‘The Brutalist’ Sparks Backlash After Editor Reveals Use of AI in Dialogue and Buildings, but Says It’s ‘Nothing That Hasn’t Been Done Before’

variety.com:

Alex Ritman As it gears up to become one of the frontrunners of awards season, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” has sparked backlash on social media after its editor admitted to using AI in the film.

In an interview with tech magazine Red Shark News, editor Dávid Jancsó revealed that AI tools from Respeecher — a Ukrainian software company — had been deployed in order to improved the authenticity of the Hungarian dialogue of stars Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones. “I am a native Hungarian speaker and I know that it is one of the most difficult languages to learn to pronounce,” Jancsó told Red Shark. “It’s an extremely unique language.

We coached [Brody and Jones] and they did a fabulous job but we also wanted to perfect it so that not even locals will spot any difference.” According to Jancsó, certain words are particularly difficult to speak, so the filmmakers “first tried to ADR these harder elements with the actors” to overcome this. “Then we tried to ADR them completely with other actors but that just didn’t work.

So we looked for other options of how to enhance it.” Brody and Jones recorded their voices into the AI software, while Jancsó said he also fed in his voice to “finesse the tricky dialect.” “Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there,” he added. “We were very careful about keeping their performances.