Film producers defend recreating Edith Piaf’s voice by AI

Legendary French singer Edith Piaf will come to life in the animated biopic “Edith”, which seeks to innovate by using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to recreate her voice and image.

The film was announced last week by Warner Music and received a series of negative reviews on social media.

The producers and creators of the project, Julie Veille and Giles Marliac, defended, in an interview with “Variety” magazine, the idea of ​​using AI to recreate Piaf’s voice.

In the magazine’s publication, Veile says that the option to use AI came about so that the animation was realistic, because they didn’t want it to be just a “cartoon”.

“Edith Piaf’s voice is easily identifiable with many intonations and strong emotions. We wanted the animation to be completely realistic, so we worked with a deep fake tool,” she explained.

According to her, the company that holds Piaf’s image rights was not opposed to the idea: “On the contrary, they were very satisfied. They don’t want [ela] look like a cartoon.”

Marliac highlighted to the magazine the importance of caution in the project, as nothing similar had never been done before.

“This is the first time that deep fakes will be used in animation. It’s something entirely new. And like anything new, you need to be cautious and do a lot of testing.”

Warner Music states that hundreds of Piaf’s music videos, songs and images will be used by the AI ​​tool to recreate the singer.

The producer also confirmed that recordings of famous original songs, such as “Non Je ne regrette rien” and “La vie en rose”, will be used in the film.

The animation will be inspired by an idea by Julie Veille, written in partnership with Gilles Marliac. They work with Warner Music Entertainment president Charlie Cohen.

Previously, Piaf was revived in the cinema by actress Marion Cotillard, in the film “Piaf – A Hymn to Love” (“La Môme”).

*Published by Pedro Jordão, from CNN in Sao Paulo