Logan Lawler (4:07)

AI is changing the workflow for like pre visualization and virtual production. What is it that you're doing at Heretic and how is that going to be different?

Alex Proyas (4:15)

Well, Heretic is my own VFX company that, that I set up about four years ago, you know, and it's, it's kind of mandate was really to focus on virtual production, which we've been doing. We've done a bunch of things. And RUR is entirely vp. Almost entirely? Well, no, entirely vp, which is my way of. In this changing Hollywood landscape where original IP is not, it's kind of frowned upon. We don't, you know, Hollywood studios don't really like financing big expensive science fiction or fantasy original ip. And every time one of them comes out and fails and it seems to happen every single time. Sadly for my preferred genre, which is exactly that. Original, original science fiction, not so much based on comic books or anything else. It's, it's basically made it virtually, it's making it virtually impossible, you know, to for guys like me to keep making those sorts of movies. And my last, my most recent movie, Gods of Egypt, which was a big original IP sort of fantasy film, but hell, I turn everything into science fiction. So I turned Egyptian mythology into science fiction. Somehow I don't quite know how I did that. And that didn't do so well at the box office. And as a result it's, it's pretty much impossible. You know, sometimes some filmmakers, you know, there was a film, Mickey 17 or something that came out recently, again failed at the box office. And I was hoping it wouldn't, as many people were, because again, original science fiction, expensive movies. To circle back to your question about Heretic. Heretic was built as a way to lower the price point of doing VP because that's the only way I can create these worlds. You know, I'm a world builder. I like to build, build stories in worlds that don't exist. Heretic was a way to kind of as a boutique VFX company to be able to make the sort of VFX work that has been traditionally done by, you know, on, on a hundred million dollar plus budgets going up, going north all the time for a indie level price point. And we've done that, we've achieved that. I'm staggered with what we're achieving on rur. I look at the material and I'm like, this stuff is. If someone had told me five years ago this was out of a hundred million dollar movie, I would have believed them. And the reason we're able to do all that is because we can work with a smaller team. The technology is allowing us to do more, faster, more expediently with a smaller group of people. And AI is very much filtering into every part of our workflow and increasing probably exponentially. So the next movie will have even more use of AI. That's the simplest answer.

Logan Lawler (7:13)

That's a great answer. And I totally agree with you. And I totally agree with you. We are seeing a lot of less original content. You know, everything is a prequel or a trilogy or you know, you've got how many Fast and Furious movies. And so I feel like there is an opportunity.

Cindy Alibo (7:28)

Not enough. We gotta keep them coming. They're great.

Logan Lawler (7:33)

I would like to see an original content renaissance and I'm hoping that you know, that's kind of what work you know, that you're doing. So you were an early adopter of digital vfx. So how has your relationship with CGI evolved since then? You know, how have the software is involved and what does that software Ecosystem look like, what is it that you're using at your studio?

Alex Proyas (7:52)

Well, the whole kind of. I don't know that it's an ethical question, but it's the whole kind of hate that is kind of leveled at AI is something I truly don't understand. I mean, we've been using AI in movies from day one, you know, from. I think the first awareness that I had of AI in VFX was actually on iRobot. That was one of the first virtual production films done that. And Spielberg's movie AI, we were the first to sort of use to wed a. What was a film camera in those days to a computer model where we could move the camera in physical space. And the computer model was wedded to that. So that was the first use of virtual production right there. In particular, specifically in the sequence where Will Smith is running around through the thousand robots. Because I couldn't work out a way where I could see him. And I knew when the camera was going to see him, when I was working in a big green space right on a big green stage. And so my VFX team came up with this system to be able to do that, to see computerized representations of all those robots. So that was my first kind of inkling of that. And then the AI part of it came. Using Weta's Massive program for the final scene in the movie when all the robots, the sunny robot, the lead robot is up on the hill and all the robots are. Thousands of robots are coming in and turning and looking up at their kind of savior, robotic messiah. We use MASSIVE to create that digital domain. Use Massive to create that. And there was this. I would. I would see iteration after iteration where one or more robots would, like. They'd all walk in, you know, hundreds of them would walk in and turn beautifully all choreographed. And then one of them would, like, decide to run away, right? Which is not what we wanted it to do. So it was like the, The. The. The ghost in the machine, you know, so. So whatever programming was going on was not functioning. And they had to, like, dig in and work out what part of the code was flawed. And it was. Suddenly I was like, hey, this thing is like, alive. It's sentient. You know, it's like. Which it wasn't, of course, but. But it kind of was, in a way. The, you know, I would show Will Smith. We had a digital double of Will Smith where some of the stunts were done by the digital double, right? And I'd show Will. And Will was, you know, even at that stage, he was pretty experienced. He'd done a bunch of VFX movies, so he knew. But we were doing stuff that he'd not experienced before. And the digital double thing was not a sort of stunt double I don't think he'd experienced on any of his other movies. And so I'd show him some footage of an action sequence all cut together where he's jumping around and flipping around and whatever, and he go. He'd go, I did that really good, didn't I? And I go, no, Will, that's not you. That shot wasn't you. Nor was it your stunt double. It was actually a digital double. And I knew it was kind of working kind of for that era at that point because, hey, it fooled him. So I knew it was gonna fly with the audience. Anyway, look, I tend to ramble, so I've got no idea whether I've answered your question or not.

Logan Lawler (11:16)

No, you did. You. You answered it. Great. So do you have any scripts laying around that would have been impossible before some of these AI tools existed. Like, you know, how would a movie like Dark City have been different if you made it today?

Alex Proyas (11:28)

That's a kind of a. Again, a complex question. The. I wouldn't get Dark City made today. That's the simple. Through the Hollywood system. I would not get that movie made. It's impossible. Right. Assuming that, you know, it's a bunch of hypotheticals going on there, because you were assuming that we're back in 1996 when I started making that movie, but yet the Hollywood system is what it is today. Right. So that's a weird fusion of realities right there.

Logan Lawler (11:55)

Let's talk about, like, a sequel, because I think that we were all kind of been waiting for it. You know, everybody loves that movie. It's. It's a cult classic at this point. And, you know, if you were going to announce that, you know, in the spirit of sequels and prequels and all of those things, you know, the next one, you know, what would be the big differences? Like, you look at the CGI in that and. And then you look at how far the technology has advanced and. And just understanding kind of what technology you use to create some of those scenes with, you know, like the. The brains or the. The doors and the transitions that you did and the buildings growing. Like, what was the tech like then versus, you know, how those graphics cards and the technology and the PCs and everything has advanced.

Alex Proyas (12:39)

Yeah, it was so primitive then. We had. Because I made that movie in Australia, and we have very limited resources even now compared to what people have in the States, et cetera, or the uk. We had to fly in a CG specialist. There was no one in the country who could do the computer graphics. Right. We were just. We were limited to doing composite comp work. You know, that was really what we could do with the people who were the artists who were here. So we had to fly somewhere in special. But just to go back to your question, which is for me, far more interesting about whether I could make. How I would make A Dark City now. Well, I've tried recently, I tried. I tried to sell a TV series which was a direct sequel about. And you know, the movie. So when I mention the character, you'll know what I'm talking about. Rufus character, Murdoch. It's about his daughter, his and Jennifer Connelly's daughter, who's now grown up. She's living in Shelby and she's under the. The kind of umbrella, protective shell of Murdoch who has kind of gone AWOL because he's still trying to keep the strangers at bay all these years later. And then it's about her becoming the new Chosen One and her realizing she has the same power that her father had and the passing of the mantle. Right. So I thought it was. Actually, I came up with this idea and I've resisted doing sequels for many years because I've never been able to come up with an idea. And I suddenly had this great idea. I thought, anyway, clearly, only I had that idea now. Other producers and people got involved and Warner's got involved because Warner's own the ip, because I gave the IP away, sadly, to New Line and then it passed on to Warners. And we, we went and they all got excited and I got excited and I wrote a long Bible kind of pitch for it and we tried to sell it to, to the, to the networks and the. And the streamers and whatever. No one wanted it. Right. So that's been shelved. Okay. But the practicality of making. So that tells you a lot about where we are in the industry right now. Because even though that was based on. It wasn't original. It's no longer original. It was based on something that I created that it has. Has a very strong fan base still to this day and actually builds by the year. They were still frightened of it. They went, oh, this is just too weird, you know, so that show, that tells you a lot about the mindset of Hollywood executives right now. Right? But the, the practicality, the logistics of making something like Dark City, if I was embarking on it and someone was foolish enough or crazy enough to give me some money to. To make the film. I wouldn't make it that way. I would make it the way I'm making rur RUR is strangely enough, you know, Dark City was influenced by Fritz Lang and by Metropolis amongst many other influences. R U R the. The play of R you are actually influenced Fritz Lang and Theo von Harbo who wrote his. His partner who wrote Metropolis, it influenced them because that was where the word robot came from. Carol Capek invented the word robot which means. Robota means worker in Czech and then Laing and Harbaugh were influenced by this play which was incredibly popular. He wrote the play in 1920 and it was a huge hit all over Europe in this kind of satirical about. And it's kind of got allusions to communism and the flaws of the capitalist system, et cetera, et cetera. And so Lang and Habao were influenced by it and Maria the robot in Metropolis is very much influenced by the robots in Are you are right. So I'm. I'm kind of coming. I'm joining some dots here. I'm sort of circling back and I'm making a film that is based on. On R U R the play but it is set in 1920 so. So the world is the world of Metropolis effectively. Right. And it's again also very influenced visually, probably even more specifically influe by Lang's Metropolis. So of course I'm building everything, the whole world, all the architecture, the. It takes place on an. On a secret island installation which is the factory of Rosson's Universal robots where they build the robots and it's about a. It's about a robot rebellion effectively. So that whole world is being created digitally and we are projecting it on screens and doing it that way. So that's the way I would have done Dark City and I could have. And I would probably have ended up doing Dark City at a fraction of the cost because that was. Because I have to. I've got to do it for that in order to effectively. I've effectively self financed this movie. So I retain. This is Rui so I retain all rights and I hope, touch wood that I sell it to the people who can pay me money to stream it or show it on the big screen, ideally or whatever, and then I'll make the next one in the same way, hopefully with a slightly better budget. That's the way I'm working because the technology allows me to work that way. I make no artistic compromises because I've got no one Telling me how to do things. I do exactly what I want to do. The visuals look fantastic. Studios cost the budget money. Studio indecision and micromanaging costs my productions that they're paying for money. And I don't mind so much. I mean, I do mind even then, because every dollar that they cost the production unnecessarily is another dollar that my film has to make back in order for me to look good in variety or whatever the industry wants to consider my worth as. Right. And that's the only reason I really care about it in this instance. I cut away all that dead wood and I only put. I put all the money on the screen where it belongs, because I cast whoever the hell I want in it. I cast good actors who are gonna do the role really well. I'm not being told that I can't. I'm not gonna get a green light unless I have Tom Cruise in it. So I have complete autonomy, complete freedom. And with the technology, I also have complete creative freedom to still do the level of visuals that I like to do, the world building that I like.

Logan Lawler (19:07)

To do on the note of technology. So. So you're. You're currently using Dell Precision 7875s. Those are Threadrippers with dual Nvidia 6000 ADA cards in them. How are you using those PCs?

Alex Proyas (19:21)

They're fantastic machines. And I can't say that I've personally used them because I'm kind of like the spearhead guy. I'm the figurehead guy in the company and Heretic, my VFX company. I just tell people, you know, how to make it. I think I know how to make it better. I give them advice about shots and whatever. You know, I'm the director. I direct things. Right. But I've watched them work on them, and it's amazing. They're incredible. And, you know, again, the whole AI aspect is something that is very much incorporated into every part of what we do. The Dell machines are the sort of spearhead part of that process. Well, I can go through how I use AI and then how it filters into how the company is using AI. Would you like me to do that?

Logan Lawler (20:08)

Yeah, it would be really interesting, I think, for the audience as well.

Alex Proyas (20:11)

When I write and this is like right from the very beginning of a project, when I'm writing a script and I've written this particular script on this particular project, I doodle, I do illustrations because I have a lot of visual ideas. I'm a very visual thinker, and I tend to go, oh, yeah, buildings growing out of the roots of the city and growing up into the, you know, above the city. As I'm writing Dark City, so I do a little sketch of that, and then I. Traditionally, I've had a whole team of artists, very talented, very expensive conceptual artists who are often working under a production designer who illustrate those. Make those pictures pretty so that I can go, yeah, that. That's great. Aren't I clever? They're amazing. And then we can impress the studio and get more money out of them, et cetera, et cetera. That's all gone now. That's. That part of the whole process has. Has disappeared. But my part of doodling still exists. I still doodle because I like the pen and paper and all that sort of stuff. And sometimes it's the quickest and easiest way. But sometimes I will actually use some of the AI image generators to kind of come up with visuals as well. Now, that's always prompted very specifically by what comes out of my head. I'm always. We're using AI to get to a final destination faster and more expediently, more directly, but none of us. No part of the production, starting from me conceptualizing, is sitting there going, hey, AI, come up with something crazy. You know, oh, do this. Mix this movie with that movie. We don't do that at all because there's a whole ethical aspect of that also, which we try and avoid. So in this instance, even though I'm using Metropolis as a kind of inspiration, I'm still not prompting. Sitting there, prompting Metropolis. Because I don't want the AI to regurgitate other people's ideas. I want the AI to come up with some new idea that comes out of my head, out of my. My soul, out of my DNA. Right. Some people in this world believe that there are no new ideas. I'm not one of them. I do believe that there are new ideas and that the role of an artist is never to mimic something else that they've seen, but to dig deep and try and find something from another place. What that other place is, I don't really know, but I believe that it exists. And I believe we can channel that. Artists can channel that, and AI can help us channel that. The subconscious, some people call it. I don't know whether that's what it is, but the dream state could be another reality. And AI seems to be very good at helping us channel that. It's also very good at plagiarizing. Right. But that's a whole different thing. And. And actually, you don't Need AI to plagiarize. I've been well and truly plagiarized in the analog world for a very long time now, and I'm probably guilty of occasionally plagiarizing things in the analog world. You don't need AI to do that.

Logan Lawler (23:24)

I was just going to say you're plagiarized all the time. There is that scene in Dark City where John Murdoch is going into the cafe. Yeah, there is in the most recent Marvel, Loki, you know, in the Ministry of Time kind of thing, where they go into the cafeteria and they have that same wall where all of the food is in those little cubbies. And it. It was so the exact same scene from. From Dark City. So it was very funny to see that.

Alex Proyas (23:50)

And there's also a fine line between. And I haven't seen that. That what you just mentioned, but there's a fine line between homage and plagiarism, too. And. And, you know, I mean, I. I'm in rur. I'm rebuilding the war room set out of Kubrick's Strangelove. Exactly. Like, it's exactly the same. We've found the Ken Adams designs. Yeah. But to me, it's like, that's not plagiarism. I mean, it's. Everyone knows that I love Kubrick. And it's also. It's just so obvious that you go, anyone who calls out plagiarism is kind of a complete idiot. Just to get back to the. How AI has filtered in. So. So it filters in at that early point and then all the way through the process. I mean, you know, we're working with a very small team because we have to. The only way I can make this movie, which will look like $100 million movie for a fraction of that, is we've got to be really clever. We've got to. You know, I wear multiple hats on this project. I'm a. As I've sort of alluded to earlier, I'm the producer. I'm the director. I'm the writer. I'm the editor. I'm also the production designer because I couldn't afford a production designer, so I've designed it all. I'm pretty. Pretty good with those doodles. I can always sketch kind of what I want. And like I say, we don't need people to make pretty pictures. I keep saying to everyone, don't show me pretty pictures. I don't want to see pretty pictures. I want to see practical working designs because we don't have to impress anyone other than, you know, the audience at the end of the road. That's the only. The only people we need to impress. I don't have to impress studio people or producer people or anyone at all. So we've cut out a lot of the. In that sort of pyramidal hierarchy, we've cut out a lot of unnecessary. What I believe are unnecessary steps. And the more of those that you cut out of that hierarchy and the more direct the. The workflow is from point A to point B to point C to point D, the. That also then gives you more license to cut even more steps out, you know, and of course, the end of the road. And we've, you know, we're miles away from that still. We're a long way away from it. But every bit of every finished AI little short film that comes out that is on YouTube or whatever, where you kind of. We all go, wow, that's even more impressive. You know, every time one of those things come out, it points to this world, which I believe will happen whether we want it to or not, where films are entirely made. And. And even calling them films is kind of an erroneous title because I believe the. I believe there always will be films. Just like, you know, movies didn't replace radio, didn't replace theater, right? They became another thing, right? So I believe the whole way of making films through AI is another thing. It's another art form, completely other new art form. But me as a filmmaker, even at my age, hey, I'm really interested in it. I. I think it's. You know, I've always said that for me, the ultimate directing, writing, making of a film would be where I can plug an electrode into the back of my head and go to sleep and dream an entire movie, right? And, hey, you know, I used to say that 20 years ago. Hey, now we're almost at that point, right? That's why I'm so excited about it. But I believe that the best A.I. films, whatever you want to call them, A.I. i don't think anyone's come up with a term yet. Dreams, whatever these things are, these experiences that people make using AI that are shown to an audience, I believe the best format for making those will always be a team of people. I don't believe it will ever be one person. Just like, even though I'm doing many roles in my film now, expedited by, Helped by. By AI but substantially still traditional technology, traditional shooting real actors in real. Well, not real environments, but shooting, you know, real actors at least, and using traditional CG creation, I believe that there's always A reason to work with collaborators as a. Otherwise you're going to go insane. Otherwise, well, there's too much to do, and some people might want to do it that way, and they'll probably be very successful at doing it that way. For me, I do enjoy working with other artists, particularly in the acting area, which is an area that I don't have any interest in doing. I believe that the best performances are still going to come from an actor. Whether there's one actor who does all of the roles in your film, in your AI Film, or multiple actors, who knows? But I believe that working with an actor, for me, the process of working out a scene, giving someone else the words that you've written to speak them and then have a. Have a take on those words and have a. An emotional response about the character and the stuff that actors bring to that is invaluable for me as a director, as a creator, as a conceptualizer. So that's something that I will never dispense with. Even if we do get to the point where you can plug something into the back of your head, I'll probably want some other guy or girl plugging a thing into the back of their heads to finesse the performances, if, you know, if you understand where I'm getting to. I always believe that. I believe in the collaborative process. So we're on the road towards that final end point. Right. And that's shifting.

Logan Lawler (29:35)

So do you feel that that final endpoint, though, is taking us to a time of, you know, a visual renaissance, or are we approaching kind of a period of creative saturation? I mean, with these tools being democratized and with people being able to create content and make movies on their cell phones, what does that mean for studios and directors like yourself? How do you create content that's going to stand out?

Alex Proyas (30:01)

And.

Logan Lawler (30:02)

And that is, I guess, the big question.

Alex Proyas (30:04)

I have no concern about that because I've never had a concern about that. You know, I'm. As an artist, first and foremost, I'm trying to say what is. What is deep within me. I'm trying to use my voice and my vision to convey my concerns as an artist. Right. Whether or not they are substantially different from anyone else's, I don't care, quite frankly. So that's not really an issue. What is an issue with every. The democratization of being able to create film. And this has been going on for some time. And again, it's not just about AI the iPhone created immense democratization. Being able to cut a film on your laptop, again, that's what that was doing. And that started 15 years ago now whenever the hell it started. When I was a kid making films, you know, I had a Super 8 camera and I had to save my dollars to afford one 50 foot cartridge of film which ran exactly three minutes at 18 frames a second. And I had to shoot it all, you know, a shot at a time and edit in. Edit in camera.

Cindy Alibo (31:15)

There is one movie that you made and you probably don't hear this a lot, but I did not know you made this movie. I love this movie. Is knowing I had no idea. I love that movie. I love that movie. I absolutely love that movie. I thought it was so smart. It's like time capsule blow. You know the thing they pull it out. Writing on the wall. Nicholas Cade. I mean it was just good. I liked it.

Alex Proyas (31:40)

Everything's better with Nicolas Cage. So.

Logan Lawler (31:44)

We'Ll end on a positive note. Any parting words for the future of AI and filmmaking? Logan, any. Any final thoughts on your end?

Cindy Alibo (31:53)

You've kind of already talked about you like robots are taking over so you've pretty much covered A to Z. So we're, we're good. But I guess final thoughts. 30 seconds. The short film that you're coming out with. Any details on that, when to expect it? Obviously want to have the listeners and audience support you like. Any details you could share on that would be fantastic and we'll wrap it up.

Alex Proyas (32:14)

Well, RUR is a feature film that won't come out for another year at least so there's probably not much point in plugging that film because I'll be doing all the plugging at the time that it's released or pre plugging. Well, I mean what I will plug is I have a streamer. I've set up my own streamer as well because I'm kind of crazy. And it's called Vidiverse V I D I V e r s e.com and it is specifically. There are some features on there, but it's specifically for short films. We have about a 150 artists that have provided 500 films. I don't know, there's. I've lost track of how many films there are on there and it's growing all the time. And we're just about to release version 2 of the platform which is trying to help young filmmakers with short films rather than just sticking them on YouTube. Whatever subscription we get, we split 5050 with the creators, the filmmakers themselves. So it's a noble pursuit, I believe.

Cindy Alibo (33:21)

I would agree. So if you're listening, podcast webinar check it out. Viddy v I d I verse v e r-e.com I'm actually on it myself. Check it out. Subscribe. And, you know, that kind of brings us to the end of the episode. Alex, really appreciate the time and giving kind of your perspective and the changes, you know, kind of over the course of years of, you know, feature filmmaking and kind of how AI and virtual production has accelerated those workflows and how delpromax and Nvidia RTX cards help kind of accelerate, you know, your creative process and your team's creative process in the journey. So with that, we're going to go ahead and sign off. Until next time, keep your workflows running on Dell, Promax and Nvidia, and we'll see you on the next one.

Alex Proyas (34:22)

Do what you want. This podcast was produced in partnership with Amaze Media Labs.