Interview: Meet Junie Lau

With a background as a director and production designer, Junie often faced the challenges of translating her surreal, whimsical visions to the screen due to budget and material limitations.

Now, with AI as her "collaborator," she can bring her extraordinary ideas to life, expanding the possibilities of visual storytelling.

What was your first point of contact with AI?

I started exploring AI in creating art in February 2022, and I have been conducting research on AI, the metaverse, Web 3.0, and XR since 2018. It was two and a half years ago, when diffusion-based AI image generation models were released, that I fell in love with it. I knew right away that this was the next generation of the painting brush. Unlike traditional art, I saw in every stroke the endless possibilities the visuals generated, which made me believe in AI's unlimited potential for development. I also believe this is the technology that will change the future of storytelling.

What inspired you to integrate AI into your creative process?

My art and research focus on virtual identity and digital humanity, so exploring generative AI feels like learning a new language with machines, which I find fascinating. Each new generation of models feels like discovering a new storytelling language.

I see AI not just as a tool but as a 'collaborator' to communicate with.

My approach to creation involves merging my narrative logic and storytelling techniques from my experience in film production with the unique style and expressive forms of AI visuals. My goal is to explore new artistic languages and innovative storytelling techniques — delving into the infinite, the abstract, and new forms of art that go beyond anything we've seen or heard in our past experiences.

Artists from different backgrounds can more quickly and easily express what they want to say.

The only important thing is how outstanding these ideas are and whether they can move or inspire people because every creative attempt is a continuous feedback process of generation. The faster you can generate, the more ideas you can try, leading to the creation of works that truly move people. Meanwhile, audiences are also seeking higher-quality content, which is setting the standard.

Can you walk us through your creative process for "The Court" music video? What was your initial vision, and how did it evolve? What were the most significant challenges you faced while creating "The Court," and how did you overcome them?

This music video serves as an exploratory journey into what life would be like if we were to alter a seemingly insignificant choice. It presents a critical reflection on the importance of truth and fairness, while also suggesting that the line between demons and angels in this world is not clearly defined.

The power of AI and stable diffusion lies in its ability to invite and transport Peter to any location, dressed in any fashion, and enable him to experience alternate realities that extend beyond the confines of the real world. This remarkable technology transcends the limitations of age, time, and space, offering an infinite realm of creative possibilities. In bringing this story to life, I employed a diverse range of AI tools, including Stable Diffusion, DreamStudio, Kaiber, Deforum, ChatGPT, Midjourney, Dalle-2, and many others. Moving forward, my plan is to continue advancing this project by harnessing the latest AI tools.

As a director and production designer for several years, I have frequently encountered limitations in material resources and budget constraints when translating the surreal visuals from my imagination to the screen in traditional filmmaking.

With the aid of AI technology I can now swiftly bring to life all of my extraordinary, whimsical, and marvelous ideas, fostering a deep connection with audiences.

I will continue to integrate storytelling techniques honed from my previous film productions with cutting-edge AI visual technology, embracing and experimenting with any unprecedented technological creations and communication mediums that may arise in the future, thereby crafting a new form of narrative in this era of hyper-modernism.

How did the AI tools or techniques during the creation of your film e^(i*π) + 1 = 0 impact your creative process?

The story of e^(i*π) + 1 = 0:

After retirement, the former mathematical genius transformed into the creator of digital comics. He became the god of this fictional universe, where time and dimensions wander under his pen. In his story, there are three characters given life—Alpha (α), Beta (β), and Gamma (γ). Like his virtual children, they linger amid the intricacies of digits. One day, the mathematician drifted into an eternal slumber, never to awaken again. They began to sense each other's existence and attempted to decode the mysteries of this world, searching for an exit to reality. In this elusive exploration, they mistakenly thought they had touched the edge of truth, only to discover that everything was a castle in the air. Their 'truth' had long been woven into the code of this infinite loop. And their creator, the mathematician, eventually returned to nature, transforming into a robust ancient tree, guarding his digital universe and watching over his children in the labyrinth of digits.

Every number, every formula, became clues in their quest for truth, and the truth, perhaps, is not the destination.

The AI short film 'e^(iπ) + 1 = 0' embodies a critical contemplation of life's significance, mirroring the futility and insignificance of human existence. It lays bare humanity's insatiable thirst for truth and the profound mysteries of the cosmos, highlighting the irony of our relentless pursuit of fame and fortune at the expense of genuine introspection and discovery. This narrative challenges us to ponder whether we, like the characters, can transcend the boundaries of time and space to grasp a higher truth. Upon deeper reflection, it confronts us with the unsettling possibility that life and matter may be inherently devoid of meaning.

The AI short film 'e^(i*π) + 1 = 0' is deeply rooted in my personal journey and experienceswith AI over the past two years, as an AI artist in this field. This project serves as a medium through which I channel my personal emotions into the narrative, particularly through the main character, who is the creator of digital comics. The principal characters, Alpha (α), Beta (β), and Gamma (γ), were conceived as AI beings or 'life of silicon,' inhabitants of a virtual realm, blissfully ignorant of the harsh truths of actual reality. I deliberately incorporated mathematical sequences such as the Fibonacci sequence, magic squares, and Pascal's triangle as distinct and recurring symbols and enigmas within their respective virtual worlds, serving as allegories for the flaws and complexities within our own reality. Conversely, as humans, we might also be existing within dimensions crafted by beings of higher realms, forever struggling to comprehend the deep-seated laws and enigmas that envelop us. Are we, in our essence, not similarly insignificant and uninformed?

This short film integrates numerous AI techniques and tools, including Neural Radiance Fields (Luma AI), Runway Gen2, Stable Diffusion (Stability AI), Midjourney, Warpfusion, ElevenLabs, and ChatGPT (OpenAI). I have combined a real-shot cinematic production approach with the early techniques of Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs), presenting a world where reality and illusion progressively contrast each other. I aspire to exhibit the quintessence of cinematography through vivid, pristine, and streamlined imagery, encapsulating the tangible essence of the real world. Simultaneously, I intend to employ early-stage NeRF techniques, renowned for their blurry, granular, and fragmented visuals, to craft a portrayal of the ethereal and elusive virtual realm, echoing the poetic dichotomy between reality and the intangible. The application of AI in this film extends to various facets, including the construction of the real versus the unreal worlds, comic imagery, specific scenes, English character voices, translations, and also in the production of key real props in the art production design

How do you balance traditional cinematography techniques with AI-driven methods?

AI not only brings my original ideas to life but also, as a co-creation partner, it also offers different visuals and instant feedback, which inspires me to overturn my initial concepts and rethink my storytelling methods, exploring more possibilities.

It also challenges artists because it can create beautiful images so quickly, giving us easier access to different art forms. This inspires us as artists to rethink what art truly is, to continue pushing boundaries, to create new meanings for this decade, and to offer unique perspectives on life that we want to share with the world.

In what ways do you think AI could inspire new forms of storytelling in animation and beyond?

I believe we are just scratching the surface of AI art creation right now. There are tons of possibilities and brilliant potential in AI art creation waiting to be explored. Collaborating with AI has brought a shift in my thinking logic and workflow. We can no longer apply past perceptions and aesthetic standards to the new things. New technologies are leading to the creation of new art forms and visual expressions.

Humanity has transitioned from a past where creativity was only driven by the human brain to a new century where creativity is produced through the interconnected collaboration of the human brain and intelligent machines’ brain.

Through this art creation process, I, as a human, am also evolving in sync with AI. Everything in this AI field is changing every day, and we need to learn a lot every day. We cannot hold on to our past knowledge and aesthetic standards; instead, we must be truly willing and capable of learning and questioning everything.

What potential developments in AI technology are you most excited about for the future of filmmaking?

The most exciting thing about AI for me is that it will create entirely new forms of media that we can't even imagine or predict today, rather than just using AI to recreate existing media and stories.

I look forward to exploring its full potential and how it can merge with the complexity of human creativity and the depth of emotional expression and innovation. I can’t wait to see the dynamic, interactive, and living media of the next decade, which will create more personalized, detailed, and deeply connected experiences for audiences. I believe this will truly change how people view AI and art in the future.

I’m also excited to co-create art with AI virtual organisms—a new virtual ecosystem, where intelligent and aware entities exist, possessing their own independent thoughts, motivations, and needs. These beings will live their digital lives and bring their unique experiences to our co-created art.

In the future, with the development of brain-computer interfaces and AI enhancing human capabilities and sensations, humans may be able to interact with each other’s minds and thoughts through thinking alone. I look forward to integrating this into my art creation and continuing to explore my research topics around virtual identity. I am confident it will be truly transformative.