and what i find really impressive is how easy this shot was to accomplish, because it pretty much is done with just one click. i'm using something called wonderstudio, which allows you to upload video footage to the cloud, where it uses high end computing to identify different people in the shot and then replace them with sd bodies. there were a selection of characters to choose from. so naturally i've used them all. and trust me, to be able to do this out on the street with a normal, wobbly tv camera is a real step forward. in the past, actors — and occasionally yours truly — have had to film their scenes in dedicated spaces, performing something called motion capture. always in super—tight lycra, never leaving much to the imagination. see, the only way a computer could work out what your various bits were doing was to track your various

reflective balls and build a new body from the framework. we spent eight weeks shooting and motion capture on that film, so that was 2016. i was 19 years old at the time. that was like a dream job. now, if you recognise tye sheridan, it's probably because he starred in the steven spielberg film ready player one, which involved a whole lot of motion capture and cgi. you know, you're wearing the suit and the head cam and you've got the dots all over your face, and you know, it's a lot of fun. but unless you have hundreds of millions of dollars to go and shoot a film like that and afford the capture system, it's really challenging to break into. it was around the time of shooting the film that tye got together with visual effects supervisor nicola todorovic to set up wonder dynamics, with a view to creating a system which would allow anyone to motion capture anything, anywhere. with motion capture, the setup is a big problem.

you always have to constrain yourself, and then if you want to shoot something else or move to a different location, you have to transfer all that, take your time to set up and do it. what we noticed, and tye and i worked together with some filmmakers that are very super artistically free, they'll shoot something, they'll see a different location in a distance. they're like, "let's go there." and sometimes this technology stops us from that. in order to replace an actor with a computer—generated character, this software needs to do two things that have traditionally needed specialist kits and specialist skills. first, you have to motion track the performer. that's what all the balls were about earlier. and second, you have to paint out the human and paint back in the background. and doing that on anything more than a very simple static shot gets really complicated, really quickly. oop! wonderstudio uses machine learning that's been trained specifically on the types of shots used in movies to find and track the people in the scene.

and i have to say, it really doesn't do a bad job of it, even when the protagonist is pushing the limits of respectable human motion. contrast this one—click software to the relatively huge post—production teams needed for a movie—grade shot. you have to have like a quite large team of artists. - you have to have a modeler, you have to have a rigger which makes - the skeleton of the cg character. you have to have a lighter, - you have to have a texture artist. then you also have. to have a composer. then you have to have a colorist to finish the shot and _ put it all together. we're talking about a simple shot of one cg character — _ i it could be on a small team, fivel or six people, and on a large team for a big production - like a film, it could be 20, 30 people just for that shot. and yet, could some of this work now be automated? these days ai can recognise human bodies in a piece of video. it's almost trivial. this system, runway ml takes

video footage, works out what the different elements in the shot are, and then re—themes the scene — meaning you can turn the whole shot into claymation, or you can set up some books and turn them into skyscrapers. and this app, simulon, which is still in development, uses an iphone's motion and depth sensors to provide more information about where the actor is and how the camera's moving. but just think about that for a sec. this will be done on your phone. the results from all of these systems aren't perfect, but for some they may be good enough. this software allows people that lwere not involved in the visuall effects industry to try things - that they probably never thought they could try before. you know, it can really be used really easily on social media. . you can create a lot of videos for tiktok and a lot _ of videos for instagram. a lot of videos for youtube, - and there's a lot of really amazing creators out there creating

some astonishing things i on those platforms. so i think these kind of tools will really help them. - but i think for production itself, for visual effects production, i i think we are very far away - from having something that works on a one—click solution. in early 2023, hollywood writers — followed by actors — went on strike, arguing that artificial intelligence poses a threat to creative professions, whether it's writing scripts or animating fake background actors. but i'm wondering if ai might also be coming for the animators themselves. i think it was really important for us not to say that ai is going to do everything. that's why we built it the way we did. and that's why i will not get you a perfect result. and that's why ai will not get you a perfect result. it will get you a base that you can then edit and manipulate. and that's something we work really hard. we are artists ourselves, so very conscious of building

this in a way that really speeds up and amplifies the artist. nicola makes the point that wonderstudio is meant to be just part of a movie visual effects pipeline, which is why as well as a finished shot, the software spits out all of the separate elements too, so that a visual effects team can tidy up, tweak and change things after the scene has been shot. if, that is, you have a visual effects team. me, i don't even have a creative director...and it shows. you're doing it. even he's doing it. it was pretty cool, though. thank you. you've got to be careful putting on these kind of moves without warming up. i am not as nimble as i would like to be. but if you do do yourself a mischief, i might havejust the thing. like many people, i've had years of back and shoulder problems. i try to strengthen and stretch, but sometimes you just want a good massage. so i've been testing backhug. this bed maps your back before its 26 robotic fingers start doing their thing.

first of all, you need to sync it up to the app. in there, you receive an automated physio appointment so you can explain any problems that you've got and what you're hoping to achieve. automated voice: your session has begun. my back�*s being scanned to start with. ok, it's good on the middle and upper back,and on the neck, but it's not getting into my shoulders. i'm just not feeling it enough in my shoulders. as well as choosing the strength you want before, you can choose how quickly you want it to reach that strength. so you may want it to be gradual, and it does feel particularly hard on the lower back so i've really had to turn that one down. the first time i used it, i was really impressed. but the more times i've used it, the less comfortable i found it on my lower back. it may be that i'm just a bit bony for it, and also my problem in my shoulder requires doing something all the way round. and of course this doesn't do that because all of the massagers are underneath you. but for anyone who's got an upper back neck or mid back problem,

that i guess it can really get to it. i've also been testing the therabody recovery airboat pro. the therabody recovery airboot pro. they aim to boost your circulation whilst also easing muscle soreness, swelling, stiffness and fatigue. the machine is charged so it doesn't need to be plugged in, which is easier for sitting somewhere with these on as well. you don't have to worry about your power socket as the boots inflate, which is how they create the compression. they're also in sections, so you can do just part of your leg. you don't have to do everything at once. and you can also choose different pressure in different areas. i've got the pressure set at 80 out of 100 so i can really feel the squeeze. but what happens when i go higher? ok, i'm on 90 now and at that level you can feel the blood pumping through your veins. and then when you finish gradually the air is let out and there is a kind of feeling of relief in my legs. but what's an elite athlete turned science writer make of them? i think they can be really

relaxing, they feel good. and so what they do is they really increase circulation. but if you are someone who are using this product for recovery, you're probably pretty fit. you probably are not having problems with their circulation. with your circulation. but for a slightly different type of relaxation and recovery, i've been testing the higher dose sauna blanket. the idea is to increase your body's thermal energy to help you relax and improve circulation. it's been about ten minutes now and i am starting to sweat. it tells you to start on level 5 to six and then if you're not sweating to turn it up to seven or eight, which i did need to do, but now i'm definitely hot enough whether i'm going to get hotter and sweat more. so clearly it does the job of making you sweat, but how helpful is the concept overall? most of these things are just new ways to try and relax while you wait for your body to recover on its own. so very few of these things really make a difference in terms of helping to speed recovery,

but they give people a sense of agency. i don't know if briefly using these devices made any material difference to me or not, but i can see that a sense of feeling like you're trying to do something, especially when it's enjoyable, had some benefit, especially when you're doing it on the job. and i'm afraid that's it for the short cut of click from this the colours festival in london. the full length version is of course waiting for you on iplayer. thanks for watching. we'll be back next week. see you. hello. we may be officially into autumn, but a little dose of summer on the way for some of us over the next few days, notjust here in the uk,

but widely across europe. and in fact, temperatures are expected to reach the 30s in spain, france, in the uk, even mid—20s expected in the south in the days ahead. now, at the moment, there is a little weather front heading our way — that is going to bring a bit of a mixed bag for some of us. now, the early hours will be clear, generally speaking, across most of the country, and it will be quite a nippy morning. in fact, in the glens of scotland, it could be around four degrees, but i think for most of us, in the range of around 7—10 celsius. so, it starts off quite sunny and bright at the very least for most of us. but out towards the west, this rain crosses ireland and you can see thickening cloud there from the southwest across wales, the irish sea, northern ireland and into southwestern scotland. so here, a very different picture to other parts of the country. outbreaks of rain at times heavy in belfast and also gusty winds around coasts. the north of scotland, most of the north sea coast and further south the weather's looking fine, sunny. i think sunshine for plymouth, for the isle of wight and also for london, where highs

will reach 20 celsius. now, notice that rain never reaches the south. it veers off towards the north, and with that also comes relatively humid air to the south of that weather front, and that humid and also quite warm air will spread across many parts of the country. that means that early in the morning, on sunday, it will be very warm. look at that — 16—17 degrees celsius at eight o'clock in the south. now, there will be a little bit of rain around in the morning, i think across parts of wales and the midlands. but eventually, the sun should come out in most areas, and we're talking about the mid—20s in the southeast on sunday, a little bit fresher in scotland and northern ireland here of around 16 or 17 celsius. now, the outlook for the rest of europe shows a large area of high pressure building across the continent. that's basically going to allow the warm air to spread all the way to eastern parts of europe. there'll be a bit of a blip because this weather front will introduce temporarily some slightly fresher air to some parts of europe.

but i think overall, it's going to stay on the warm side. let's have a look at a snapshot, then, for some of our cities into the week ahead, and generally speaking, really quite warm.

live from washington — this is bbc news. the countdown to the us shutdown is under way, as members of congress fail to reach an agreement on spending. the us senate has

lost a trailblazer, with the passing of california democrat dianne feinstein. she's died at the age of 90. plus, a co—defendant of donald trump's pleads guilty in an election interference case in georgia. hello, i'm caitriona perry. you're very welcome. the clock ticking with no deal in sight — the us government is inching closer to a shutdown by the end of saturday. the house rejected a short—term funding measure on friday with 21 republicans joining house democrats to vote no, increasing the likelihood of a shutdown. that stopgap measure could have kept the government funded for several weeks while congress worked on long—term spending plans. lawmakers are scheduled to meet saturday for more votes. after the earlier failed attempt to pass a bill, house speaker kevin mccarthy said it's not over yet.

earlier, my colleague sumi somaskanda spoke