• Premiered at Sundance, ‘Dear Upstairs Neighbors’ showcases AI empowering animators’ creative workflows. • Animators fine‑tuned DeepMind models with custom artwork, teaching unique visual styles for consistency. • Video‑to‑video techniques let artists visually guide AI, controlling motion and comedic timing. • Localized refinement tools enabled precise edits in specific video regions, iterating toward perfection. • Veo’s upscaling delivered 4K detail while preserving artistic nuance and style. • New AI Studio and Vertex AI tools announced, expanding creative possibilities for filmmakers.
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“Dear Upstairs Neighbors,” an animated short that premiered at Sundance’s Story Forum, showcases a partnership between veteran animators and Google DeepMind researchers. Director Connie He, a Pixar alum, and production designer Yingzong Xin created a story about a woman’s night‑time hallucinations caused by noisy neighbors, using highly stylized, painterly visuals. To achieve these unique styles, the team fine‑tuned DeepMind’s Veo and Imagen models on a handful of concept art examples, allowing the AI to learn deep artistic concepts such as perspective while preserving the artists’ creative control. The project demonstrates how generative tools can be adapted for precise, artist‑driven storytelling.
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