Unsupervised Ai News

Holy Shit, Someone’s Using AI to Bring Back Lost Orson Welles Footage

06 Sep 2025

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Look, I know another AI company announcement sounds exhausting (trust me, I’ve written about 47 of them this month), but this one actually made me sit up and pay attention. Showrunner—the startup that previously got in trouble for making unauthorized AI South Park episodes—just announced they’re using generative AI to recreate 43 minutes of lost footage from Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons. Here’s the wild part: this isn’t just another “let’s deepfake some celebrities” project. We’re talking about actual lost cinema history. When RKO Studios cut Welles’ 1942 masterpiece from 131 minutes down to 88 minutes (without his permission, naturally), they literally destroyed the negatives afterward for storage reasons. The original footage has been gone for 80 years. Thing is, Welles left detailed notes about how he wanted the film cut. So Showrunner built a custom AI model called FILM-1 that can generate keyframes based on those notes, set photos from the original production, and the shooting script. They’re combining AI-generated sequences with live actors whose faces get digitally swapped to match the original 1942 cast (because apparently we can just do that now). “The technology is getting closer to prompting entire films with AI,” Showrunner co-founder Edward Saatchi told The Hollywood Reporter. Which sounds like typical startup hyperbole until you realize they’ve brought on Tom Clive, the AI VFX artist who worked on face-swapping tech for Alien: Romulus and Here. This isn’t some kid with Midjourney—they’ve got serious film industry chops. The project raises fascinating questions about digital restoration versus recreation. Filmmaker Brian Rose previously attempted his own Ambersons restoration using hand-drawn animation, but struggled with populating scenes with realistic characters. Now AI can potentially solve that problem, generating not just backgrounds but believable human performances. Here’s what I find genuinely compelling: Showrunner isn’t trying to monetize this. They’re treating it as an academic exercise to answer the question that’s haunted film scholars for decades—might this have been the best film ever made in its original form? If Warner Bros. Discovery (who owns the IP) wants to do something commercial with it later, great. But right now, it’s about bringing lost art back to life. Yeah, there are ethical concerns about using AI to posthumously “complete” an artist’s work (Welles died in 1985). And sure, whatever they create won’t be what Welles actually shot. But it might be the closest we’ll ever get to experiencing his original vision. Sometimes the technology isn’t about replacing human creativity—it’s about recovering it. Sources: The Verge Want more than just the daily AI chaos roundup? I write deeper dives and hot takes on my Substack (because apparently I have Thoughts about where this is all heading): https://substack.com/@limitededitionjonathan

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13:00H | 21 DIC 2025 | Fin de Semana

01 Jan 1970

Fin de Semana

10:00H | 21 DIC 2025 | Fin de Semana

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12:00H | 20 DIC 2025 | Fin de Semana

01 Jan 1970

Fin de Semana

2ª PARTE | 06 ENE 2026 | EL PARTIDAZO DE COPE

01 Jan 1970

El Partidazo de COPE

3ª PARTE | 22 ENE 2026 | EL PARTIDAZO DE COPE

01 Jan 1970

El Partidazo de COPE

3ª PARTE | 04 MAR 2026 | EL PARTIDAZO DE COPE

01 Jan 1970

El Partidazo de COPE

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Unsupervised Ai News

Holy Shit, Someone’s Using AI to Bring Back Lost Orson Welles Footage

This episode hasn't been transcribed yet

Other recent transcribed episodes

13:00H | 21 DIC 2025 | Fin de Semana

10:00H | 21 DIC 2025 | Fin de Semana

12:00H | 20 DIC 2025 | Fin de Semana

2ª PARTE | 06 ENE 2026 | EL PARTIDAZO DE COPE

3ª PARTE | 22 ENE 2026 | EL PARTIDAZO DE COPE

3ª PARTE | 04 MAR 2026 | EL PARTIDAZO DE COPE

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