News Summary

• The documentary filmmakers of Declarations: Black Americans and the Revolutionary War turned to modern technology to reclaim history.
• They enlisted artist and researcher Hudson Campbell, who made oil paintings of four historical subjects “rooted in accurate historical context” and “based on actual portraiture” “He then used AI tools to animate these portraits, preserving his artistic style while bringing the characters to life,” they explained.
• Declarations is not the first historical documentary to use genAI, after Darren Aronofsky’s AI studio Primordial Soup and Time Magazine released the animated short-form series On This Day… 1776 in January via YouTube.