"OI VEY!" OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE AI
"What Would Max Biallystock Do?"
These are febrile times we live in politically and spiritually and being such febrile times, I routinely ask myself the question (as a 'creative' you understand) : "What would Max Biallystock do?" paraphrasing writer/director Billy Wilder's rhetorical question : "How would Lubitsch do it?" which he would often ask of himself and his co-writers when needing to solve their script and story problems.
Lubitsch is all very well and classy as a high level reference but my go to role model for influencing my creative thinking derives from my (fore)namesake, Max Biallystock, played by Zero Mostel in the original Mel Brooks' 1967 comedy, 'The Producers'.
Max Biallystock (for those of you who perhaps haven't seen the film) is one of the central characters in Mel Brooks' ingenious comedy who had no shame when it came to offending public sensibilities in order to pull of a scam to make money in the theatre world. I think when all else fails in one's creative endeavours, it's always worth considering the very bottom line, the lowest of the low common denominator: "What would Max Biallystock do?".
Combining the question "What would he do?" with one of my whimsical movie concepts and deploying Artificial Intelligence ChatGPT with its text to image function and hey presto, you have "Oi Vey" - my comedy about an 80ft Rabbi who has accidentally been made giant by a member of his synagogue, a student scientist who was originally attempting to make him immortal but failed. I'll admit, given the increasing rise of anti-semitism across the Western world at the moment, the timing of this comedy film might seem badly thought out, but just as Biallystock created his Broadway hit "Springtime For Hitler" against all the odds, so too, I believe, "Oi Vey" has the chance to hit the zeitgeist jackpot and restore some much needed humour in these dark times of ours.
Admittedly, I'll confess even in my recent flights of random creative whimsy, I found myself having an unsettling feeling as I experimented with my first fusion AI project.
What both alarmed and impressed me when I put my most pithy of pitches into the ChatGPT instruction box, was how quickly it provided me with all the below:
Title: Oi Vey!
Subtitle: A Rabbi's Tall Tale
[Image: An 80-foot-tall rabbi stands amidst a bustling cityscape, his long beard flowing in the wind as people look up in awe.]
Tagline: When life gets bigger than your faith...
Synopsis: In a world where miracles are measured in feet, Rabbi Moshe finds himself suddenly towering over his congregation. As he navigates the challenges of being both a spiritual leader and a literal giant, he discovers that sometimes, the biggest miracles are the ones we find within ourselves.
Starring:
- David Schwimmer as Rabbi Moshe
- Mayim Bialik as Rachel, the skeptical journalist
- Danny DeVito as Saul, the wise-cracking tailor
- Tiffany Haddish as Esther, the no-nonsense baker
Directed by: Joel Coen
Release Date: Coming Soon!
[At the bottom, in smaller font:] Inspired by true events (well, sort of).
The fact that AI delivered all this elaboration in just a matter of seconds was terrifying enough for someone with even as quicksilver imagination as mine (said with mortal humility), but it was made all the more intimidating when AI then breezily managed to spew out some impressive sample movie posters to accompany the zany pitch itself.
The first one provided a sort of Soviet-looking 1950s poster as if the Ghost of Lenin himself had played some hand in the visualising of my concept. The commie ghost in the machine, so to speak.
The second poster had more of an 1980's VHS rental look to it (at least to my mind) and with the exception of a strange arrangement of the Rabbi's right hand to his missing arm, I found it most convincing. I could almost imagine director Norman Jewison (who recently passed away) directing this one in the year between 'Agnes Of God' (1985) and 'Moonstruck' (1987).
Then, to bring us more up to date, the AI provided me with a Pixar-like version of "Oi Vey" which reduced some of the potency of my 'Biallystock' pitch, though nonetheless still looked mighty impressive. I was starting to understand now what all the fuss about AI and the 2023 Hollywood writers' strike was all about. If computers can run with the proverbial ball of imagination supplied with only the merest details, it truly is the stuff of all creatives' nightmares.
With the convenience of its instant text and image rendering, who's to say that in the future you won't be able to simply put in the dimensions of a plot of land into a computer and request a Frank Lloyd Wright house with Rennie Macintosh furnishings in accordance with local planning regs and you'll put every architect and their practice in the area instantly out of business. Equally, one might request a Beethoven-style musical structure applied to a Burt Bacharach Symphony or have a Tolstoy-like, 21st century novel that charts the rise and fall of a Chechen leader who becomes a UFC cage fighter. The choices and possibilities are infinite and yet, all the while, strangely reductive.
My feeling is that with the increasing ascendency of artificial intelligence and the worrying inability to decipher what's human from what's not, we'll end up thirsty for the purest, most authentic things and will look for flaws as our indicators of what's real and what isn't. Until AI perfects the flaws. Jesus.
And as much as I've appreciated the initial help from AI for developing my 'Oi Vey", I still think it'll require a little more of my uniquely flawed human zaniness to make it properly sing.
Though having said that, I'm tempted to see how it can come up with a comedy Broadway title song for "Oi Vey", purely out of curiosity you understand ...
(Verse 1)
Every day’s a circus, life’s a crazy play,
I wake up in the morning, and I hear my mother say,
"Get up, get dressed, the world’s a mess, oy vey!"
My boss is on the phone, my dog ate the remote,
The coffee machine’s broken, my wife took my coat,
I just can’t catch a break, oy vey!
(Chorus)
Oy vey, oy vey, it’s another crazy day,
Spilling coffee on my tie, the bills I cannot pay,
Oy vey, oy vey, what more can I say?
When life gives you tsuris, you just gotta shout, "Oy vey!"
(Verse 2)
I went to see my doctor, he says I need a break,
My blood pressure’s high, and my back begins to ache,
He says, "Take it easy, stress will make you gray, oy vey!"
My neighbor’s playing polka, at three in the morning,
My kid’s science project’s due, and he’s giving no warning,
I just wanna go to sleep, oy vey!
(Chorus)
Oy vey, oy vey, it’s another wacky day,
Forgot my anniversary, my wife said, "No way!"
Oy vey, oy vey, please make it go away,
When life gives you a pickle, you just gotta shout, "Oy vey!"
(Bridge)
I try to keep it cool, I try to stay composed,
But every little thing just makes me feel exposed,
From the mishigas at work, to the chaos at home,
I feel like a meshugener, I just wanna roam!
(Chorus)
Oy vey, oy vey, it’s another zany day,
I missed my train, I’m in the rain, my shoes are in dismay,
Oy vey, oy vey, what more can I convey?
When life gives you tsuris, you just gotta shout, "Oy vey!"
(Outro)
So if you’re feeling meshugah, and your world’s in disarray,
Just take a breath, and laugh it off, and join me when I say,
Oy vey, oy vey, we’ll make it through the fray,
When life’s a crazy rollercoaster, just shout it out, "Oy vey!"
We're so fucked!
Oi (Oy) vey!