The above short behind the scenes video shows some of the stages of development from shoot, stabilsing, tracking, AI, machine learning, composite and clean up.

In edit, there was a further challenge of how to cut the original one shot ‘Yellow’ promo into a shorter IDLES track, without losing the opening sea at night setting or the bright walking away end scene.

Careful timing adjustments were needed to find the best fit for the IDLES lyrics to match Chris’ delivery as the footage is all in one take. A time/speed ramp effect was applied to a section of the film to bring the ‘Yellow’ and ‘Grace’ promos in sync. This speed effect was in keeping with the original creative narrative of time advancing. Additional time warp effects were positioned over certain points of the video, to take the viewer away from the original Coldplay ‘Yellow’ video and into an IDLES-esque world.

Grade was undertaken by Stone Dogs’ colourist Mark Meadows, who seamlessly blended in the new deep fake faces with the original footage, matching flesh tones and grain without affecting the original promo. The video begins with the beach and sky being somewhat dark until sunlight rises at around the video’s midpoint, therefore the new AI derived face had to match the changing colour grade.

Special thanks to directors James Frost & Alex Smith and the rest of the crew behind the original Yellow video, Coldplay and their management team. Contains a sample from the music video for “Yellow” as performed by Coldplay, licensed courtesy of Parlophone Records Limited.