and gets cut off.
But if so, but like if you're in like a huge sphere and you have to make it like 360, you need to fill in that elbow so that there's nothing beside it.
And also you need a lot more space to the right and left of the shot.
So they're like they're Basically, what they said that they're trying to do is they said, this is Dolan, he said, quote, our standard on this was not to modify the film at all, but to try and bring you into the film as if you were in the studio when it was shot.
So I think what's interesting is like there's the outpainting for sure.
But they also said that in some cases, expanding the frame means that they actually have to create some new performances from the existing characters that weren't there originally.
So I guess that's like historically what people complain about the most.
But I think overall, they're trying to stay true to the film.
They're trying to basically make it the same film and they just have to expand it a little bit.
I think the concept is fascinating. I was recently editing a video over on Adobe Premiere and they have a very interesting similar tool.
Basically, I had a clip that needed to be synced up to something in particular and the video was shorter than the audio I was syncing it to.
And the video at the beginning of this particular clip was it was like pointing at like a rock and then it panned over to something.
And so basically I just use AI clicked and dragged it.
And it just, it just added some extra motion, some extra, I don't know, rock texture before.
So the whole clip synced up with the audio.
I thought it was absolutely amazing. It saved me so much time and pain, uh, in that particular situation.
And no one that ever watches the film has ever got like, it's not even like, Oh, your videos, AI generated.
It's like, you're just using AI to help fill out a little pieces the same way you use Photoshop to help tweak an image or, or basically all the tools we have from Photoshop, we now have for images or for video as well.
So I'm honestly really excited. I think this is absolutely fascinating.
It's going to unlock a lot inside of film.
I think we'll see a lot of other studio companies do this, like I mentioned, not just for the Sphere, but for 360 VR experiences as well.
So I'll be really curious to see how The Wizard of Oz plays out in the future and what other... what other experiences we'll see next, you know, thanks to AI and what we're basically able to do with this.
Thank you so much for tuning into the podcast today.
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