How ‘Ted’ VFX Team Used AI to Transform Seth MacFarlane Into Bill Clinton, and Why Animating the Bear Is Still…

When Seth MacFarlane was brainstorming ideas for the second season of “Ted,” Bill Clinton came to mind. MacFarlane explains, “The show takes place in the ’90s, and we’re always looking for things that are quintessentially emblematic of that decade. Of course, one of those things is Bill Clinton.”

The Peacock series follows the ongoing adventures of the pot-smoking, foul-mouthed teddy bear Ted. In one episode, MacFarlane stages a masterful spoof of the former president, who appears in Episode 5, “The Sword and the Stoned.” In the scene, Clinton visits Matty Bennett (Scott Grimes), who works at the local Dunkin’ Donuts. When Matty criticizes Clinton for how badly he’s running the country, Clinton retaliates by throwing coffee at him.

It’s a hilarious moment, and MacFarlane nailed the voice.

However, when it came to the visual effects, the production team ran into one roadblock after another. MacFarlane knew the audience wasn’t expecting an exact resemblance but still wanted to get as close as possible. Speaking with Variety, MacFarlane said, “We wanted to see if there was a way to make Clinton look exactly like Bill Clinton, and not like somebody playing Bill Clinton.” Prosthetics didn’t work, and “CGI ended up looking terrifying and distracting.”

Co-VFX Supervisor Hoyt Yeatman explains that the first thing production did was hire an archivist who went to the Bill Clinton Library. He says, “She went to the Bill Clinton Presidential Library and acquired portraits and video footage of Clinton from that time.”

Unfortunately, the video footage from the era wasn’t high-resolution enough to serve as a reliable visual reference. Without a scan of Clinton’s head, the team hired a forensic sculptor who used ZBrush software to create “a perfect rendition of Bill Clinton’s head and face.”

Deep Voodoo, an L.A.-based company that specializes in face technology, was brought in to refine the scene. Yeatman explains, “It takes the performance underneath it on a frame-by-frame basis, and it accurately reproduces that.”

It was AI that ultimately helped them overcome the challenge. But Yeatman stresses it wasn’t AI slop and that the process did not rely on generative AI. Everything was anchored by MacFarlane’s performance. Yeatman says, “We have a director who’s giving a specific performance. We shot it with a camera, we lensed it, and we lit it.”

MacFarlane adds, “It’s a really good example of AI being used as a tool, where you still have a team of artists who are creating this thing, but the tool they’re using is just the right tool for the right job.”

While creating the Clinton scene was challenging, MacFarlane points out that animating Ted is even more difficult. “They take my movements as I’m performing the scene, and then go in with an animator’s hand to fine-tune, adjust, and build on that, turning it into something that’s the best of all worlds.” He explains, “The fact that you forget the bear is CGI is a blessing and a curse because you buy Ted as a real person.”

Among the effects the team had to create were scenes where Ted rides around in red-and-yellow toddler coupe, wears baby clothes, and even dresses in “Dungeons and Dragons” cosplay. MacFarlane notes, “Anytime Ted wears clothes or a new outfit that has to be designed, it’s more costly than you would think to have Ted change. So, we do have to be selective about how many times we go to that well.”

He goes on to praise the animation team behind the bear: “The subtlety with which they animate the bear is something everyone should take a look at next time they’re watching the show. It’s really something extraordinary. It speaks to how talented and thoughtful these artists are. It’s a very selfless style of animation. It’s not showy at all, but it’s very authentic and very real..”