Some four months after AI actress Tilly Norwood prompted a Hollywood backlash, its creators at London-based Particle6 have launched a musical video to tie in with the Oscars this weekend calling on actors to embrace the technology rather than shun it.
The four-minute music video titled “Take the Lead” shows Norwood crooning about the creative power of AI from city rooftops, posing with fans and in professional photo shoots and then performing at a mega Taylor Swift-style concert, with pink flamingos a leitmotif throughout.
“When they talk about me, they don’t see the human spark, the creativity, behind the code, behind the light, I’m just a tool but I’ve got life… They think I’m just a dollar dream but I’ve got more than they believe. I’m not a puppet. I’m a star guided by the heart that’s who we are,” she sings.
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And then belts out with backing singers: “Actors it’s time to take the lead, create the future, plant the seed. Don’t be left and fall behind, build your own and you’ll be free. We can scale we can grow; be the creators we’ve also known. It’s the next evolution, can’t you see?”
In a release, Particle6 described the video as a precursor to Tilly Norwood’s “official AI acting debut” later this year, saying it offers a glimpse into Tillyverse, a new entertainment world it is creating — based in the cloud – “where AI characters live, interact and work.”
After the backlash of recent months, the company was at pains to emphasize the human endeavor involved in the creation of the video, saying it had involved 18 people in roles such as executive producer, director, production designer, costume designer, creative prompter, creative technologist, comedy writer, editor, production assistant, production coordinator and actor.
The tune was generated using AI music generator Suno, with the accompanying content created by the team at Particle6, used new techniques around performance capture, with Particle6 founder Eline van der Velden acting out Tilly’s performance.
“Tilly is, and has always been, a vehicle to test the creative capabilities and boundaries of AI – not take anyone’s job. As an actor myself, I have loved bringing Tilly alive for this video and feel that the ability to now use performance capture in this way, to fully inhabit an AI character, is a phenomenal way to bring an unknown actor like me closer to the craft,” said van der Velden.
“However, at the end of the day, even with brilliant new technology, it’s still important to stress that great AI content isn’t instant — it always takes good ideas, taste, direction, judgment and time. In other words: people remain at the heart of it.”
One of the first AI actor creations to come out of Particle6 and its recently-launched AI talent studio Xicoia, Norwood was soft-launched last summer to little fanfare.
The character prompted a Hollywood backlash and global media storm last September after Van der Velden revealed in panel in the industry focused Zurich Summit that agents were circling the AI creation for representation.
The launch of the video comes just days after Xicoia announced it had hired Amazon’s Prime Video exec as Mark Whelan as the “leading architect of the Tillyverse” to lead the expansion of Norwood and the virtual world she inhabits.