{"id":3449,"date":"2026-07-02T20:37:39","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T20:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=3449"},"modified":"2026-07-02T20:37:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T20:37:39","slug":"young-washington-director-jon-erwin-breaks-down-films-use-of-ai-tech-made-production-safer-and-more-affordable-exclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=3449","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Young Washington\u2019\u00a0Director Jon Erwin Breaks Down Film\u2019s Use of AI: Tech Made Production \u2018Safer and More Affordable\u2019 (EXCLUSIVE)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tIn Jon Erwin\u2019s telling, even the most advanced visual effects tools are no match for the physics of water.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe director of the film \u201cYoung Washington,\u201d the historical drama releasing nationwide on Friday (July 3), needed to film a scene where a pre-Revolutionary War George Washington (William Franklyn-Miller) and his companion nearly drown in an icy river.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut icy rivers are, of course, cold \u2014 and subjecting actors or even stunt doubles to such conditions seemed too dangerous. Thus, Erwin relied on a combination of a 50-foot pool of water the crew built in Ireland, filmed close-ups of the actors, props of ice and a suite of generative AI tools to help create the scene, using the technology to help generate wider shots in the sequence.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe actors were there, the raft was there, the water was there, but the water wasn\u2019t cold,\u201d Erwin told Variety <\/em>in an interview. \u201cIt was a very small area that we were able to film it in, and we just mapped it to a much larger area, and I think that\u2019s a great example of the use case of these tools to make something safer and more affordable in that scope to a project like this, and that way we didn\u2019t have to leave Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tErwin is one of a few Hollywood directors who have been vocal about their use of generative AI in their work. He has used it in shows for Amazon MGM Studios such as \u201cHouse of David\u201d and \u201cThe Old Stories: Moses.\u201d Erwin also leads AI production company Innovative Dreams, a venture co-founded by his company, Wonder Project, and Luma AI that combines AI with traditional filmmaking.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy view on the use of these tools is: Do everything you can for real, everything you possibly can, and then use these tools to amplify your vision and give you a bigger canvas,\u201d Erwin said.\u00a0 \u201cWhat I\u2019ve learned is these tools are best used not when they replace fundamental aspects of filmmaking, but when they amplify and when they augment them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor a film like \u201cYoung Washington,\u201d which Erwin called \u201ca story about the American frontier,\u201d\u00a0Erwin wanted to fuse his desire to film a period piece with the tools he\u2019s come to embrace, employing five AI artists along with an AI producer and crew member. About 100 shots in the film were augmented with AI, Erwin said, using a combination of platforms that aggregate AI tools such as Luma, Amazon\u2019s Project Nara and Magnific. The uses included some AI-generated establishing shots and depicting the firing of physical cannons the crew rented.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn one scene, the team used AI to turn two Wonder Project employees into British soldiers. It was a scene Erwin didn\u2019t manage to capture during principal photography, but after filming the executives in street clothes, AI helped put them in period-accurate costumes and on horseback.<\/p>\n

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\n\tFor cases like crowd duplication in wide shots, Erwin said he used classic VFX tools. \u201cWe had the good fortune of having enough extras on set, and then when we needed to kind of duplicate into wide shots, we relied on traditional methods,\u201d\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tErwin\u2019s \u201cYoung Washington\u201d use cases illustrate how some in Hollywood have tried to position AI tools as extensions rather than replacements of the traditional filmmaking arsenal. Still, even such deployments have drawn scrutiny, with some on social media criticizing the film\u2019s AI usage and deriding the movie\u2019s quality. (\u201cYoung Washington\u201d\u00a0earned a 63% on Rotten Tomatoes, though Variety <\/em>critic Owen Gleiberman called it \u201cwatchable in a stolid way, as if it were a \u2018Masterpiece Theatre\u2019 movie made by the Ted Turner Pictures of 20 years ago.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe criticism doesn\u2019t seem to faze Erwin, who said some misidentified what was generated by AI versus what was created using more conventional visual effects. \u201cYou\u2019re looking at traditional VFX,\u201d\u00a0he said. \u201cMight not like it, you might not think those shots are good, but they\u2019re how we\u2019ve been doing visual type stuff for the last three decades,\u201d\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tSome of the buy-in appears to also come from the film\u2019s cast, which includes Ben Kingsley, Andy Serkis and Mary-Louise Parker. Earning their trust with his use of AI includes \u201ccommunicating in a transparent, honest way and helping them understand how the tools are used,\u201d\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOnce they see, once you demonstrate the technology for them \u2014\u00a0I mean, I don\u2019t want to speak for them, you have to ask them \u2014 but by and large, they love these tools, because a lot of times an actor is not able to have any agency into their digital performance,\u201d\u00a0Erwin said.<\/p>\n

\n\tErwin, 44, views the use of AI as the next frontier of filmmaking, akin to the transition from film to digital cameras. A native of Birmingham, Alabama, he found himself unable to get jobs on projects reliant on film cameras, so he tried to embrace the power of digital. AI is just the next wave in the industry\u2019s technological growth, he argued, one he thinks will boost the number of projects Hollywood makes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI bled on the bleeding edge of every digital alternative zone,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of people stopped at the cameras, but for me it was my way to compete. It was a democratizing event, so now I think we\u2019re going to see scope and scale democratize the filmmakers everywhere. It might be disruptive, but I think it\u2019s going to get us to a new birth of creativity and original voices in our industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tWatch a behind-the-scenes clip of the water sequence here:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Young Washington” director Jon Erwin explains how the film used AI and walks through the making of certain scenes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2843,2844,2754],"class_list":["post-3449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-jon-erwin","tag-wonder-project","tag-young-washington"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018Young Washington\u2019\u00a0Director Jon Erwin Breaks Down Film\u2019s Use of AI: Tech Made Production \u2018Safer and More Affordable\u2019 (EXCLUSIVE) - Relocation Observer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=3449\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018Young Washington\u2019\u00a0Director Jon Erwin Breaks Down Film\u2019s Use of AI: Tech Made Production \u2018Safer and More Affordable\u2019 (EXCLUSIVE) - 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