AI-enhanced films score nods for acting, editing

“The Brutalist,” a drama about a Hungarian-Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust and flees to the U.S., garnered 10 nominations, while “Emilia Pérez,” a musical centered on a transgender Mexican cartel leader, led all films with 13 nominations.

Both movies have been the subject of criticism this month for using AI to enhance actors’ voices. “The Brutalist” also caught blowback for employing AI to supplement the visuals in the film’s ending sequence.

Nominations for “The Brutalist” include Adrien Brody for best actor and Felicity Jones for best supporting actress, while “Emilia Pérez” star Karla Sofía Gascón is up for best actress. Both films earned nods for best picture and best film editing. “Emilia Pérez” was nominated for best sound.

Artificial intelligence has been a point of contention in Hollywood in recent years. The technology is frequently used in the moviemaking process for tasks such as dubbing or color correction and is not grounds for disqualifying a film from Academy Award nomination. Still, it was a key issue during the 2023 actors’ and writers’ strikes, during which creators expressed fears around AI replacing their work and impacting their pay.

Both the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA, the entertainers’ and artists’ union, reached agreements with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers that included conditions and compensation for productions that use generative AI and digital replicas of performers. But the agreements also left unresolved questions such as how freely studios can train AI with preexisting content.

SAG-AFTRA did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment Thursday.

The tensions around AI flared earlier this month following an interview with “The Brutalist” director and co-writer Brady Corbet and film editor David Jancso, both of whom received Oscar nominations Thursday, that discussed AI’s role in the movie. Jancso told media outlet RedShark he used AI tool Respeecher to clone and enhance Brody’s and Jones’ Hungarian-language dialogue. Respeecher was necessary to nail the pronunciations of certain letters and sounds, he said, and it was faster than using other software platforms to edit the dialogue.

Jancso also said he used generative AI to help create architectural drawings and buildings shown in the movie’s finale.

“It is controversial in the industry to talk about AI, but it shouldn’t be,” he said in that interview. “We should be having a very open discussion about what tools AI can provide us with. There’s nothing in the film using AI that hasn’t been done before. It just makes the process a lot faster. We use AI to create these tiny little details that we didn’t have the money or the time to shoot.”

The story caused a firestorm on social media, where some users condemned the use of AI and said they wouldn’t watch the film.

Corbet defended the performances, telling Variety, “Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own.”

“They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents. Innovative Respeecher technology was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed. This was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production,” Corbet said, according to Variety. “The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft.”

The controversy ensnared “Emilia Pérez,” which has also now come under fire for its use of Respeecher. In recent months an interview resurfaced in which the film’s re-recording mixer Cyril Holtz says Gascón, a trans woman, could not reach certain singing registers, so he used Respeecher to clone Gascón’s voice and blend it with that of Camille, a French singer who co-wrote the film’s music.

“In the case of Karla Sofía, it was more complicated because there were really parts of the field that were extremely difficult, especially because she had already made her transition and there were registers that were no longer accessible to her,” Holtz said in French, according to a translation reviewed by CNBC.

Representatives for “Emilia Pérez” distributor Netflix and “The Brutalist” distributor A24 didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday. Representatives for the Academy Awards declined to comment.

The movies’ defenders have cited previous films that used similar techniques, such as “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which blended lead Rami Malek’s voice with that of singer Marc Martel, and “The Irishman,” which used AI to de-age stars Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Al Pacino.

Malek won the award for best actor at the Oscars in 2019, and “Bohemian Rhapsody” won best film editing and best sound mixing that same year. “The Irishman” received 10 Academy Award nominations, including for best film editing and best supporting actor for Pesci and Pacino, in 2020.

Peter Csathy, chairman of media and tech consulting firm Creative Media, said while Hollywood has long used technology to cut costs and increase production efficiency, generative AI is unprecedented in its ability to continuously create as well as its foundation in existing content. That creates dual creative and legal risks, he said, as many AI platforms face lawsuits over copyright infringement.

“I think the Oscars’ role is certainly to celebrate great art, first and foremost,” Csathy told CNBC. “But at the same time, it’s the Academy’s role to protect creators’ rights.”

“The Brutalist” and “Emilia Pérez” also aren’t the only Oscar nominees this year known to have used AI: “Maria,” a biographical drama starring Angelina Jolie as opera performer Maria Callas, used Respeecher to clone the real-life Callas’ voice. “Maria” was nominated for best cinematography.

Disclosure: Respeecher participated in an accelerator program run by Comcast, the parent company of CNBC.