Hollywood Actors Are Starring in Movies Built With Generative AI

Hollywood actors are appearing in a movie built heavily with generative AI, showing how the technology can be used without removing human performers from the production.

Echo Hunter, directed by Kavan Cardoza, features performances from actors including Breckin Meyer, Taylor John Smith and Danielle Bisutti, while generative AI was used to help construct the sci-fi world around them.

Real actors inside an AI production

The actors provided voice and facial performances, with their likenesses used with permission under union agreements. AI tools were then used across the production process to generate and animate much of the finished visual world.

Rather than attempting to generate everything from scratch, the technology therefore works alongside performances supplied by real actors.

The approach has now earned Echo Hunter Best AI Long Film at the AI Film 3 Entertainment Conference in Arizona. Organisers say the event attracted 754 film submissions from 117 countries.

For the technology behind the movie, however, the award isn’t the most interesting part.

Echo Hunter demonstrates another potential use for generative AI in entertainment: allowing smaller production teams to build ambitious environments and visual sequences around human performances that might otherwise require considerably larger traditional productions.

That makes the project less about creating an artificial actor and more about using AI as part of the filmmaking technology surrounding real ones.

Watch Echo Hunter and follow Kavan the Kid

Echo Hunter is hosted through Kavan the Kid’s official YouTube channel, where Kavan Cardoza shares more of his filmmaking and AI-assisted creative work.

The channel has more than one million subscribers and also features The Chronicles of Bone, his ongoing fantasy project. You can follow Kavan the Kid across his social media accounts for more behind-the-scenes work, new projects and updates on what he is creating with AI.