Tony Cane-Honeysett, who is an Emmy Award winning writer and filmmaker who made Mondo Bondo, restored, colourised, and animated family photos of his mother Mary
A filmmaker has used artificial intelligence (AI) to “bring his late mother back to life” – producing a movie with her in the lead role.
Tony Cane-Honeysett, 69, restored, colourised, and animated family photos of his mother, Mary, after her death nine years ago. Tony, based in Los Angeles and originally from London, combined the pictures with Mary’s written memoir and voice recordings to create a film spanning her life.
The producer now believes cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) will be a game-changing tool for filmmakers, making it easier than ever to preserve personal history in a way never before possible.
Tony said: “My mum left behind an unpublished book of her early life. It was very crudely done with old family photos. When she died in 2016, I took everything she’d written – 14 chapters – and, by cloning her voice, got her to narrate the entire book. Then I had to restore, colorize, and animate those photos to fit the narrative. It all fits together into a documentary.”
READ MORE: Line of Duty stars in ‘clear space’ to reprise roles as BBC drama set to return
This ambitious project called I Brought My Mum Back to Life With AI follows two previous traditionally filmed – not AI – documentaries about his mother, both shown on PBS. The Royal Academy (2004) tracks Mary as an amateur artist who challenges professionals to have her work accepted by the Royal Academy of Art. Brushstroke (2023) focuses on his mother learning to paint again after a stroke.
“Now, all the footage I’ve collected is on YouTube and has accumulated over 300,000 views. She has developed a little fan club, which is really rather nice,” Tony said.
“Due to the demand for more footage of her, that inspired me to do I Brought My Mum Back to Life With AI’. Plus, the fact that the story was fantastic. She was born in 1928 and lived through the Blitz of World War II. It was such a lovely story I thought it needed to be told, and this was the only way to tell it.”
Tony said he found recreating his mother’s presence was surreal and touching. He explained: “Thanks to AI, it gave me the opportunity to bring her words to life in her own words. It’s still kind of her talking from the grave, which is strange but loved at the same time.”
The emotional weight of the project has been significant for Tony. He continued: “I was very close to her. She had a fantastic sense of humor, and we got on great.
“But seeing her again – it has actually been very emotional because I know more about her now than I did when she was alive. Of course, now I have thousands of questions I wish I could ask her about her early life.”
Mary had been a widow since 1987 and had spent decades living alone. Recalling her life, Tony said: “I was very close with my dad as well, but he died in 1987, so she had been a widow really from the age of 58. I didn’t start filming her for my other films until she was 74, so everything I have of her is from when she was older.
“But this project lets me see her when she was young – bringing those photos to life. I got to see a whole other side of my mom who I thought I knew.”
He acknowledges AI is evolving and sees it as a powerful tool for filmmakers. He explained: “AI is amazing, but this is the worst AI will ever be. It’s only going to get better, and who knows what we can do next? Now, the sky’s the limit.
“It’s very intensive. I have to get my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, and great-grandparents’ faces on these images so that it’s really them. I think that was the original intention of why my mother wrote the book – to create a historical record for the family.”
This endeavor also gave Tony a new perspective on his mother’s connection to her home.
“She could no longer live in the house she’d lived in all her life. What I didn’t understand at the time was her attachment to the house,” he said.
“But now I realize there’s an incredible history with her and that house – all her relatives lived there. It’s something I never appreciated when she was alive, but now I see.”
Looking forward, Tony envisions AI continuing to shape the future of filmmaking and storytelling.
“I think AI is an unstoppable force,” he said. “It will replace real actors. Hollywood knows it. If AI is great now, this is the worst it’s ever going to be – it will only get better.
“More and more people will be able to do this. AI gives us the ability to bring stories to life in ways we never could before. For me, this project is deeply personal, and I feel like, in a way, I get to spend more time with my mother. I’m learning about her in a way I never had the chance to when she was alive.”