Comment by bsenftner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bsenftner | Hacker News Reader

I get irritated seeing deep fake videos and articles, because my 2004 Master Thesis "Automated Actor Replacement in Filmed Media" details everything about how to make them, how to overcome all their integration with real media issues, as well as how to identify fakes. It further details how to integrate Deep Fake (I called them Personalized Videos) into the existing post production media industry, enabling large scale productions. I acquired a global patent, and tried to create a Personalized Advertising startup. Yet, back then, no one believed, thought it was fraud, and when they got it they hyper-focused on creating porn, which if they read my thesis turned business plan, I detail how porn is economically unprofitable as personalized videos.

I tried to prove my ideas by created a "vfx at the last mile" pipeline with a small investment round, enabling media agencies to create ad with you in the Domino's pizza or rental car advertisement. It worked, feature film quality. Still they did not believe, or hyper-focused on porn.

I went bankrupt, closed, and went to work in Facial Recognition, where my skills are recognized. The personal one-to-one treatment I received when pitching to entertainment studios versus that of silicon valley VCs is worthy of a book; I have zero respect for VC now: of hundreds of personal interactions, one and only one was not a social climbing, rich parents moron.

> It worked, feature film quality.

Link to examples, otherwise your comment just reads like crankery.

By the way, I googled "Automated Actor Replacement in Filmed Media" and I couldn't find your Master's thesis. I could only find posts by you on HN, Quora, and other sites.

Not the OP but I found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GnIVWEAPus

https://youtu.be/1GnIVWEAPus?t=38

Ah yes, feature film quality. For values of 'feature film' that approximately equal 'late-night comedy show where moving lips are overlaid on a still image'.

No, actual feature film VFX quality, which requires a VFX budget and is not created trivially. Any studio or production facility we negotiated vetted the process and understood it's viability. The process was used in dozens of VFX films, but as a one off technique, where the process could just as easily have been used to actor replace anyone. You see, that is somewhat the key the process, because it is successful regardless of who is being inserted into the media, it grants an amount of freedom, or casual attitude for the production artists who used to view actor replacement as a difficult, time consuming challenge.

Early test...

The process was created for and was used in this feature film production: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBf9-_KyFJk That is my work, in combination with a VFX team. The original actor replacement process as implemented by the production team did not convince. I was a production analysis brought in, and created the extra embellishments to make the illusion convincing. The work was unique, I did some research and learned it was patent capable. Discussing with John Hughes, President of the Studio, he gave me the technology to pursue as I wished. This is significantly higher quality than today's Deep Fakes, and as such it requires actual VFX artists, as well as a non-trivial expense. (Of course, that expense is less than any return from using the process - that's the whole point.)

One of the patents, which are global btw. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7974493.html

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