Copy That!

Until yesterday, I was unaware of the existence of a Wes Anderson parody subculture on YouTube. I mean, I shouldn't have been. It's more than predictable. Wes Anderson has to be about the easiest director to parody since, oh, I don't know... Tim Burton?

I was alerted to the phenomenon by this news squib at NME. I'm no more than a casual admirer of Wes Anderson and I could happily go the rest of my life without hearing another word about Star Wars so I only clicked through to read it because of the mention of AI. I'm glad I did, though. The trailer is enjoyable on its own merits, either as a parody or a wish-fueled fever dream. Take a look.

There's no direct explanation of where the AI comes in although the static shots with barely-nodding heads make their provenance reasonably plain. The voice-over also sounds generated but as for the script it's hard to say. It's bland enough to be artificial but humans can be pretty beige, too. 

The three-paragraph description makes no mention of the methodology used and the channel's home page doesn't add anything, either. I was curious so I looked a little deeper. Don't get excited. I didn't find much.

At first, I assumed the folks who run the channel, Curious Refuge, had just linked it from someone else who'd made it but no, as their Twitter feed, where it first appears, has it: "We made a #StarWars trailer in the style of #wesanderson..." They just don't say how they made it.

In the lengthy thread that follows (Three-hundred-plus replies.) plenty of people ask which AI software was used but I couldn't see any direct response from the creators. Someone going by "Redacted" baldly states "The entire thing was hand drawn. Even the script." but I have no clue what connection that account has with the creators of the video or on what authority that definitive statement rests. It's most likely sarcasm.

A bit of a mystery, then. And just to complicate things a little more, the trailer is called "The Galactic Menagerie", which turns out to be the exact same name as another YouTube video, also very recent, but this time very definitely created by AI, specifically Midjourney and ChatGPT.

No clarity, then, but the upshot was my introduction to the sheer number of Wes Anderson parodies on YouTube, many of which are indeed facilitated, if not wholly created, by AI. The general principle seems to be just to have MidJourney whip up a batch of static images, then string them all together in a slideshow. Like this:

There are dozens, scores, possibly hundreds of these and very impressive showcases for Midjourney and other AI image generators they make, too. Unfortunately, very few bother with any kind of script, even an AI generated one, which makes them curios rather than compelling visions of an alternate reality.

At least this creator gave it a go, even if, by their own admission, the result was "a really bad video".

Actually, it's not that bad. It just doesn't really go anywhere, for which I blame the script, which was written by ChatGPT, which can do better. Maybe don't accept the first draft?

At least there are credits for all the tools used: ChatGPT, Midjourney, ElevenLabs, D-ID, and CapCut, for the record. Of those, ElevenLabs was new to me and looks very interesting. CapCut, too, although it's nothing specifically to do with AI.

At the moment it seems that, should you want to create something that stands out, you still need actual human intelligence, either in the writing, the editing or preferably both. This re-envisioning of Tarantino's oeuvre through the lens of Anderson's signature style is old tech - clips from the original movies spliced together - but it makes a powerful case. Who knew they had so much in common?

Could AI do that yet? You'd think pattern matching would be one of its strengths, so maybe, but could it make the leap from recognition and enumeration to conclusion, let alone deliver a visual lecture with this kind of ironic detachment? Probably not. Or, more likely, probably not yet...

One thing occurred to me as I was watching these videos (And loads more.) There's presumably a reason why YouTube has such a strongly-developed culture of video parody, whether artificial or human. It'll be because parody enjoys an unusual level of protection from the predation of copyright lawyers. If you don't want your work taken down, let alone to be on the end of a lawsuit about it, you'd best make sure you're taking the piss. [Edit: Thanks to Shintar linking this Tom Scott video in the comments, I'm now aware that YouTube's licenses do much to shield uploaders of all kinds of otherwise copyright-infinging content from the attention of corporate legal divisions. Parody and review do still offer protection above and beyond that baseline, though.]

On the subject of copyright, here's a sentence I never thought I'd need to type:

I agree with Grimes.  

Copyright does indeed suck. It was invented to aid monarchs and governments in  enforcing their will and codified to protect the vested interests of non-creative monopolies. It was for good reason that Frances Hardinge put the Stationers among the villains of her very excellent first two novels, Fly By Night and Twilight Robbery.

Giving the keynote speech at the annual International Music Summit, Grimes said, "Art is a conversation with everyone that’s come before us. Intertwining it with the ego is a modern concept."  She was directing her comments at the music industry, which "has been defined by lawyers" in a way that "strangles creativity", something that could equally be applied to most, if not all, other activities restrained by the dead hand of copyright law.

As reported in NME, her speech included more lucid and reasonable observations on the miserable status quo. She's in a fine position to throw stones because she, unlike many, hasn't just accepted the potential paradigm-shattering impact of AI but embraced it. If you want to make your own Grimes song, knock yourself out. Or indeed your own Grimes video.

How many will willingly follow her lead remains to be seen. It could be a trickle rather than a flood, I fear. Until the inevitable pressure of the future breaks down the stubborn resistance of the past, then, I guess we'll all just have to stick our tongues in our cheeks and keep poking sticks through those copyright bars. It's all we can do. 

For now.