Sammy begins to spiral when she overhears scathing conversations about herself through her new smart speaker, the “SAMi”.
Director’s Vision for ‘Hello, SAMi’
The idea for Hello, “SAMi” came from a conversation I had with my younger sister one day about how anxiety turns us into our own biggest bully. Sitting in my sister’s she shed, we laughed at how angry we would be if someone ever talked to us the way we talk to ourselves inside our head…and thus, “Hello, SAMi” was born.
“Hello, SAMi” is a campy exploration into the intersection of technology and mental health, as anxiety takes a real form as SAMi, the AI assistant, and its hyper-critical inner monologue aimed at Sammy. After a disorienting night of partying, Sammy wakes up to hear her roommate criticizing actions she has no memory of, and quickly discovers that her roommate’s voice is coming out of her new smart speaker — along with dozens of other family and friends’ private conversations criticizing Sammy. Her anxiety spikes: is SAMi manipulating her worst insecurities, or confirming them? She is forced to face off against the speaker in order to escape the depths of her mind and fight off its control…unless she prefers it. We used an oscilloscope to make practical, radar-based effects on the screen of the speaker and feel both a little more human, but simultaneously just as foreign — a bit of a commentary on the current state of artificial intelligence finding its way into everyday life.
