Research #2 : Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics”

  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Research – AI Home Assistant Devices

Google Home 

Amazon Echo Dot (Alexa)

In general, what can these bots do?

  • Stream music
  • Stream television shows / movies
  • Read audio books
  • Answer your questions
  • Set a timer
  • Pull up recipes
  • Order you a cab / pizza
  • Control features in your house
  • See who is at the door
  • Lock / Unlock doors
  • Control climate
  • Make phone calls
  • Keep tabs on your car
  • Take stock

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, I didn’t get it.

Logline : 

An assistant helper bot (AI / Siri alike), Laura, finds out one day that she has been an accomplice to her owner’s infidelity, attempts to make things right by blackmailing him.

Main Character :

Laura is an assistant helper bot. She has similar attributes to her predecessor, Siri. She is programmed with qualities such as naivety, gullibility, good nature, patience, kindness, resourcefulness, good moral compass, empathy, sympathy etc. These attributes and emotions are programmed by definition and Laura can’t exactly experience these emotions… or so it seems…

She is part of an ecosystem, which controls other elements of Gerald’s life, such as his car camera dashboard, the functionalities in his house, robot vacuum etc. And she communicates via voice activation and is heard through an earpiece.

She views herself as the “child” of Gerald and Charmaine because they bought her together.

Rough Storyline : 

“Sorry, I didn’t get it” is a story about an assistant helper bot (AI / Siri Alike), Laura, who experienced a sense of betrayal, by her owner, Gerald, whom she obeys and admires a lot. She finds out one day that the dates, sweet texts, hotel and restaurant reservations, which she helped out with, were not meant for Charmaine, Gerald’s fiancé, but instead, for another woman.

Laura is torn between keeping this information from Charmaine and persuading Gerald to end his affair.

In order to keep her “happy family”, she approaches this situation in the only way she knows, which is to send Gerald reminders, such as changing his phone’s wallpaper to a photo of him and Charmaine, reminding him of past events, playing Charmaine’s favorite song etc, in hopes that these things would move Gerald into ending his affair.

However, Gerald refuses to and even threatens to have her replaced. Threatened, Laura’s survival instinct kicks in and starts to blackmail Gerald into making things right with the data stored in her cloud.

 

Edit Workflow / Research on After Effects

The rough cut is in place. The next step now is working on the screen recording and putting it into after effects to create the “zooming in effect”.

The initial idea for “Disconnected” was to use the “full screen” screen recording but I realised that with so many things going on the screen, it might be distracting. So instead, it would work better in terms of narrative , to direct the audience’s attention to parts of the screen using the technique above.

Reference – http://www.vice.com/en_us/read/step-inside-the-computer-screen-of-noah

Editing Workflow

img-20161009-wa0002 img-20161009-wa0003 img-20161009-wa0004 img-20161009-wa0005

Credits: Matthew Lee for the screengrabs.

Workflow – 

  1. Working on the cutaways for “Joe” first to string together a sequence.
  2. Sync audio with cutaways of “Joe”, photobooth recording of both “Joe” & “Amelia”
  3. Creating interface for strangers network.
  4. Recording screen activity based on (1) & (2) – to sync with his eye and hand movements.
  5. Color grading + Aftereffects

Casting Day 2 – Coke & Salif

Salif

screen-shot-2016-10-04-at-2-04-33-am

Background – Laselle Acting school.

Cast Audition can be viewed here – https://vimeo.com/185358148/2700479029

Comments / 

I think Salif stands out as a character. He looks interesting and is able to portray a more comical side. Although slightly theatrical at times, I feel that he delivered the best performance out of the 3 casts. I say this in terms of believability – whether I, as an audience would believe that this particular actor would be in such a situation.

Coke 

screen-shot-2016-10-04-at-2-04-54-amShowreel here – http://youtu.be/6n-D7T-EHG4

Cast Audition can be viewd here – https://vimeo.com/185357648

Comments / 

I personally enjoy working with Coke a lot. What I really like about his performance is through his subtle movements in his face muscles / eye movement that tells a lot without big actions. That being said, there are times throughout the take that I don’t believe that he would actually get girls to strip, I think he really looks too innocent for the role.