As Steven Spielberg explores extraterrestrial life onscreen once again, the Disclosure Day director’s set was all about embracing the human element.
Emily Blunt, who stars in the June 12 Universal Pictures release as meteorologist Margaret Fairchild, recently explained why she was “a bit terrified” to use AI in order to make the alien clicking voice she emits in one pivotal scene from the trailer, opting to create the “really strange sounds” herself.
“Even kind of leading up to that moment where she starts speaking in this non-human language,” she detailed on Hot Ones. “It’s a four-minute oner that we shot that leads up to that moment, where she’s gradually sort of disintegrating.
Blunt continued, “There’s various ways you could do it. You could go the AI route, which I’m a bit terrified of. I thought I could make some real, really strange sounds. So, I said, ‘Maybe I could come in and we’ll just do a range of weird sounds.’ And it’s what we did. I did sort of the clicking sounds. I did sort of humming sounds, consonant sounds, breathing-strange sounds.”
Noting that the sound designer put one microphone by her mouth and another by her throat, Blunt explained that the device “captures it in a really weird way. And then the sound designer went away and created that weird sound.”
Spielberg previously put his foot down about using generative AI for filmmaking purposes. “I’m not willing to substitute, because I don’t really believe in sentience. I don’t believe there is any substitute for the soul. I don’t think that is an algorithm that is inventible,” he said on the IMO podcast.
“Use AI as a tool, but do not use AI as the final word on anything creative,” added Spielberg. “That’s where I draw the line.”
Premiering June 12, Disclosure Day stars Josh O’Connor as a cybersecurity whistleblower who races against time and a massive government conspiracy to help bring the day of ultimate alien disclosure. The film also stars Blunt, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo, Wyatt Russell and more.
