Age gracefully with AI

FRAN (face re-aging network). © Disney Research Studios.

Between less-than-convincing makeup and labor-intensive and expensive post-prod, making an actor look older – or younger – in the movies hasn’t been easy. Disney researchers have been looking into how to solve the problem. The Disney Research Studios team came up with a new neuron network that can easily alter the apparent age of actors on TV or in the movies. Using thousands of photos of faces between 18 and 85 years old, the network was trained to predict how a person’s face changes over time. The researchers went a step further by developing a user-friendly interface so that artists can easily apply the tool in a production environment. The results in this demo video are pretty amazing:

⇨ YouTube, “Production Ready Face Re Aging for Visual Effects.”

⇨ The Verge, Jess Weatherbed, “Disney’s latest AI tool de-ages actors in seconds.”

2022-12-01