Taking AI Back in Time with ‘Bird Woman: Sacajawea’
Sacajawea, a Lemhi Shoshone woman, played a vital role in the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s exploration of the Louisiana territory. As a teenager, she accompanied the expedition on their journey from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean, a distance of thousands of miles.
Sacajawea’s life has been loosely documented through history but there are still missing pieces. The story of this young guide has made its way into pop culture, having appeared in films such as The Far Horizons and even Night at the Museum. The importance of this early female guide has grown in stature, now a symbol of women’s worth and independence. This symbolic and mythological aspect may have prompted filmmaker Lynn Rogoff to embark on a quest to tell her story using AI animation technology such as MidJourney, Runway and D-ID to create characters and embed them against the backdrop of history.
This has enabled the tale to come to life through AI from vivid animated artworks and chatbot style characters. The result is a 55 minute episode Bird Woman: Sacajawea, that uses AI to immerse audiences in the history with dialogue to enhance meaning and immersion. The award-winning production essentially activates characters who embroider Sacajawea’s story and political position within the framework of her journey through magic realism. Featuring Sera-Lys McArthur as the voice of Sacajawea, the cast add humanity and grit to ground their characters.
While she didn’t live a long life, it was an impactful one, noted as an important guide, playing an instrumental role in the Lewis and Clark expedition. Having been won over the course of some gambling by a Frenchman, the defiant character embarks on an arduous adventure, navigating a complex time in American history, walking the tightrope of gender politics, tribal identity and language barriers over an uneasy political terrain.
There are many layers to Bird Woman: Sacajawea, which latches onto its subject’s spirit as an early pioneer. Through authentic voice work from acclaimed actors, captivating visuals and a lush soundtrack, the production is engaging in a poetic way, using visual metaphors, and creating a soundscape much like a radio play. This unusual and experimental tale weaves between real and unreal, using lifelike characterisation to add nuance to its characters.
Through pageantry and an windswept depiction of the old west, there’s a charm that would make you think of a series like Poldark in terms of a live-action equivalent. All the while, this curious piece of entertainment pushes boundaries when it comes to the efficacy of AI in visual storytelling with a focus on engaging students in order to create a living history.
Bird Woman: Sacajawea adopts a storyteller format with characters breaking the fourth wall to “monologue” their dialogue, making it a little bit stilted. While the AI technology is fascinating and showcases the next step in terms of filmmaking, it does become somewhat repetitive. Recurring backdrops are understandable in such an undertaking, which while animated and detailed, remain noticeable.
There’s also an eclectic feel to the medium, as the visual textures and style wanders from time to time, using variations in order to sustain a flow to this storytelling. The lack of uniformity does create an inconsistency. Then, while engaging beyond static two-dimensional drawings, the juxtaposition of characters against backdrops can become a bit confusing in terms of realising logistics around dialogue and scenes. Trying to understand the character interplay can also be a little bit tricky at times, and while the speech seems authentic, there can be a bit of a disconnect. Using a realistic yet animated series of characters is a smart way to leverage resources and focus the creation of an episode. It is somewhat limiting when it comes to creating a real sense of space and time.
The choice of backdrops creates a rich tonal quality to the happenings, and it’s interesting to hear the journey being sewn together as it unfolds. However, as intrepid as the audio-visual experimentation is, it’s not quite at the point where this format is going to hold and maintain everyone’s attention. It works as a way to get more relevance and emotional investment from people wanting to experience Sacagawea’s story in a more lively manner, but it’s not quite at the stage where it’s going to make a worthy substitute for more traditional film or television productions.
As it stands, Bird Woman: Sacajawea makes its mark as a bold and progressive adventure, having many similarities to video game prologues with a similar visual dynamic. As adventurous, pioneering and poetic as it is, this production isn’t quite at the point of replacing more conventional storytelling formats but does offer a glimpse into innovative alternatives.