Eternity

Just a hint of AI in mainstream cinema is enough to cause a controversy – with even best-picture-winning The Brutalist recently succumbing to ‘the discourse’ on its usage. Truthfully, the long-term impact of the technology is almost impossible to predict – though sceptics are right to be concerned about the impact it is likely to have on visual effects. The counterpoint is that it opens all sorts of doors to lower-budget filmmakers who can now envisage worlds and concepts formerly outside of their scope. Phil Brocklehurst’s Eternity is an experimental venture into the latter.

The short follows the life of a man (P.M. Thomas) rocketing through time, his face aging from a young man to an old one interspersed with a spinning clock to represent the speed at which the years pass us by. Photo AI software is used to rapidly age the man, before reaching a bittersweet, thoughtful ending which ponders the circle of life.

A self-admitted experimental short, Eternity visualises a theme more than it tells a story. It’s impossible therefore to judge it on traditional measures. The real purpose of the film is to demonstrate the potential of AI editing software, particularly how this can imagine the impact of aging on someone and simulate them at various stages of life.

In this endeavour, its success is mixed. The purpose comes through clearly in the film and Brocklehurst’s vision of a man racing against time is coherent. The visuals themselves are reasonably impressive – the stages of aging are well-realised whilst convincingly portraying the man as the same individual throughout. The film introduces the angel of death (Margie Newton) to accompany him to the afterlife, with further use of photo editing software to create an impressive angelic background which adds a haunting vibrancy.

There are some clear telltale signs of AI throughout the film however – such as the unmistakable ‘AI face’ in which an image stares dead-eyed into the distance and a face moves ever so slightly out of tandem with the body it is attached to. This uncanny valley effect is an ultimate barrier to AI adoption in a wider use – ethical implications aside – as it simply looks odd and inhuman. For a film designed to showcase and experiment with AI use, it is something of a timestamp evidencing that we are not quite ready to hand over to the machines just yet.

It should be said that with the ever-developing world of AI, it is possible that the technology has already progressed to the point where some of the issues seen in Eternity may be within tech’s capability to solve. This short demonstrates many of the benefits of AI, and will help filmmakers working on lower budgets identify areas where it may be of use.