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'South Park' Creators Land $20 Million In Funding For Their Deepfake VFX Studio (variety.com) 57

Posted by BeauHD from the get-your-popcorn-ready dept.
The creators of "South Park" have secured a $20 million investment for their AI entertainment startup Deep Voodoo. Variety reports: The funding was led by Connect Ventures, an investment partnership between CAA and venture-capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA). It's the first outside capital raised by Deep Voodoo, which previously was funded entirely by Parker and Stone's independent entertainment company, Park County. Stone and Parker plan to use the new funding to "accelerate Deep Voodoo's development of its leading deepfake technology, cost-effective visual effects services and original synthetic media projects," according to the announcement.

Stone and Parker's Deep Voodoo began building their proprietary deepfake technology in early 2020, and the duo assembled a team of artists for a feature film about Donald Trump they had developed. In October of that year, they released "Sassy Justice," a 14-minute comedy short featuring a deepfaked Trump (voiced by Peter Serafinowicz), which went viral. But they suspended the movie project due to the COVID pandemic, and pivoted Deep Voodoo to be a provider of deepfake tools to the industry. With Connect Ventures' investment, Deep Voodoo has begun offering its "unrivaled face-swapping visual effects" to artists, producers and creators across the industry, per the announcement.
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'South Park' Creators Land $20 Million In Funding For Their Deepfake VFX Studio More

'South Park' Creators Land $20 Million In Funding For Their Deepfake VFX Studio

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  • Deep DooDoo (Score:2, Insightful)

    by buckfutter ( 828828 )
    The name 'Deep DooDoo' would have been soooo much better.
  • There is no forgiving Manbearpig. These two are pure evil and obviously for sale. No integrity whatsoever. Human garbage. They should be flushed down the drain like the turds they are. Fascist propaganda mouthpieces. Fuck them.
    • Oh noes! Someone did a politick I didn't like. He most evidently aligns himself with the doctrines of Benito Mussolini!
      • Manbearpig, the rallying cry of redneck ignorance. You were used.

      • Oh noes! Someone did a politick I didn't like. He most evidently aligns himself with the doctrines of Benito Mussolini!

        Well... yes. That's how politics works. Do you voluntarily surround yourself happily with people of opposing viewpoints you find dangerous and destructive? That may make you a masochist.

        TV shows are a form of entertainment. If they engage in politics we don't agree with they cease entertaining us and the viewers (if they so happen to be aligned against them) say they entire show and creators can go die in a fire.

        That's how politics and entertainment works. And don't pretend you're not the same.

    • It's ok, dear friend. We all suffered great losses at the hands of Manbearpig. My wife, as well as our toy poodle, will never be the same after what he did. Every day I wake up in fear knowing that Manbearpig still walks this earth. Fear not however, Elon Musk is working on some robots to stop him, so keep buying those Teslas and hope for the best.

      • Yes we did. These two have contributed to the fall of human civilisation. We will cook. Actually cook.

        Yeah its fucking hilarious.
      • Fuck Teslas. Don;t buy any car at all. Get out of the car bubble and back in the real world. Walk. We evolved to walk. So walk.
        • We evolved to come up with clever ways of doing things. Such as driving.
        • Oh, maaan, you can't say that to a 'Murican! Walk? You'll cause a national health emergency.

        • We evolved to walk (upright) the same way flying squirrels evolved to fly.

          It's clumsy and utilitarian. Worse than squirrels, it breaks movement rather than adds something, beyond carrying stuff.

          We moved just fine, and much faster, before then.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 )

            Musk hate is such a curious thing. The tail is wagging the dog. Politics informs people a hero must be a villain. Therefore he is.

            • He always was a bit of an asshole. He got lucky by selling companies. He didn’t start Paypal or even Tesla for that matter. He’s mister conservative now that Tesla subsidies ended. We didn’t hear a peep while he was taking all those tax payer funded checks. Why would Elon support socialist wealth redistribution?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by HiThere ( 15173 )

          That is, indeed, a better option. Unfortunately, for an individual to adopt it (as I have) imposes an rather high cost on that individual an those who want to interact with that individual. This isn't going to happen on a significant enough scale to make much difference.

          (FWIW, I opted out of driving because I considered myself to be an unsafe driver. I tend to get caught up in a chain of thought to the exclusion of what's going on around me. So I opted out before either the insurance company or the morg

    • They have since apologized for acting like teenage libertarian edgelords during that time period.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        What was their apology? Was it more than words? Forgiveness of sins depends on genuine repentance, and words must be accompanied by actions demonstrating that repentance.

  • Combined Parker & Stone are worth an estimated 1.3 billion. Why would they take funding for such a small amount to potentially lose creative control?
  • They didn't kill Kenny.
    • Can't Parker and Stone hire some actors that *DON'T* sound like a cartoon character when they talk? All these celebrity deepfakes are voiced with the same actors who have been doing South Park for 30 years, and are so recognizable, it's not even close to believable. Why spend all the money on facial mapping software, and then completely drop the ball on the audio?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Ed Avis ( 5917 )
        The Sassy Justice video has some very good voice impersonations that aren't cartoony. You have to skip a few minutes of filler to get to them.

  • my arse,,,
    I had no idea this existed till now....
    this is like America saying "world series" - but only one country participating

    • Yep, hadn't seen this before either. Mildly amusing. The thing is, if you want a proper laugh, all you have to do is watch 'Murican politicians & pundits spout their nonsense on 'Murican TV. And boy, do they luuuurve talking about themselves.

      • Yep, hadn't seen this before either. Mildly amusing. The thing is, if you want a proper laugh, all you have to do is watch 'Murican politicians & pundits spout their nonsense on 'Murican TV. And boy, do they luuuurve talking about themselves.

        I don't get it.

        If we're so far "beneath you"...why do you pay so much attention to what's going on over here?

        • For the same reason that people who might not even live in the neighborhood look out for smoke and fire: if a fire breaks out, it's not necessarily limited to the one dwelling. Mrs. O'Leary's cow burned down all of Chicago. America is like Mrs. O'Leary's cow, but more dangerous, and dumber. Our actions have wide-spread reactions in many countries around the world. In a way, we're playing Russian Roulette with the rest of the world as the victims. If the radicals take over the government again, it's not

          • If the radicals take over the government again, it's not just America that will suffer.

            Not sure I get you....the radicals are mostly in chard NOW in the US....

            People who are wanting to fundamentally change what the US has been until recent years and worked so well for us to date.

        • Yeah, we got idiots in power in the UK ATM too. But it's a little too close to home & we can see the suffering they're causing. Not so funny.

  • Well, all that political BS from troll farms trying to direct the conversation aside, now might be the time to invest in this technology, in a context of producing movies. Think Pixar in the early days, but with the ability to resurrect old stars, or keep popular ones eternally young.

    Maybe it'll tank. Maybe not. It's the maybe not part that counts.

  • ... I have to say I did not get a single laugh out of "Sassy Justice". Looked like arbitrary nonsense, and that "deep-fake" aspect was not even interesting.
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