GREG RABIDOUX (FLICK PICKS AND POLITICS) 5/7/26

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

All right, and joining us is the ever-elusive professor and film maker, Greg Rabidou. Good morning, sir. You're in uh where are you? Athens?

SPEAKER_02 0:13

I Yes, I'm in Athens. For all I know, you may just be talking to the virtual AI, Greg Rabidou. The real one is unbeknown. Where is he? Who knows?

SPEAKER_00 0:23

I can tell you have human energy.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

I don't even know what that means.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Big human energy. I'm gonna I'm gonna call it a friend. You you know the other kind of energy, right? We're gonna call it big human energy. That's what you have.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Big human energy. Nick, I don't know what it means, but I like it, and I'm using it. Big human energy. I would.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

The new time you make a public appearance, you can use it.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Well, listen, it's better than exactly right, instead of B D E. Well, there you go. All right, so what you got?

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Uh I have a number of things on my mind. First, I'll just uh do a mini, a mini um sort of rant, which is I keep telling people around me, look, um, your health issues are inconveniencing me, and I'm just gonna leave it at that. So, as far as other things. What? Um people around me, lots of health issues, health care, it's inconveniencing me. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's making life difficult, it's making film shoots difficult, and I've given a memo to everybody around me. You just need to stay healthy. Exactly. So I think that's I've solved it. Hopefully, that's the last word that they need from me. Oh, first stuff on my mind. Um, well, there is so much crazy stuff. So, first thing I'll just see is I saw an ad, a pitch for this, Katie Porter, who's just a certifiably insane and really naughty and mean person running for California governor, uh, governor of California. And she, you recall she had the whole get out of my frame. Well, I can relate to that on some level, right? You know, like you're filming or setup shots awareness, body awareness, facial awareness.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

She's being sponsored by Idaho Potatoes now. Oh god. Oh, that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Sorry, sorry. And I just I love the uh, you know, get out of my effing frame. Well, I saw her cringe uh worthy ad though she did, and she has all these people in back of her with these little homemade signs, you know. She's running, whatever. We hate Trump, we hate this, we hate that, we hate Trump, you know, the usual. And then she ends with, you people get out of my beep beep frame. And then they put the loud track, ha ha ha ha ha. So that's awful. I I just think right there, that should disqualify her from being able to win the camp. If she if she makes ads that bad, she shouldn't be governor. So that's one thing. Um, the other thing that's on my mind, of course, is the bigger issue of just AI. So we we're dealing with that, and um Hollywood continues to struggle with how do you deal with this? AI, how do we deal with likenesses and imagery and you know, people saying, hey, you know, for a hundred bucks, you two can make a two-hour movie. Just, you know, type in your premise here. Literally, I've seen apps. Type in your premise, and then you'll have a film, which is crazy. But um, I've seen clips of the late great Val Kilmer. And um ironically, the movie is called As Deep as the Grave. And in it, it's more than just using, I don't know if you you remember the star, uh what was some of the really new Star Wars where they had some AI-generated CGI of of a younger Harrison Ford, and then they had a younger um Gary Fisher. And it looked kind of odd. I mean, they also actually used it in another film where they had a younger version of Luke Skywalker, but it was it it was very kind of quick, and uh, of course, they had the a newer uh Indiana Jones where they they use the younger CGIs of an AI of Harrison Ford. But in As Deep as a Grave, they literally take uh a dead, passed on Val Kilmer, and they go back and they take shots and they through AI they take a younger and they sort of morph him, and he literally acts in the film. So you have you have someone who's passed on acting in as deep as the grave, and you know he's dead, and yet you see him acting, and then in the film there's parts where he's younger, but then there's parts where he was like right before he died, and yet he comes back to life, and it's um so ethically, morally, and just visually, apparently it's something we're gonna have to deal with.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

I I mean are you allowed to do that without the estate's like approval?

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Uh uh that's a great question because uh the the legality, I can tell you from a legal perspective, is uh in flux. To put it mildly. To put it mildly. Especially, not just using like a the voice. Um Morgan Freeman, for example, has come out and he's ha he's involved in several lawsuits where he claims his voice has been used um and they've appropriated his voice and he's not getting any kind of compensation for it, and he says he didn't agree with it. Well, so far some of the early legal um returns on it is he's out of luck.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Well, here's the thing though. If your estate says, Yeah, go and do it, we can still make money off our loved one.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Um, yeah, uh it if they say yes, you can the estate, but um where the law hasn't caught up is the they're s in several of these cases, they're saying the state doesn't have that's not an area where the estate actually has uh the ability to say yay or nay. Uh like literally they can't do it.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Like a tribute show, like people who do tribute shows sometimes get the the you know, the the kiss from the family, you know, or something like no no great point.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

But see uh uh normally what's uh been a lot with these tribute shows is they use um footage that was already shot and was already filmed and had already been approved, if not by the actor or the singer, the entertainer, by the agency, by the studio, by somebody. And then the what essentially what they're saying is hey, we want to do a tribute show, we want to be able to use some of that footage, we want to be able to use some of those likenesses or imagery. What we're saying is the problem is it's a new work product, is what it's called. They're saying it as a new work product, so it's it's like taking Val Kilmer and saying, Well, the estate can't really say anything because um we've created it.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

But we've it's they were doing this with holograms on stage, you know, like they brought Tupac back to Coachella all the way back in twenty twelve. And so it's one thing to play a movie character, but then they were doing it on stage, which was kind of like weird. You would see the person on stage. You know?

SPEAKER_02 7:20

Those were weird. I was I was no, I was at a uh we were at a show uh back where they had like five or six of these sort of dead celebrities pop up and it it wasn't that the quality was okay, so it wasn't so good that it was super, super creepy, but it was creepy enough. You're like, yeah, but he's dead. I thought he died. It was just uh and one little kid uh in the audience wasn't too far from us, and she goes, I I thought he died.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

So it was just You know what would be really kind of interesting though? Like, what if you could have like an AI like hologram on stage? An AI meaning that the person that the thing uh the clone has all the information of that person in it and then you can literally ask it a question about real life and then it responds.

SPEAKER_02 8:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Wouldn't that be wild? Like you'll be able to interview Michael Jackson or I don't know, you know, Queen Elizabeth. You know? Because there's it's I didn't do anything to that metallic talking. You can put you can put all the AI into that clone digital clone, because that's what it is, right? A digital clone.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

Digital clone is essentially, you know, that's what it is. But there is something really, I think, just kind of super creepy and morbid and legally very questionable about someone who's died and then comes back and you're like, Yeah, I know he's dead, but I really want him in my movie.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

I can see this at those big fancy funerals. I can see this happening at one of those big fancy funerals. You know how people go all out and they get the horse and carriage and I could see this happening. Get the digital clone of your loved one and have them there. I I could see like people like going like you were saying, it's very morbid. But but you know, people stuff their dogs and taxidermy and put them in their house. I mean, people do stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

That's true. I I think you you're on to something. I think you're probably gonna see where you know your loved one will still be around. You'll just have an AI version of, you know, or Val will pop up and say, Hey, I'm ready for, you know, Top Gun Free.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Exactly. You can keep like that like that's crazy. Now that I'm thinking about it, all the uses that people could capitalize on it. Um and if you have the the you know, the um I guess the trustees of the estate saying okay, then you know, no crime.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Yeah, if the law catches up to it and they can do that, you may very well see that. Of course, won't we miss the days of actually having human actors? I mean, I don't know. They and then what are they are they gonna send the AI version or is it gonna be the human version of people like Mark Ruffalo when they wear their little no ice or ice buttons? You know, that's also the question.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

How do you audition? You know, like how do they pick who they would want? You know, like how do you how do you do it new? It's one thing to reprise a role, but like you're saying, oh, Nicole Kidman would be great in this role. I'm just gonna use an AI version so I don't have to deal with her crap, you know, I don't have to get her, you know.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

I don't want that whole Keith Urban yeah Nicole Kidman drama. Let me just give just give me the AI version.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

And and the younger version, please, before she had all that surgery and looks weird.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

If I was an actress and I wouldn't have to spend six months in An Antarctica to do a movie, I might send the AI.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Yeah, send the AI. You know, I saw I guess I saw a side-by-side comparison, you know, because I I follow a lot of music stuff, and every once in a while the film stuff will pop up on there too, and they talk about different movies. And what someone did, someone who has great access to technology, made a really convincing scene of a Star Wars movie using all AI. And they compare it with the exact same scene by the actors with the film actors. And while it looks at first glance, I think it's really pay attention to all the details. There's things that AI, at least not right now, they just can't get that human feel right. You know what I mean? The nuances are just it's not quite there.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

You need big human energy.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

There it is.

unknown 11:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

No, you're absolutely right. But here's the scary part, I think, for those of us that are working, and especially future generations, is the new generation, when we've talked and I've talked to younger generations, like 14, 15, 13 year olds, see, they they're so used to seeing so much of this AI stuff on like TikTok and Instagram. When they watch that same movie that you did, or those side-by-sides, they don't notice, they don't miss the nuance. They're very used to it. That's why Hollywood's essentially I had as someone who worked in a studio about two weeks ago when we were talking about a script that of mine that passed, you know, it's it's this stuff takes forever. This script has been passing through gates now for like almost two years. But it passed yet another gate. Okay, great. But I was at talking to her talking to her, and she said, you know, what we're banking on is they're not going to care or know the difference. So what people are all up in arms, like you know, like me going, oh, it's the dead Val Kilmore, or uh like what you said, yeah, you can notice the nuance. What they're what she's saying is, hey, they're they're not gonna care, they're not gonna know. They're so used to the video game experience anyway, it's essentially video games. And so so the real the real ones are gonna be out of this equation, honestly, are gonna be a lot of live actors, unfortunately. Wow. Or fortunately, depending if you don't like them. Some of them, some of them you don't have to put up with their crap. I like that. Right? Yeah, no, nobody has to put up with their crap.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Interesting. Okay. All right. Well, Greg Rabatou, it's so great to touch race with you again. What is your website?

SPEAKER_02 13:30

My pleasure, yes. Uh, well, I'll tell you what, just www.valmarfilms.com. We're working on two different documentaries, which gets us traveling for the next several weeks. But when I can, I will give a shout out to both of you again. Miss you both. And when we when I get back, I'll give you some updates and um I'll talk more about and share, of course, my big human energy.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Okay. Sounds good. All right. We coined another phrase here on the Liz Callaway show. We'll see you back uh next time, Greg. Stay well.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

All right, you guys the best. Thank you.