DUCK is a daring deepfake short set in the instantly recognizable world of a British Spy Thriller. The film’s main protagonist—a deepfake Sean Connery—plays out the role he knows all too well: collecting clues, wrongfooting assailants, and eliminating the femme fatale—only to find that all is not what it seems. A conspiracy is at play, and as the behaviors of those around him become increasingly paradoxical, his grip on reality loosens. 

Marilyn Monroe is the glamorous siren and a thorn in Connery’s side. Unlike him, Monroe understands the power that comes with being just an image—an appropriation of femininity and sexuality largely defined by men—and uses her endlessly mutable image for her own manipulative gain.  

Like many of Maclean’s films, DUCK explores the fragility and malleability of identity, the slipperiness of reality, and the ramifications of gender-based power dynamics. Deepfake, a technology considered to be inherently duplicitous, is the perfect mechanism by which to pose questions not just about AI, but about how veracity is perceived in images and film more generally. Maclean’s DUCK is a multifaceted, self-aware film that aims to satirize some of the more histrionic narratives pushed by the media regarding deepfakes and their contribution to the ‘decline of truth’. 

DUCK was directed and written by Rachel Maclean and jointly produced by Forest of Black and Too Happy Studios. The film was shot entirely on green screen and funded by Newcastle University through a NUAcT Research Scholarship with additional support from Edinburgh University’s Creative Informatics Department.