Top of the big era

After meeting Zheng Xiaoli, the next ones were Jason Kilar, CEO of Ziweixing Global, and Ann Sarnoff, Vice President and President of Lucasfilm.

I came here to talk to them mainly about the technological upgrade of Lucasfilm’s AI software for intelligent mouth matching and the cooperation with Ziweiyun.

Jason Kilar is from Silicon Valley with a technical background. Hearing what the big boss meant, he immediately said: "Actually, I have been paying attention to it for a long time. I told An about this idea half a year ago and wanted to advance it. The cooperation between Lucasfilm and Ziweiyun provides cloud computing with computing power for film production."

Zhou Buqi frowned slightly, "Didn't you push?"

Jason Kilar shook his head, "It's difficult."

Ann Sarnoff immediately stated, "I did not do a good job and failed to truly control Lucasfilm."

Zhou Buqi knew how difficult it was for her, "Isn't it possible now?"

"Far from it, I..." An Sarnoff shook his head, and then glanced at Jason Kilar, "I've already told Jason that I may not be qualified for this job."

"Um?"

Zhou Buqi raised his eyebrows.

What does this mean?

Facing the difficulties and retreating?

Ann Sarnoff immediately explained, "If I were allowed to continue to be the president of Lucasfilm, I could actually do it. However, this may cause great conflicts. Lucasfilm will have a lot of talents. Many of them are the founders of the "Star Wars" series and some well-known scientists in the computer industry. If this is the case, I think it is not in the interests of the company and will also cause some bad reputation. "

Zhou Buqi asked: "How could this happen?"

Ann Sarnoff said: "Lucasfilm has been established for more than 40 years. It once had great success. It was a leader in both movies and technology. It can be said that it led both Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Lucasfilm Many of the technicians who worked with George Lucas to produce the "Star Wars" series of movies have now become Beidou in the computer field, either as visiting professors at well-known universities, or as national academicians, as well as graphic designers. Winner of the Spirit Award. The development of industry technology in the field of audio, video and imaging was paved by Lucasfilm."

Jason Kilar also felt deeply powerless about this, "These people are still working at Lucasfilm and have great influence."

Zhou Buqi said simply and neatly, "What about expulsion?"

Jason Kilar said decisively: "No. They are all big experts in this field. If they leave Lucasfilm, they will definitely go to other companies to contribute. Their disciples and grandchildren may also come back to express their anger. ."

Zhou Buqi said angrily: "Even if a great expert is old, he will be out of date. What does the computing power of image rendering mean? If it is provided by cloud computing, it can not only reduce costs, but also It can improve efficiency. Not to mention that the current artificial intelligence has entered the era of GPU, and they still stick to CPU. Isn’t this a scientific relic?”

Jason Kilar coughed and said, "I have talked with them several times. They are worried that cooperation with cloud computing platforms will leak business information, which may lead to some images of the movie being released before it is released."

Such concerns are correct.

The cloud computing platform is an open platform, not a closed island, so information leakage is prone to occur.

Later, with the extension and popularization of Silicon Valley technology, Hollywood commercial blockbusters naturally moved closer to Silicon Valley for cost and efficiency considerations, and there were some incidents of image leakage.

Zhou Buqi said: "That's the truth, but don't forget, who belongs to Ziweiyun? Mine! If other film companies use Ziweiyun's services, there may be a real risk of leaking secrets. Lucasfilm Does the industry need to worry like this?”

Jason Kilar hesitated and said slowly: "I think this should still be a power issue caused by the technical route. The youngest people on the Lucasfilm Technical Committee are all in their fifties. The oldest one is over 70 years old. Of course they are all big experts in the computer industry, but their technical routes are relatively backward, as you said. If we cooperate with Ziweiyun, they may not understand the cloud Computing requires the introduction of younger technical personnel, which will lead Lucasfilm to another technical direction."

Ann Sarnoff said: "I don't think so. I think it's still a matter of thinking. They are opposed to openness. Just like George Lucas, they don't want their hard work to be overly commercialized."

Zhou Buqi understood this and said with a smile: "Against commercialization? Isn't this the same as some state-owned enterprises? They have high-quality resources and would rather rot in their hands than let them out. To put it bluntly, they don't want to take them. They have been overly specialized by the market. In fact, they do not have the ability to commercialize, and they do not want to become a laughing stock after being commercialized by others."

Lucasfilm is just too old.

The key point is that the old technical guys haven't left their jobs yet, and they all stay loyally. As a result, this company's thinking is too narrow and too closed.

Jason Kilar said: "You can't be too harsh. This is human nature. At the beginning, Lucasfilm was open for a period of time, which made Apple, Adobe, Pixar, and Disney... The result? These companies that have obtained some technology rights from Lucasfilm are doing better than Lucasfilm."

Zhou Buqi asked: "So Lucasfilm can't move now?"

Jason Kilar said with a smile: "Times have changed a long time ago. Today's Lucasfilm...has no advantages in technology. Especially when it comes to the open Internet, they can be said to be useless. Changes have not changed. , what’s the point? This is originally a movie company, and its core business is to develop the "Star Wars" series, not to develop technology."

Ann Sarnoff nodded and had the same view, "Yes, if we don't move, we can maintain the stability of Lucasfilm. If we move, it will destroy the current stable situation, which will cause the loss of talent and the disunity of people." Needless to say, it is difficult to get more benefits from Lucasfilm. I think it is best to maintain the current stability. The upper limit of Lucasfilm is there. If you make "Star Wars" well, it will Enough, there is no need to have too high hopes. If there really is an infinitely better future, then it would be worthwhile for us to reorganize Lucasfilm without breaking it. But no, Lucasfilm is just like that. A small company.”

Jason Kilar said: "Silicon Valley is developing too fast now. Lucasfilm's early technical level was indeed very good, but its conservative strategy for so many years has lost its advantage. This will be even more true in the future, Lu Cass Film focuses on film development and special effects production, and that’s enough.”

Zhou Buqi asked: "I think that AI software that can make animated characters match their mouth movements is very good."

Jason Kilar smiled: "If it were ten years ago, this product of Lucasfilm might have been the best in the industry. But it is different now. Artificial intelligence is developing so fast, and deep learning has emerged. ... Just such a software, with Ziweixing’s strong strength in the field of artificial intelligence, can be developed by a team of ten people in one month. It can also be connected with Ziwei Cloud to provide all video processing services in the world. Open to users.”

"Um."

Zhou Buqi nodded.

Today’s artificial intelligence technology is indeed developing very fast.

A few years ago, Changyou's co-CEO Don Mattrick also told him that Changyou's artificial intelligence research and development team developed a new AI engine for car games. This engine can directly virtualize real cities into Game scenes, truly restored. Then, the player feels like he is driving a speeding car in a real city, burning, killing, looting and rampaging all the way.

This technique is actually similar to lip-syncing.

It can also be used in animated movies.

In previous animated films, artists and painters had to draw the real scenes into animated scenes... With the AI ​​engine, there is no need. After setting the parameters, just use AI to convert the real scenes. Transformed into an animated scene.

Jason Kilar took out his mobile phone from his pocket and shook it, "The new Aster5 mobile phone, my daughter gave it to me."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "What a good gift."

Jason Kilar said: "There is a function in this phone that I like very much...well, it is a camera function."

Then, he took the phone and showed it.

This is a new camera function launched by Aster5 called cartoon photo. For photos taken with a mobile phone, you can use this function to intelligently transform the characters and background in the photo into cartoons.

This is actually the same underlying technology as the lip-syncing of animated characters and the game AI engine that transforms real scenes into game scenes. It’s just that the conversion of photos requires less computing power, and the cartoonization also lacks the display of details, making it easier and simpler.

Jason Kilar said: "The requirements for movie-level images are too high, and current artificial intelligence is not available for the time being. If an ordinary person takes a video and wants to transform it with AI, that is fine. If Ziweiyun wants to develop this kind of For AI products, it’s better to start at the consumer level, and don’t start at the professional level, especially the movie level.”

This is put more tactfully.

Advise Boss Zhou not to advance rashly.

Don’t think too hard about Lucasfilm and don’t rush into artificial intelligence.

If you want to make AI products, don’t rush to work on movies. First, make some entertaining products that can please the public, such as converting real photos into cartoon photos.

Zhou Buqi nodded and asked, "What about Lucasfilm? What should we do?"

Jason Kilar said: "In recent years, the most successful producer in Hollywood is definitely Kevin Feige of Marvel Studios. The success of Marvel's superhero movies has allowed him to accumulate a lot of reputation in the industry . In a sense, Star Wars is also a superhero movie."

Zhou Buqi immediately understood what he meant, "Let Kevin Feige also serve as the president of Lucasfilm?"

Ann Sarnoff said: "I think it's okay. When he comes to Lucasfilm to be the president, his only task is to make "Star Wars" a success. In other aspects, he may not be able to touch it if he wants to."

"Yes! It's doable!" Zhou Buqi nodded, then looked at An Sanoff and asked with a smile: "What about you?"

An Sarnoff smiled and said, "I can do that. Just go back to the headquarters... I'll follow the arrangements."

Zhou Buqi said: "Okay, then get ready. The day after tomorrow, I'm going to New York, you come with me."

"Going to New York?"

"Well, let's work on a new project."