Filmmaker Ben Feldman used AI to narrate Hillel Slovakia’s diary entries. The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brothers Hillel
Netflix’s new documentary about the early days of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the influence of its founding guitarist Hillel Slovak uses an AI narration that reads the late musician’s personal diary.
Director Ben Feldman doesn’t shy away from using artificial intelligence to recreate the Slovakian voices. The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brothers Hillelincludes a notice early in the film that the audio has been digitally reconstructed.
Feldman previously explained that, with the blessing of his Slovakian family, he was able to use AI to “read his diary in Mr. Hillel’s voice” and believed it was “an important way to make Mr. Hillel’s life better.” [words] Feel alive. ”
The film features in-depth on-camera interviews with Red Hot Chili Peppers frontmen Anthony Kiedis and Michael “Free” Balzary, supplemented by Slovakia’s diary entries, which tell the story of how the trio became close friends while attending the same Los Angeles-area high school in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
This documentary traces the band’s early days and navigates the rock and punk scene to become the now iconic group. The Slovak played on the band’s first three studio albums and died in 1988 at the age of 26 from an accidental heroin overdose.
The band clarified that the Netflix documentary is not an official Red Hot Chili Peppers project, saying in January that they had “no creative connection.” “We agreed to be interviewed out of love and respect for Hillel and his memory,” they said in a statement. “The central subject of this Netflix special is Hillel Slovak, and we hope it will spark interest in him and his work.”
The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brothers Hillel It premiered on March 13th at SXSW in Austin and began streaming on Netflix on Friday, March 20th.
