Seeing Spiderman and Ironman remapped seamlessly into Back to the Future, we've been meditating on the idea of "Deepfakes" lately here at Animation Kids.
In one sense, media delivered to us via “frames-per-second” has actually been "deep-faking" us for over 100+ years.
Anytime we watch anything, on any screen, we are "deep-faked" - one-picture-at-a-time 15, 30, 60, or 120 times per second.
This process injects movies into our eyes via staccato-strobed-still pictures, creating a waking-dream in our craniums.
Why do we give strangers permission to inject their illusions into our brains?
That’s what we’ve been exploring for almost two decades.
Turns out, we want stories and entertainment. We want to stay informed.
We like novelty.
Good, bad or benign.
As with any fiction, the truth can come from illusion and constructed realities.
But it takes maturity and awareness to navigate a world with deepfakes in the mix.
How to teach kids to be aware of this powerfully persuasive medium?
One way is to look the other way, avert your eyes.
Another is to become actively "disillusioned".
Point-of-view reveals the deepfake.
Disillusioning a magician's act can be as simple as standing backstage.
“Oh, that’s how it is done!” we’d say as we grasp the difference between the view from the house seats vs the view from the wings.
In the age of video, this is why we advocate media instruction for our “screenagers”.
Take them back stage.
Show them how to create via frames-per-second.
Do this as early as we teach reading and writing.
Take kids back stage, behind the "screens".
Expose them to visual and aural creation as a core language.
It is not a “nice extra” anymore.
Gone are the days where visual communication is the AV department’s job.
Learning this grammar and syntax they’ll see how the visual verbs, nouns, and adjectives construct a “deepfake” they can beam into somebody else's peepers.
Teach it like we teach reading and writing, speaking and listening - early and often!
Technology is finally at our backs.
The entire Hollywood toolset is “child’s play” with today’s apps.
We’ve seen the scales fall from the eyes of tens of thousands of elementary school kids as they produced their own animated videos.
They’ll have fun, and you’ll create savvy digital citizens, one frame at a time.
Bon Animate!
Joe
Award-wining media designer, speaker, author, filmmaker, educator and overall creativity evangelist - Joe Summerhays is dad of the Animation Chefs and Founder/Creator of Animating Kids!