Respeecher was founded by friends and colleagues Alex Serdiuk, Dmytro Bielievtsov, and Grant Reaber. They use proprietary deep learning (artificial intelligence) techniques to produce high-quality synthetic speech. They are based in,… Kyiv, Ukraine.
We have been working with Alex Serdiuk CEO on several projects and stories. Including new work centered around their innovation in going voice synthetic speech as singing. The results are jaw-droppingly good. Respeecher is made up of professional, dedicated VFX professionals – who proudly are based in Kyiv.
Respeecher is not the only company in our industry affected by the war in Europe, and there are many – far too many – tragic stories coming out of Ukraine, but we didn’t want to fail to show you the faces of these members of our industry caught up in the conflict and wish them godspeed and safety as this war unfolds.
The company is a fun, positive-thinking team of filmmakers, computer programmers, and software developers – all focused on one thing — using voices to change the future of TV, movies, game development. There will be millions of tragic stories coming out over the coming days and weeks, we just wanted to acknowledge our friends and tell them we are thinking of them and all the families caught up in this war – wherever they are – whatever their situation.
Respeecher’s work
On September 29, the team won the Emmy for interactive documentary went to ‘In Event of Moon Disaster’, a film that used artificial intelligence (AI) to create a fake video featuring former US President Richard Nixon. The film shows him delivering a speech that was prepared in case the Apollo 11 mission failed, leaving astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to die on the moon.
In 2019, media artists Francesca Panetta and Halsey Burgund at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology teamed up with two AI companies, Canny AI and Respeecher, to create a posthumous ‘deepfake’. The synthetic video shows Nixon giving a speech he never intended to deliver—half a century after the subject it addresses.
This year they once again de-aged Mark Hamill’s voice for Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian/Bobb Fett, (see Boba Fett episode 6). The team worked with ILM for both the Mandalorian and Bobb Fett episodes.
AI and machine learning technologies are leading the change in almost every area of life. From business and medicine to entertainment and education, AI disrupts how we use tech. One of the most notable examples of this shift in technology is the multimedia industry, where AI continues to deliver results that were simply unimaginable. Respeecher is one of the great innovative young teams that is applying the newest innovations for M&E. The team at Respeecher are brilliant – their work is best of class. They are also just a great group of people.
We don’t know where are the Respeecher team is or how they are going – we hope they are safe.
ED UPDATE Since we posted this we heard from the team in Kyiv, everyone is alive and in good sprints. Alex asked us to post this.