Täglich einen Kurzen: „Backflip“ by Nikita Diakur

A fun film about a topic that scares me a lot.

https://nikitadiakur.com/

In 2019, I gave backflipping a shot, but it didn’t go well. Fear and a broken toe killed my confidence, and I gave up. To get past this, I made an avatar. The training of the avatar was based on the methods from the research paper „Deep Mimic,“ enabling it to learn to do backflips using machine learning, mimicking human moves, and learning from mistakes without the risk of getting hurt. This journey, full of wonder and discomfort due to A.I.’s potential, took three years to capture, resulting in the above documentary. The film delves into themes like ambition, facing fear, balancing control and uncertainty, aiming for excellence, grappling with the inevitability of technological advancements, accepting failure, and learning to let go.

Source: „DeepMimic: Example-Guided Deep Reinforcement Learning of Physics-Based Character Skills“ by Xue Bin Peng, Pieter Abbeel, Sergey Levine, Michiel van de Panne
xbpeng.github.io/projects/DeepMimic/index.html

Film: Nikita Diakur
Code: Maximilian Schneider
Sound: David Kamp
Music: aiva.ai & Thunderkamp
VR cam: Gerhard Funk
Camera: Gerhard Funk & María Guadalupe Anaya Alderete
Modelling: Leonhard Gläser
Production Manager: Karsten Matern
Co-Producers: Emmanuel-Alain Raynal, Pierre Baussaron / Miyu Productions
Distribution: Luce Gosgean / Miyu Distribution
Support: The Open Workshop Artist Residency
Funding: MDM, FFA, CNC
© Nikita Diakur and Miyu Productions 2022

backflip.training