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Papas Fritas have released a new animated music video for the song Way You Walk, originally released by Minty Fresh Records on the album Buildings and Grounds in 2000. Featuring band members Shivika Asthana, Keith Gendel and Tony Goddess, the video used Runway ML's Generative AI Technology to animate candy sweet abstractions and augment the synthesized retro-pop tones of the original track. 'People always seem to mention Way You Walk as one of their favorites of all our songs. It was used in a Dentyne Ice commercial and released as a cover in France by the band So featuring Marc Almond of Soft Cell' says the band's lead singer and songwriter Tony Goddess. 'In many ways Way You Walk is the ultimate Papas Fritas track. It has Shivika and Keith's great natural groove and the duet form highlights our different singing voices. We've recently started revisiting and prepping for the 25th anniversary of Buildings and Grounds with Minty Fresh Records, so it's really fun to see the song brought back to life in 4K with this crazy new video.' Using cutting edge AI image processing technology called GEN-1-1 from Runway ML, video director Ross Shain restored and transformed 20 year old footage of the band into a unique cell animation look with stylistic nods to Matisse lighting and classic Anime aesthetics. 'I have been exploring generative AI technology for image processing and visual effects for a few years and only until very recently have the results become good enough for professional creatives', says Shain, who is also an Academy Award-winning technologist and software designer. 'When I got beta access to Runway's Gen-1 technology, I immediately thought of the original, hand animated video we had done for Way You Walk many years ago and wanted to see if AI could be harnessed to enhance the creative process'.  While the resulting video and experience has been positive, neither Shain nor Goddess claim to be poster boys for AI technology. 'I'm excited that our audio and video files from the past can be restored and even improved by AI technologies, but like so many other artists, I have major concerns for the future of humans making art and music', says Goddess. 'As a studio owner and producer, I use technology every day to record and write music, but I'm really not interested in a future where robots replace craft'. 'At the moment there is a lot of promise that generative AI will replace traditional software tools for video and music creation, but I'm leaning towards cautiously optimistic', says Shain. 'This video used AI for the animation process but it was not a simple automatic process. Runway is doing really amazing things, but it is still early stages. Some shots required a hands on approach and plenty of traditional effects, editing, and color grading techniques were used to bring a cohesive look to the entire four minute video'. Shain continues, 'In the much larger picture, there are still issues concerning the ethics of AI training sets and the ownership of AI produced content that should come out in the wash. We're really in uncharted waters at the moment, but in the right hands, I believe AI can be an empowering tool for visual artists.' Ross Shain: rossshain.com Minty Fresh: mintyfresh.com Papas Fritas: papasfritas.com |
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