Washed Out, the renowned chillwave musician, made waves last week by unveiling the first entirely AI-generated music video, created with OpenAI’s text-to-video model, Sora. The video accompanies Washed Out’s latest song, “The Hardest Part,” depicting a couple’s journey from high school romance to adulthood milestones, all in a mesmerizing four-minute sequence.
Directed by Paul Trillio, the video explores an “infinite zoom” concept that Trillio had envisioned for years but deemed too ambitious until encountering Sora’s capabilities. Trillio notes that Sora’s surreal and hallucinatory aspects enable the exploration of new ideas, creating visuals that transcend reality and delve into the realm of dreams and memories.
Sora, still unreleased to the public, can generate minute-long videos based on text input, potentially revolutionizing content creation in the music industry and beyond. Despite sparking excitement and concern over its hyper-realistic capabilities, Sora’s potential to supplement creative ideas is evident in “The Hardest Part,” a testament to its ability to breathe life into narratives that may otherwise remain untold.
Ernest Greene, aka Washed Out, echoes this sentiment, acknowledging Sora’s unique contribution in bringing the fictitious couple’s story to life with a blend of nostalgia and love lost, only achievable through AI technology.