Thread by @thetimes

The man behind the viral deepfakes of Tom Cruise that appeared on TikTok has come forward.

Chris Ume, a visual effects expert, has revealed how he pulled it off and argued for more regulation of the technology. thetimes.co.uk/article/deepfa…

Ume lives in Hasselt, Belgium, and, within the world of visual effect artists, is considered one of the world's best at creating high-quality deepfake videos.

Few would dispute this after seeing his videos.

A former cameraman and visual effects editor for the Belgian TV company Medialaan, he says made the videos to raise awareness around deepfake technology as he believes it is still relatively unknown by the public.

“I think there should be laws that help with the responsible use of AI and deepfakes, that’s important. There’s always going to be misuse of this technology, you can’t avoid that,” Ume says.

There are currently no specific laws around deepfakes in the UK 🇬🇧 or the EU 🇪🇺

Ume, who first began working on deepfake videos in 2018, was hired as one of 20 artists and technicians last year to work on a satirical show made by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, as well as the British comedian and satirist Peter Serafinowicz.

So who actually is ‘Tom Cruise’? 📽️

In this case, it’s Miles Fisher, one of the world’s most renowned Cruise impersonators.

When creating deepfakes, having a model that closely resembles the subject makes it much easier for the effect to work.

Even then, the process involved finding and feeding his computer more than 20,000 images of the actor’s face from different angles and under different lighting conditions.

The three 30-second clips of Cruise took Ume nearly three months to produce ⌛️

For more, you can read the full story here:
thetimes.co.uk/article/deepfa…

And to see the videos themselves, as well as our original coverage of the story and its implications, click here 👇
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