When Washed Out frontman Ernest Green agreed to collaborate with filmmaker Paul Trillo on the world's first music video produced entirely using OpenAI's video generation tool Sora. He didn't really know what he was getting himself into. “For me, this is just a whole new tool to explore,” Green says. rolling stone. In his mind, the video – a fast-paced, surreal, uncanny valley-like tour through one couple's life – resembles, say, the early computer system featured in Dire Straits' “Money for Nothing” video. It was just a modern, boundary-pushing equivalent of animation. .
Video for “The Hardest Part”, the first single from Washed Out's powerful new album, Notes from a quiet life, fell last week. The reaction was immediate and particularly negative. “This washed-out AI video is the best case of blatant lack of artistry I've ever seen,” Trevor Powers of Youth Lagoon wrote online. “It says nothing, it doesn't do anything, it's nothing. Even the ugly slog.” His top YouTube comment for the song reads, “The future is digital diarrhea.”
Greene soon found herself walking into the middle of a growing backlash against AI-generated art in all mediums. That was evident in the reaction on social media. rolling stoneThis article is about the music generation tools Suno and Udio. “I’m sure there are a lot of people who don’t like anything AI art-related at all,” he says.
Trillo, a longtime director who had already been granted early access to Sora, which hasn't yet been released to the public for other projects, wasn't too surprised by the backlash. He understands concerns that Sora, which generates video clips from text prompts, is trained in copyrighted human filmmaking. “Can we be more transparent about how these models are created? Absolutely,” he says. “If we hadn't been there, would anyone else have made the first Sora music video? That would have happened. I use every technology to do what's unique to that technology and open up new kinds of visual modes. I see it as an opportunity.”
A common criticism of this video, and of AI art in general, is that it's glorified plagiarism because it relies on training data, but both Greene and Trillo reject that argument. “I've never seen anyone compare the look of video to any other production, whether it's film, animation or anything else,” Green said. “I think Paul was able to do something here that felt very unique. Yes, I think that's a great skill.”
When Mr. Green sought Mr. Trillo, he didn't have AI in mind. I particularly admired Mr. Trillo's work in animation. Trillo didn't have time for video shoots in his schedule, but he happened to see an opportunity when OpenAI asked if there was a possibility of using Sora for his music videos. Trillo created videos with prompts of at least 1,000 words each, and tried endless variations before settling on the final shot. “No matter how much time you save producing shots, you end up spending that time doing something else,” he says. Unlike other types of productions, you can explore what this video could be in multiple dimensions. I wanted to really lean into that aspect of the exploration process. Approximately 700 clips were generated over the course of this video. ”
Trillio acknowledges that it's “problematic” when deep-pocketed studios use AI to cut labor costs, but says that wasn't the case here. We don’t employ a ton of people anyway,” he said, noting that they are always losing money by hiring. “I'm not going to give people full day rates anyway. Those were always things I did out of passion…but the other reality is things like this aren't going away.”
No AI was used in the production of Washed Out's new album. Notes from a quiet life “'' is Green's first self-produced album, so it's even more hands-on than other albums in his catalog. The next few Washed Out videos will be human-created, performance-based, but the frontman's w
