In order to bring El Chavo back to life, we worked with experts in deep fake. First, we had to shoot the commercial with an actor/impersonator that was able to dominate and mimic El Chavo’s facial expressions to perfection.

Once filming was done, the team had the lofty task of recreating this iconic character. The biggest challenge was sourcing footage from a sitcom from the 70s, in poor SD quality. Over 12,000 images were finally catalogued and the AI program sifted through all the data, matching frames visually. With the many angles and close-ups planned for the commercial, it made this even more difficult to match light and shadows.

The language barrier added another layer of complexity to the team in the UK. Since AI software is only visual-based, it required extra care to assure the expressions matched the emotion of the dialogue.