Macca to the future

Paul McCartney in the 60s was total catnip for teenie-boppers and older-boppers, and with moves like the ones on display in this smart new promo, it's clear why.

Taking the early Macca's face and deepfaking it onto a lithe and funky body, Bullion director Andrew Donoho's Find My Way promo is both witty and wowing - throwing the augmented Beatle into a variety of ever-intriguing sets and lighting conditions that do anything but make the face-swap tech and easy job.

"Byron Atienza at Capitol records and I were obsessed with revitalizing 1960's Macca," comments Donoho. "26 year old Paul dancing his butt off was just too much fun to overlook (choreographed by Phil Tayag, the king of swag). After experimenting with deep fakes on my video for The Strokes, I decided to utilize a hybrid face replacement technique that combines the best elements of a 3d scan, deepfake, and 2d face sculpting. This approach would accommodate a music video budget as well as the dynamic lighting and movement of the scenes (A VFX artist's nightmare). 

"We cast a dancer with a similar build to Paul, Shamook (of youtube deep fake fame) did a full pass on the video, Hyperreal did a scan of the real Paul to use in places that deepfake would fall apart, and we mastered with a traditional face sculpting pass to polish our uncanny Beatle into a believable human. 

"The final product landed exactly where I'd hoped: mostly believable, slightly frightening, very entertaining, and ultimately four minutes that tickle the imagination and start a conversation."