By Sean Sullivan

It sometimes takes a while for technology to catch up to imagination.

The animated, fairy tale adventure story that Orlando Mendes envisioned a few decades ago only recently came to be a reality. That delay wasn’t due to procrastination, but practicality. Animation has traditionally been a labor-intensive undertaking, which can put projects beyond the means of startup filmmakers.

“It’s not easy to do,” said Mendes of old-school animation.

But the evolution and increasing availability of creative technologies are changing that.     

“Monster Island” is the title of Mendes’ short film, a project that was made possible by his use of artificial intelligence tools.      

Still, it took Mendes five months to make his six-minute short, which works out to just under a month of effort per minute of run time to complete the project. That’s not taking into account his writing of it, which Mendes began at the start of the new millennium.

“Almost 20 years ago,” he laughed.

The Ashland resident’s film is a techno-fantasy mashup featuring wizards, muscle race cars, time travel, and of course, monsters galore. Narrated by the story’s main protagonist, Monster Island unfolds like an extended trailer, the buildup to a grand finale that may be forthcoming in a sequel or next chapter.      

To pay the bills, Mendes produces promotional videos and animations for clients. The painstaking process of splicing together clips and narratives to create compelling and cohesive storytelling is still (for now) an art form that’s best done by humans.

Relying heavily on AI tomake Monster Island allowed Mendes to cut the project’s costs significantly. That said, his short still cost the filmmaker about $10,000, all of which he paid for out of pocket. It seems like a significant sum to invest in a six-minute film, but returns aren’t always measured in dollars alone.

Acknowledging that Monster Island won’t be very marketable, Mendes said the project has nevertheless resulted in his meeting talented and influential people in the industry, connections that can be influential and invaluable over the course of a career.

“More and more people start to pay attention to you,” he said.

The film has earned Mendes numerous industry awards, both domestically and abroad. He was born and raised in Brazil, moved to the states about 8 years ago.   

Making Monster Island of course also gave Mendes valuable experience wielding the tools of artificial intelligence. He used the technology to generate voices, and to create the visual characters themselves.

“It helped me a lot to learn about AI in the short,” he said. 

But even with powerful computers at artists’ disposal, animation can still be somewhat of a laborious and painstaking process. 

Mendes said that while AI made the short financially and creatively feasible, the technology still  requires a human hand as the primary creative source.

“You need to have something specific in mind,” he said, when people are prompting computers to generate content they’re looking for. As with human-to-human connections and relations, lots can get lost in translation, and much trial and error is involved.

No, the AI evolution won’t all be upside.

One sticking point in recent union strikes on behalf of actors and writers was the increasing use of AI to produce content. As the technology becomes more powerful and adept in coming years, executives will reach ever more for the cost-cutting option of employing computers over people.

That’s all well and good for the near-term bottom line of those at the top of the economic tier, but feels like an ill wind blowing for the material well-being of workers.

And there will undoubtedly come a point when those tools become the creators themselves, when artificial intelligence no longer needs the hand holding of humans to do “original” work, whatever one takes that word to mean.

Yet at least for the moment, AI is also empowering up-and-coming creators like Mendes to bring their visions into being. 

When Monster Island was nominated for an award in Spain, Mendes was told he needed to add Spanish subtitles to his short in order to qualify. The extra work required wasn’t in the budget, and so the filmmaker called upon a computer co-pilot to complete the task.

“It works very well,” he said. “I think it’s a powerful tool.”