If you thought Ava's special effects were cool, just wait until you hear about
her real life Tinder account. "Ex Machina" messes with your mind more than you realize.
"You want to see something cool?"
In a way, writer and director Alex Garland has been thinking about "Ex
Machina" since he was a boy. The director told The Et Cetera, that
he was only 11 or 12 years old when he got his first ideas for the movie's premise.
His family got a home computer around this time, and he started learning
how to code. In explaining how the idea for AI first cropped up, Garland said,
"I would input programs that were kind of a Q&A, and this film traces itself back to that."
While these ideas ruminated in his mind for decades, he really began thinking about the
film earnestly following a discussion he had with a friend. Garland told The Washington Post that he
has a neuroscientist buddy who thinks machines will never gain sentience. As Garland says,
"His position is ... there's something specific about human consciousness that
we don't understand but that when we do understand
how it works, it will preclude the possibility of a sentient machine."
Garland was perplexed by his friend's position, so he started doing some reading on his own.
After years of reading and thinking about the topic, Garland began to form his own opinion.
"My suspicion has only gotten stronger that what my friend was saying is probably wrong."
"Ex Machina" may not be a direct answer to this argument — it's not that black
and white — but it certainly points us to Garland's own perspective on the topic.
"Are you attracted to me?"
"What?"
"Are you attracted to me? You give me indications that you are."
The technical elements of "Ex Machina" may seem highly advanced –- not to mention expensive –- but
in reality, everything is simpler than it might appear. The film had a meager budget
of only $15 million, which meant producers had to be stingy with how they spent that money.
One of the most brilliant aspects of the film is its visual effects, which, despite its low-budget
nature, garnered the film an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 2016. Amazingly enough,
no green screens were used in the making of the film. Speaking with TechRadar, VFX supervisor
Andrew Whitehurst explained why this was the case. Because the shoot was so short, Whitehurst said,
"We were shooting between 15 and 25 set-ups every day."
Setting up a green screen for every scene
involving Ava would've extended the shooting time and bloated the budget.
The lack of green screen was also useful for the actors. Whitehurst explained,
"Because the film is made up of intimate scenes of dialogue between the characters,
it was of the utmost importance that everyone on set could get into a groove, and it is
my experience that as soon as you put a green screen up, everyone starts behaving a bit oddly."
"There won't be any green screens. We could shoot those scenes as we would any piece of drama."
Director Alex Garland looked to a number of different sources –- including television and
film –- to find inspiration for his film. Garland told Esquire that along with reading a number of
books relating to artificial intelligence, he also turned to television to situate himself in
the world of "Ex Machina." The film is mostly centered around two-person conversations,
a simple dramatic structure that defined '70s movies like "Taxi Driver." Movies of
that kind are rare these days, and instead, that dramatic form is found elsewhere. As Garland says,
"'Taxi Driver' these days is 'Breaking Bad'. That's where you find it."
Garland was inspired by this era of prestige television,
which he saw as picking up the slack where film was lacking.
Garland didn't totally ignore other movies, however. One of his biggest
influences was the dialogue-heavy 1980 sci-fi film "Altered States." The film follows a group
of psychologists at a university who come to the conclusion that dreams are just as real as our
waking reality. Garland was also quick to point out the influence of Kubrick's "2001: A Space
Odyssey", due to its handling of artificial intelligence.
"Open the pod bay doors, Hal."
"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."
The title of "Ex Machina" was incredibly important to director Alex Garland. "Ex
Machina" comes from the phrase "deus ex machina," which translates to "god out of the machine." The
origin of the phrase lies in ancient Greek and Roman dramas, which often included a
god-like figure being lowered on stage via a crane to wrap up any conflicts in the story.
With the first part of the phrase removed, it translates simply to "from the machine."
While Garland was committed to this title for the film, not everyone else was on board.
Speaking with The Film Stage, the director revealed that some people involved thought
it was a bad idea because it isn't a well-known phrase and it's hard to pronounce. Incidentally,
some of the producers were finally convinced to accept it following the
success of another sci-fi film with a rather unique title — Ridley Scott's "Prometheus."
While this was the evidence given for their change of heart,
Garland thinks the real reason the title was accepted was much simpler. He explains,
"If I'm being totally candid, the fact is that this is a really low-budget film
and probably they just didn't care that much."
"Ex Machina" comes off as very futuristic, but the actual time period in which it's set isn't
really made clear. Speaking with IndieWire, Alex Garland came prepared with an answer.
"When someone would ask me, 'When is this taking place?' I'd say it's 10 minutes in the future."
The obvious implication here is that the film could theoretically take place today,
but this also affected some of the film's technical elements.
Oscar Isaac's Nathan is a reclusive billionaire,
which meant his house had to look nice but not overly futuristic, partly because the
film doesn't actually take place in the future. The tech used in Nathan's house isn't all that
advanced either. Nathan and Caleb use key cards to move around the house, something
that seemed cool and tech-savvy to Garland at the time but isn't actually that high-tech.
Garland recalls when he first heard of this key card idea nearly 20 years ago, when he read about
Bill Gates having a key card system in his house. While he thought it was futuristic at the time,
he now realizes there's nothing that futuristic about it today. Luckily, the fact that "Ex
Machina" is almost set contemporarily means these issues don't matter all that much.
"Let's try this one …
I guess it's for you, Caleb."
Though "Ex Machina" had a relatively small budget, a lot of time and effort went into
the film's design elements. One of the film's most important visual aspects was the design of Alicia
Vikander's Ava. There have been so many iconic robots in film and television over the years,
which meant Garland and the team had to figure out how to make Ava look unique.
Speaking with IndieWire, Garland explained how the design process began.
"In a weird way, the first part of the design of Ava was finding out what she could not look like,
rather than what she could look like. Gold metal made you think of C3P0."
That wasn't something they wanted to reference. A metallic chest
immediately recalls the classic sci-fi film "Metropolis," while white plastic
brings up Bjork's "All is Full of Love" music video or the Will Smith movie "I, Robot."
Ava is essentially supposed to be the first of her kind,
so Garland was adamant she not reference these other famous robots.
"I didn't want people to start thinking about other movies with
other robots. I want them to be attached to her, this robot."
For Vikander, Ava's unique look meant several hours in a hair
and makeup chair every morning, but the effect is well worth it.
Alicia Vikander wanted her performance as Ava to stand
out from those of previous robot actors. A former dancer, Vikander approached the
role from a physical standpoint first. As she began working out how Ava would move,
she discovered a trick that was key to unlocking the character's physicality. She told IndieWire.
"I realized when I aimed for that physical perfection,
the way it just moved, that in a way made her more robotic."
Ava — who's trying to convince Caleb that she is a girl — has an elegant, refined way about
her that would be pleasing to look at if it weren't so suspiciously well-practiced.
Vikander went on to discuss what separates humans from robots in
terms of their physicality and how this idea influenced her performance. She explained,
"What is human is flaws and inconsistency. So I gave her some offbeats. I wanted her to be a girl,
but I also wanted her to have some glitches."
It's these two converse aspects of Ava –- both her perfection and her glitches -– that
illuminate her robotic nature while at the same time illustrating her desire to be seen as human.
"Is your status…single?"
"Yes."
Viewers might think of tech figures like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates
when first encountering Nathan, but they weren't necessarily Oscar Isaac's inspiration. Instead,
Isaac drew inspiration from two famous men who were god-like in their own right.
Speaking with /Film, Isaac said that his first inspiration was Bobby Fischer,
a chess grandmaster and child prodigy. Isaac described Fischer as…
"...so brilliant at this one thing, but also so angry and just so,
towards the end of his life, full of hatred."
Isaac's other inspiration was the director Stanely Kubrick,
who Isaac called, quote, "the lighter side of that yin-yang."
The biggest influence Kubrick had on Nathan's character was his signature
look. It was important to Isaac that Nathan wear glasses that looked similar to Kubrick's.
Kubrick and Fischer's way of speaking was also an influence. He explained,
"I listened to the way he spoke and Bobby Fischer, both of them are from New York,"
It also mattered to him that both men were self-taught, meaning that they were
both extremely intelligent savants but they also had a self-made shrewdness about them.
The fictional storyline of "Ex Machina" is disturbing enough without any real-life
elements thrown in, but that didn't stop the film's marketing team from trying to bring Ava
into the real world. "Ex Machina" premiered at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas,
and around this time, lucky residents of the city might've encountered Ava right on their phones.
As part of an advertising campaign for the film, the marketing team created a Tinder account
for Ava to entice curious swipers, reported AdWeek. Tinder users were shown the profile of
a 25-year-old woman named Ava and if they matched with her, she would begin a conversation. Users
came to realize it wasn't exactly a normal profile when she began asking questions like "have you
ever been in love?" and "what makes you human?" Those familiar with the film might recognize these
questions as the kind Ava asks Caleb in order to figure out how to act like a human herself.
"Now your microexpressions are telegraphing discomfort."
If the Tinder user "passed" Ava's test, she would send them her Instagram handle,
which is essentially an advertising account for the film.
Nathan and Caleb frequently discuss philosophical texts in "Ex Machina," but one of the references
made in the film is much more subtle –- it's buried in code, in fact. In the film's third act,
Caleb gets Nathan drunk in order to find a way to free Ava. After stealing the key card to his room,
Caleb sits down at his computer and goes through his code. Caleb starts
to edit the code himself using an ancient algorithm called the Sieve of Eratosthenes.
The Easter egg in this scene isn't Caleb's use of this algorithm but what the code itself
spells out. According to several sources, if you run the same program in Python,
the output is an ISB number – specifically, the ISB number of a book by Murray Shanahan entitled
"Embodiment and the Inner Life: Cognition and Consciousness in the Space of Possible Minds."
This reference is no accident –- Garland told Esquire that Shanahan's book was epiphany-like
for him. Shanahan's book looks at the writings of mathematical philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein
and argues that metaphysical questions of machine vs. man aren't the questions we should be asking
if robotic technology is to advance. His philosophy, according to Garland, is to…
"...just progress in a physicalist type way until you hit a brick wall."
The wall in question may never even be reached,
so in Shanahan's opinion, the possibilities for advancement are limitless.
"If you've created a conscious machine, it's not the history of man. That's the history of gods."
While our eyes cue us into Ava's robotic nature fairly quickly, there's another facet of her
design that illustrates her machinery in a more subtle manner. A significant
part of Ava's machine nature is revealed through sound design. As Garland explained,
"You can hear ... the sounds of the bits of machinery moving, which aren't specified."
It's not clear what exactly these sounds are, but it's obvious they represent some
kind of machinery. A syncopated rhythm that sounds something like a heartbeat or a pulse
can also be heard emanating from Ava, though it's not literally a heartbeat, of course.
This clever sound design ties together the thesis of Ava's character — she's human-like but also not
human at all. There's some sense of the uncanny valley here that's impossible to look away from.
"Question five: do you want to be with me?"
Speaking with RogerEbert.com, Alex Garland explained that for him,
the most interesting question posed in the film is the question of where
gender resides. Garland found himself pondering questions like "does gender reside in the mind,
or does it reside in the external physical form?" Whether or not there is such a thing
as a male or a female consciousness is also something Garland considered. He brought up
the fact that you could put Ava's mind in a male-appearing body, and it wouldn't make
a difference, except for in the way humans might perceive her. Garland went on to say,
"It would be quite easy to construct an argument that Ava doesn't have a gender."
However, he acknowledges that we would struggle to take gender entirely out of the equation because
of how she looks and how we perceive her. Indeed, the fact that Ava looks like a girl in her 20s
makes the men in the film, as well as the viewers, ignore any interiority she might have because of
the nature of female objectification. Her robotic presence is disruptive in more ways than one.