Log in member
Oscar-winning innovator John Gaeta (the mind behind The Matrix’s iconic Bullet Time) gave Gamereactor one of the most profound conversations of the SDCCM. Standing together on the show floor with our David Caballero in this exclusive video, Gaeta reflected on the human condition, our evolving relationship with technology, and shared his vision for the future through mixed reality, AI, and his Escape project.
"Hi Gamereactor friends, this is day 2 at the San Diego Comic-Con Málaga and this is a little bit of a fan moment to me because, you know, John, thank you so much for joining us."
"I was 17 when The Matrix released and I got my mind blown by the visual effects and it's all thanks to you and you were awarded with an Oscar for that technique called the bullet time.
So, first of all, before we talk movies, how do you feel being here at the San Diego Comic-Con in Malaga?
I think it's great. I love being here."
"I've never been to Spain. It's an absolutely beautiful country.
I've spent about 4 days checking out a lot, mostly art.
Obviously, it's a pretty special opportunity to come to a lovely seaside city like this.
It's an incredible idea to bring Comic-Con to Europe like this."
"And the one thing, though, that is most fun is that with Comic-Con you get an awful lot of imaginative, fun-loving adults, you know, out there in costume.
And, yeah, it's about the best atmosphere for a conference I can think of.
Fantastic. I have to tell you, I was dressed not like Neo because I don't fit like, I don't have the same type of shape and body."
"I'm not any tall, but I was kind of in that fashion when I was attending the release of Revolutions, I think, the third movie.
So, looking back at that movie, looking back at what you guys created, how do you feel? A lot of years have passed."
"The visual effects techniques and technology has evolved a lot.
But this aged really, really nicely.
You can watch the movie today and it feels perfect.
It has everything to do about what it's about, right?
It's the ideas that were, in those years, science fiction, right?
Just appear to be becoming more and more relevant."
"If you strip away the creative skin of Matrix and you start just looking at the cautionary tale that it is and some of the principal ideas about doubting one's reality, it's just become more and more relevant for good and for bad, right?
So, the nature of, how would I say it, overcoming the sort of..."
"Morpheus called it a mental prison, the prison around you, is still pretty relevant today.
It's like people need to be even more attentive to some of the messaging in the film."
"Interesting. We will talk a little bit about AI in a moment because I think that relates to what you just said.
But also, you were coming from Judge Dredd, Eraser.
How and when did you start fiddling with cameras and decided "there's something we can do that nobody has done before" and perhaps that was the perfect movie to try it out for the first time, big time?
It was the perfect movie."
"The idea that in a simulated reality that there is no physics, there is no time and space constraint if you're able to will yourself, in a sense, to do things as Neo did eventually, as he self-actualized, as he achieved Mind Over Matrix."
"So, the question is really like, well, how do you visually depict that?
What is the right way to get the audience to believe that Neo has achieved this?
And at the time, all we could think of is to do things that wouldn't be possible in the physical world with a camera."
"And that's what eventually led us towards the idea of a virtual camera.
And at the time, I mean, these days it might even be taken for granted, but back then this was the, from what I can tell, the beginning of attempting to simulate a virtual camera, virtual cinematography."
"So, it was there in the script, to be honest with you, right?
The ideas to do this, in both the script and the artistic conception of how to do this, how to cheat time and space, was evident in some of the concepts we drew and what the Wachowskis were talking about."
"So, at this point, one would try to understand, well, is it possible to cheat in a physical way?
It wasn't, right, to be effective.
So, is it possible to try a new method?
And the thing that was really the key in the linchpin back in those days was the Wachowskis giving us freedom to take high risks on theories, I guess, right?
Theories of how to do it."
"And it aged really, really nicely, as I said, because it was mostly real photographs.
And today, of course, we see a lot of, with StageCraft and Volume, a lot of 3D computer graphics into it."
"Do you think that's the reason why it looks fantastically, as of today, that we, perhaps, or movie makers, bet too high on computer-generated graphics instead of what you guys did, capturing the real action?
You know, human beings love fantastic worlds and universes they've never seen, which is why movies even exist."
"For instance, Wizard of Oz, to transport yourself.
But at the same time, you know, the real world is a very grounding kind of place for humans to sort of stand inside and then take a leap beyond."
"So, what I mean by that is, what I found is, you know, if you start getting into things like virtual reality and mixed reality, generally, people are able to accept an experience that's so out of body if the virtual place that they happen to be in is grounded in the real world."
"They're able to connect to things and make a leap.
I do think that sometimes human beings struggle, right, when everything is changed, right, that your perception of everything is changed."
"It might be fun for a while, but it isn't necessarily as resonant sometimes.
So, as much as possible, even if it's in the aesthetic mixture of a fantastic world or set, you know, if you have elements of the real world in there, human beings really much more naturally, you know, can make that bridge."
"Even films in worlds like Star Wars, fantastical universes, but really kind of as well set in places that human beings feel grounded.
Western, a lot of suburbs, a lot of, yeah."
"You mentioned virtual reality.
I wanted to ask you about VR as well.
I love VR.
It's been, you know, market-wise, it's been so-so some years."
"It looks like the real comeback for it to become more mainstream, but it's never quite there, you know, with both games and experiences.
But I wanted to ask you, what have you been trying out with VR?
Have you been fiddling?
Have you been trying, like, virtual spaces or virtual narrative?
What can you tell me about that?
Well, truth be told, I mean, I did a lot of VR and mixed reality experimentation in the last decade."
"I have lots.
I set up an immersive entertainment division at Lucasfilm.
And I worked with Microsoft.
I worked with Magic Leap."
"And I really, really explored it heavily.
And it is remarkable.
It's not something you can sort of verbalize.
You have to do it to understand it."
"So it's not worth spending a lot of words on it.
People should experiment.
However, again, it's back to what is natural for human beings, right?
After 10 years of working on it, I think that most people will be able to make the transition into mixed reality, right?
Where there's combinations."
"And I think that will...
You touched your glasses right there.
Yeah, yeah.
Virtual reality is going to remain something that is for a certain type of person."
"It might be for that...
Some people will go and buy state-of-the-art Bose headphones and some will put in their iPhone earphones.
Yeah."
"And so I would say virtual reality, I don't know.
And I'm not sure if that will ever become massive and mainstream.
And maybe that's probably for the better.
I think that people should, if they do, virtual reality should be really like not general purpose everything."
"It should be really targeted at something that they have high value.
It has to be really high value.
Perhaps it's education.
Maybe you just want to go to sports games."
"Maybe you want to do work specifically or design.
But I would say think about it in a more targeted way where it's mixed reality could really actually be mainstream in general purpose in a lot of ways.
I think it will maybe get people off of this problem, right?
Just staring at it."
"This is a terrible, depressing social issue for all of us, right?
And so maybe there's some goodness to look up, look out.
But I'm not really as heavily involved.
I still do things, but I'm not as heavily involved."
"I've spent my last year and a half lifting a new entertainment platform called Escape.ai.
I was about to ask about that.
And it's dedicated to something I call Neo Cinema, which is a term I've actually used for 20 years, but it seems appropriate."
"And it's mostly for next generation cinema.
Cinema you can make with game engines.
Cinema you can make with emerging forms of capture.
Cinema that you can make with Gen AI."
"There's a lot on Escape.ai.
If you go there, you will see the leading edge of Gen AI filmmaking.
And it's not for the purpose of just saying, hey, look at this technology.
You won't even see the word AI when you come there."
"It's about unlocking many new voices because this technology has broken down the barriers.
The expense, the cost, the gatekeepers, all the things that prevent many, many people from becoming emerging filmmakers.
It's very expensive and all this stuff.
There's all sorts of people that have reasons to block you from trying to tell stories."
"That is going away because of Gen AI.
It makes some people very worried because of the ethical sort of foundations of some of the technology.
Those problems are going to go away as ethical foundations are put in place.
But the method and the capabilities of Gen AI to really allow anyone, anywhere in the world, to start making cinema and games soon and all that stuff."
"This is a remarkable, never happened before moment.
And I wanted to ask you specifically about Escape.ai.
Of course, as you just described, it's going to be authors first.
It's going to be removing some of the barriers that are preventing them from expressing themselves."
"And it's going to make it perhaps cheaper and more efficient to them.
But again, every time we mention AI, there is controversy.
Is it going to steal someone else's job?
Is it going to be a threat to artists?
So, how are you navigating this inevitable controversy that you are probably facing when you just mention AI?
So, we have to be like grown-ups."
"We have to be pragmatic about it.
We don't necessarily choose when technological disruption occurs.
It occurs because at a moment in time, suddenly something is possible and it begins to take off.
I look at Gen AI as a tool for human authors, just like computers and computer graphics were a tool."
"Just like cameras and photography were a tool.
And paintbrushes were a tool.
If you cannot create something compelling and resonant for an audience, it won't succeed.
You won't find an audience."
"Every human author is always at the center of things that will bring success, notoriety, acclaim, or just respect.
And so, there is definitely a double-edged sword.
There will be very bad things that AI will do to all of us.
AI might run countries in the future for all we know."
"AI may...
I'll try for that not to be the headline.
AI might be the brain behind robotic defense systems.
Really scary stuff."
"And I can't speak to how we collectively manage that yet.
But I do know there is the other side of the coin where potentially intractable problems...
People not getting opportunity.
Education not necessarily fully fulfilling its promise."
"And artists not necessarily being able to make things because they can't find financial backers.
And those financial backers are always the ones that have rigged the system against the artists anyway.
So, if people are worried that the old system is going to be disrupted, they should think about it twice.
Because the old system, in a sense, is a monopoly-based system that is choosing winners and losers already."
"So, there is opportunity for revolt against this system that Gen AI might bring.
Yes, it's going to destroy some jobs.
But the one thing I would say is that, in my view, the kind of people that have the instincts and understanding to take those kinds of tools and actually make something of value are those same people who are worried about those jobs."
"So, while you watch your job become unstable, and every single one of us, myself included, we're all in the same boat.
I would say, don't sit on the sidelines and just worry about it.
Potentially, be adaptive. Try to be adaptive. Try to be agile. Try to bet on yourself and do something different while you still play the old game.
You need to start playing in the new world."
"Which also takes me back to The Matrix and the first question, and this is the last one.
You also fiddle with, if I'm correct, with AIs that could generate and store memories for characters.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, what did you..."
"Yeah, that was some martial arts to kill the fly.
What do you think about this? What did you try out? What was your progress?
And how do you think that is going to evolve for, perhaps for movies, perhaps for games, perhaps for real people to have AI behaving and remembering as a real human, which is very The Matrix-like.
Okay, you end with a really big question."
"Sorry about that.
Well, let's think about it. I mean...
Let's ask AI.
Before we had photographs of our childhood, right, that reinforced moments, you know, we were completely reliant on our memories and just inside of our minds, and photographs tend to change and narrow down, right, or in any way they tend to deepen our memories."
"So, yes, AI, volumetric media and AI are really going to change, yeah, the way we all sort of go into the future thinking about the past.
I think it could be for the better. Again, everything is the double-edged sword.
It could be for worse or for better, but to be able to capture, well, it's more than capture at this point, right? There's the potential to..."
"Interpret as well.
Yeah, use AI to interpret. Honestly, I can't even... I mean, like, it's so far out. Again, it's like a science fiction movie. We're all living in what seems to be the beginning of one of these science fiction movies that we've watched in the past.
All I would say is people need to be really aware that this is beginning, and they need to be proactive in shaping it for good, or using it in a responsible way in their own lives, and not just letting it, you know, take over without thought, because that's the way you get into the mental prison of the matrix."
"You're not actively monitoring it. You're not actively shaping it, right? If you let it just happen, and for us, we've at least had the benefit of growing up mostly in the regular reality.
Our children are the ones we need to really think about, right? And so, yeah, that's the message. It's good and it's bad.
That's the perfect way to wrap it. Thank you so much for your time, John. Enjoy your panel. Enjoy the San Diego Comic-Con in Malaga, and looking forward to learning more about what you do next."
