Nic Cage as James Bond
How would you like the iconic John Wayne or Elizabeth Taylor in your movie, though long dead? It’s closer than you think. Deepfake allows a simple face swap using publicly available software.
[UPDATE] February 7, 2018 – BBC reports that Twitter has taken down all DeepFake videos.
Let me explain:
Altering images has been going on for as long as men and women could draw. But altering moving images is a century old practice and one noted for a painstakingly slow and tedious step after step.
In late 2017 an amateur hobbyist developer in America’s West Coast created software “DeepFakes.” Using a publicly available algorithm he was able to upload multiple images of someone’s face allowing the software to superimpose the images onto another’s body. All this using readily available free source software.
Within weeks, spoof videos of Donald Trump appeared on various animals and the race was on to exploit this new technology.
Deepfakes rapid rise
I don’t want to draw on the age-old algorithm that the porn industry fuels most filmmaking advances. Yet again porn has driven the use of DeepFake with blinding speed. Hobbyists began mimicking the faces of their favourite movie stars and putting them onto porn performers.
When news of this app starting popping up just after New Year 2018 the application process was time-consuming. The images had to be altered one-by-one and frame-by-frame. Automation seemed at least a year away according to message boards on Reddit.
That was in January 2018. But how quickly this has developed using deep algorithms and basic artificial intelligence software.
Redditor UnobtrusiveBot put Jessica Alba’s face on porn performer Melanie Rios’ body using FakeApp. “Super quick one – just learning how to retrain my model. Around 5ish hours – decent for what it is,” they wrote in a comment.
How do Deepfake apps work?
Deepfake apps like FakeApp use “machine learning algorithm” a form of artificial intelligence to mimic a person’s face. The app searches the internet for images of the subject. by using stills from social media websites like Instagram and clips from online videos the software places images frame by frame onto another face. It is very time-consuming, and even though automated the process can take an hour or two per minute of screen time.
If the subject skin tone and hair are similar to the base image the results are surprisingly convincing.
FakeApp mimics an actors face by analysing and ‘learning’ from hundreds of online pictures and videos
Deepfakeapp told me in a Reddit direct message that his goal with creating FakeApp was to make deepfakes’ technology available to people without a technical background or programming experience.
“I think the current version of the app is a good start, but I hope to streamline it even more in the coming days and weeks,” he said. “Eventually, I want to improve it to the point where prospective users can simply select a video on their computer, download a neural network correlated to a certain face from a publicly available library, and swap the video with a different face with the press of one button.”
Are Deepfake images legal?
Using anyone’s image without permission is illegal and wrong. Placing someone’s face on that of a porn star, for example, could open the door for a defamation suit claims Tony Morris who is a partner at London’s intellectual property firm Swan Turton and Raindance lecturer. He says that actors and actresses ‘could sue for defamation should they themselves be viewed negatively’.
Morris also can see that such images could be viewed as an invasion of privacy leading the victim to reporting such actions to the police. Acts such as these could also lead the victim to launch a lawsuit for ‘unlawful intrusion into their privacy.’
Videos featuring the likes of Arianna Grande (computer generated image) could not simply be immoral, but also illegal
Non-porn examples of Deepfake
As one would expect, Deepfake is used in satire images. for some reason Nicholas Cage’s face has been superimposed on a series of other actors faces in well-known movies
Reddit user Z3ROCOOL22 combined footage of Hitler with Argentina’s president Mauricio Macri in a decidedly quirky movie.
Opportunities for filmmakers
Scary but true, subject to clearing image rights there is no reason why John Wayne or Elizabeth Taylor couldn’t star in your next indie short or movie. And then, of course, the question remains: What happens to all the new and talented actors attempting to break in. No longer would you be competing with living actors but the greats of the past as well.
Fade Out
We were all warned about the potential for worryingly easy to use and free software available to make these movies. DeepFake apps are the way of the future. The really frightening thing is how they could be used by terrorists to create world leaders spouting off hostile messages and provoking yet more war.
About Elliot Grove
Photo Credit Jay Brooks / BIFA 2015
Elliot Grove is the founder of Raindance Film Festival and the British Independent Film Awards. He has produced over 700 hundred short films and also five feature films, including the multi-award-winning The Living and the Dead in 2006, Deadly Virtues in 2013 and AMBER in 2017. He teaches screenwriting and producing in the UK, Europe, Asia and America.
Elliot has written three books which have become industry standards: Raindance Writers’ Lab: Write + Sell the Hot Screenplay, now in its second edition, Raindance Producers’ Lab: Lo-To-No Budget Filmmaking and Beginning Filmmaking: 100 Easy Steps from Script to Screen (Professional Media Practice).
In 2009 he was awarded a PhD for services to film education.
This technology will only improve over the years, but it looks like technology to combat deepfakes is quickly becoming reality too. For example gfycat has created technology to identify swapped faces and block them. Removing videos one by one isn’t a solution either, there are so many places where videos are being uploaded. Pornhub, xvideos, all have videos still. Dedicated deepfake websites like http://dpfks.com are popping up.
Done… So the first short movie, made with FakeApp is just finished. (“Un’emozione per sempre 2.0”, now on youtube) I guess everyone in the indie scene who heard about FakeApp had in mind to have John Wayne or Elizabeth Taylor in the next movie. I worked on an art project about Ornella Muti, Italian movie start of the early 80s– and she IS in my movie. The clip is a kind of surreal time travel of the 80s star into the world of Instagram, and for my movie the FakeApp appeared just at the right time. Some remarks about the work with the tool: It isn’t one single software, it’s a team: the just developed FakeApp and the well known AI software Tensorflow from Google. The results are incredible… but I must correct one wrong impression: It is not easy. Of course it is fascinating to see the AI working, learning, modeling, but even after days and weeks of try and error (a lot of error) you can never be sure that the thing will deliver you something usable. On the other hand: it does something, what no other tool does, so there is (today) no real alternative. Joseph Ayerle, artist