“Ink” director Danny Boyle shared that he used AI technology to create images for his Rupert Murdoch drama, which entered the awards season conversation this week with premieres at both Venice and Telluride.
“There’s about 30 seconds of it in our movie, where we animate a couple of old photographs, which you’ll have seen online the way that it does that — that you can bring old photographs to life. And that’s the kind of way we use it,” the Oscar-winning director told Vanity Fair in a video interview recorded at Telluride Film Festival.
Boyle continued by explaining that the production also used AI to create imagery of mice, recounting a controversy he faced for using real chimpanzees in the opening of his 2002 zombie feature “28 Days Later.”
“There’s some mice. It’s very good for animals,” Boyle said. “I got in trouble with PETA (when) we had some chimps at the beginning of ’28 Days Later.’ And they wrote to me and said, ‘You must never do that again.’ And I haven’t. Ever since, I’ve tried to use CG, as they call it, animals. But AI is very, very good at creating animals. We got some mice in this one that run around ‘The Sun’ newsroom.”
A representative for Netflix, the distributor behind “Ink,” did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“My opinion of (AI) is that it’s a very useful tool in many ways, provided you use it respectfully and provided you pay actors if you’re going to replace them with some kind of AI embodiment or something like that — so just like with any animation project, or just as part of the VFX toolbox,” Boyle said in his opening quotes for Vanity Fair.
“Ink” has been tipped as a major awards season player since the Venice Film Festival announced it as the opening night screening for this year’s edition. The film received a warm reception at the Wednesday screening, along with positive reviews.
The employment of AI has been an existential topic in the entertainment industry over recent years, given widespread concerns about its potential to displace workers. Controversy around the technology has bled into awards conversations before, as it did when A24’s “The Brutalist” was reported to have employed AI to alter Hungarian dialogue. While director Brady Corbet confirmed that his team integrated AI for that process, the conversation around the film was altered by unsourced rumors that incorrectly alleged that the technology was used in other departments.
“Ink” stars Jack O’Connell, Claire Foy and Guy Pearce as Rupert Murdoch, recounting the early years of the U.K. publication The Sun and how its tabloid tactics would come to reshape journalism forever. Boyle, an Oscar winner for “Slumdog Millionaire,” helms the production, adapted from the play by James Graham.
Netflix is releasing “Ink” to select theaters on Dec. 11, with a streaming launch to follow on Jan. 8.
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