Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators behind digital frontier-pushers and subversive agitators the animated series “South Park” are making waves. Their production studio — Deep Voodoo LLC — is at the forefront. Founded by artist and provocateur Miles Greenberg in 2020, the studio uses deepfake technology to craft rare, provocative, and dangerous experiences. From NFTs to music videos to web shorts,
Its production company, Deep Voodoo LLC, has attracted some notice for its advanced and creative use of deepfake technology. The studio has recently released a Kendrick Lamar music video and a new web shorts series called “Sassy Justice.” The faux news anchor in the entire piece looks uncannily like Donald Trump. This savvy decision showcases the studio’s penchant for satire and social commentary.
With the creation of Sora 2, a new OpenAI video generation tool, the landscape for Deep Voodoo’s canvas expands even further. This hands-on application provides a unique opportunity for users to develop their own personalized video. They can include diverse characters doing an array of complex things, and yes, sometimes outside the box. In a recent episode of “South Park” titled “Sora Not Sorry,” students used Sora 2 to make memes. They created video renditions with cherished characters including Popeye, Bluey, and Droopy Dog, stretching the boundaries of permissible content.
This most sordid of scenes, in which Droopy Dog is depicted performing oral sex, reinforces the shocking potential of this new technology. This episode provides a fascinating deep dive into Stone and Parker’s creative fight with the shifting digital reality. It highlights their individual creative approaches and their adaptations to this transformation.
Stone and Parker have a personal interest in deepfake technology, having studied its possibilities for numerous projects. Even with this forward-thinking model, the success and output of Deep Voodoo LLC has been sparse so far with only a handful of major productions to date. It is unclear if they’ll stick with this approach, or if they will move to stop the studio in its tracks.
“We make Totoro with pencil and paint, not by typing sentences on stupid Sora app.” – Studio Ghibli representative
Deep Voodoo’s projects couldn’t be more different from traditional animation approaches. This crucial difference fuels a continuing conversation within the creative community about how technology impacts the very nature of storytelling. Stone and Parker are still playing around with deepfake capabilities with Sora 2. Watch their latest productions as they invite audiences to rethink the boundaries of animation and digital artistry.