This genius used Deepfakes to „repair“ the new „Lion King“

This genius used Deepfakes to „repair“ the new „Lion King“

New York, 24.9.2019

Last month Disney released a remake of his movie classic „The Lion King“ which turned out to be a CGI spectacle. Critics said that „it just doesn’t work with the material“.

Now a video on YouTube by visual effects artist Jonty Pressinger shows how deepfake technology can be used to combine the two art styles – large-eyed, expressive faces drawn in the style of the original film provide a more emotional, recognizable trait when cut into the realistic style of the new film.

The video shows a side-by-side cut of the trailer of the new film and the deepfake cuts. Now, instead of looking like any other confused cat, Simba has the soulful face you might expect from a Disney movie. Rogue lion Scar once again has his signature, the exquisitely groomed black mane, and Pumbaa no longer looks like a random, uh, wild pig.

The deepfake video used drawings by artist Nikolay Mochkin, according to the description on YouTube. All in all, the video is another example of how Deepfake can be used for a growing number of art projects and not just – as feared at first – for anti-democratic applications.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_lion_king_2019