• by Les Luchter , April 22, 2024

Last year’s Havas-created campaign for the Brooklyn Film Festival stressed the limitations of AI versus human creativity. This year, though, Havas has enlisted AI as a key driver in its festival campaign, titled “Art is Better When It Movies.”

Visitors to makeitmovie.org are invited to scan in a photo of any work of art. AI then analyzes the work’s colors, reads its shapes, and extracts its themes to recommend an award-winning movie from the festival’s 26-year archives.

We asked the AI algorithm to tackle our Metropolitan Museum of Art poster for “The Coming Storm” (1859) by Martin Johnson.

We were directed to “The Sounding,” a 2017 audience award winner for narrative feature.

“The tranquil atmosphere and the contemplative mood of the image are similar to the themes of introspection and solitude in ‘The Sounding,’” the AI reported.

“Also, the sepia or monochrome tone in the image aligns with the dramatic and cinematic visual aesthetics of ‘The Sounding.’ Both the image and the film evoke a sense of nostalgia and timeliness, making ‘The Sounding’ a great choice for those who appreciate serene landscapes and thought-provoking narratives.”

In a slightly different vein, two “Art is Better When It Movies’ YouTube videos promote the new festival by turning Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Temptations of St. Anthony” (c. 1530-1600) into a romance film titled “This Modern Love” (see image above) and Sturtevant J. Hamblin’s “Sisters in Red” (c. 1845) into a horror film titled “One Tall, One Small.”

We see a woman and man respectively wondering the halls of a museum or art gallery and reimagining those pieces of art as movies.

The campaign also includes out-of-home elements running at Manhattan’s Big Screen Plaza as well as on-site at the festival.

Havas New York worked with customer experience network Havas CX to create the campaign, with Drool handling production.

The campaign will run through June 9. This year’s Brooklyn Film Festival, with 150 independent films competing for 30 awards, will take place from May 31 to June 9 in two venues in Greenpoint and Williamsburg, and online.