Disney's newest AI technology instantly de-ages actors

Remember when it was a big thing to make performers seem older or younger in movies? Back in the day, the amount of postproduction work required to produce realistic results was enormous, but now Disney researchers have introduced FRAN, a new artificial intelligence tool that can realistically age or de-age a performer in a fraction of the time.

Disney Research Studios explains in an academic paper that FRAN (which stands for face re-aging network) is a neural network that was trained using a large database containing pairs of randomly generated synthetic faces at varying ages, avoiding the need to find thousands of images of real people at different (documented) ages that depict the same facial expression, pose, lighting, and background.

FRAN utilizes this data to anticipate where regions of a real person's face will age and how, and then overlays the new features, such as adding or removing wrinkles and jowls, onto video footage. The end result is "the first practical, fully-automatic and production-ready method for re-aging faces in video images." according to Disney Research Studios. Based on the video examples supplied by Disney, the technology clearly outperforms Snapchat's aging filter.



However, there are several limits, and this type of study is not unique. According to Disney's study, FRAN may be inappropriate for large adjustments like as re-aging to and from extremely early ages, and graying of scalp hair isn't reflected when aging up an actor because it wasn't included in the dataset used to train the tool. Given that manual VFX labor and even actual prosthetic makeup application are not subject to these constraints, FRAN is unlikely to replace many industry jobs for a long time.

Nonetheless, the outcomes are as excellent as, if not better than, real-world on-screen examples from just a few years ago. After all, we all felt the uncanny valley when we saw a de-aged Robert Downey Jr. in Captain America: Civil War in 2016. 

Given that Disney is one of the greatest names in reproducing or de-aging performers on the big screen, it's no surprise that it's been working on automating visual effects. Characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, such as Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), and Ego the Living Planet (Kurt Russell), as well as Star Wars characters such as Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) and Wilhuff Tarkin, have all had their visuals altered in recent years (Peter Cushing).

This isn't the first time Disney has taught an AI to modify someone's look in video footage; in 2020, the company's research arm unveiled a "photo-realistic" deepfake tool. Industrial Light & Magic (Disney's visual effects business) has also developed on solutions to decrease real postproduction VFX, such as gigantic 20-foot-tall LED video panels for The Mandalorian.

Despite its potential benefits in filmmaking, it's unclear whether Disney intends to make this technology available to the general public, and there's still plenty of room for improvement, so it may be a while before we see this level of intricate visual effects work practically automated within the industry.