A film is a collection of mediums. Among these are: Music. Editing. Story. *Acting*. I've always put them on a somewhat equal pedestal, with a bias towards good music and an obsession for cinematography. Acting, always felt a means to an end. I've been thinking the opposite lately. Questioning everything after seeing seemingly realistic generations from your favourite AI slop. Acting is *the* most important medium within the umbrella of a film. Clearly, the primary goal of a narrative film is to deliver an emotional experience. And the first thing people connect with in a film, is another human being. So if you perfect all the other mediums but have unconvincing acting, then you have immediately failed. But if you have powerful acting and *even your sound* sucks (or reaches a minimum level of acceptability), then there is a chance you will *move* someone. Perhaps I will discover later that acting is the entry point, and the other mediums in film are what are used to transcend the performance beyond the constraints of acting. To *multiply* it. We will see. Another note on AI slop and 'generating' a performance. I am a firm believer that 1 + 1 = 3. The chemistry of two human beings in the right environment explodes into something you cannot imagine. You also willingly do not want to imagine it, because that is boring. And if you are doing boring work, go engineer some algorithms and leave art behind. So if you know exactly what you want, by all means, delude yourself and generate an academy award winning performance. Bravo. [[Film Direction]]