Thank You For Not Answering

Artist and filmmaker Paul Trillo made Thank You For Not Answering, an artful experimental short film, using a suite of AI tools. The end credits of the film read:

Written and “Directed” by Paul Trillo.

Kyle Chayka talked to Trillo about his process for the New Yorker:

Trillo demonstrated the process to me during a Zoom call; in seconds, it was possible to render, for example, a tracking shot of a woman crying alone in a softly lit restaurant. His prompt included a hash of S.E.O.-esque terms meant to goad the machine into creating a particularly cinematic aesthetic: “Moody lighting, iconic, visually stunning, immersive, impactful.” Trillo was enthralled by the process: “The speed in which I could operate was unlike anything I had experienced.” He continued, “It felt like being able to fly in a dream.” The A.I. tool was “co-directing” alongside him: “It’s making a lot of decisions I didn’t.”

• artificial intelligence
• Kyle Chayka
• Paul Trillo
• video