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TV producers wanted AI rights of extras forever, says union
(www.theregister.com)
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this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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Sadly, I think they will get them, one way or another.
All it will take is a handful of people desperate for money agreeing to be 3d scanned, and maybe a few months of interns saying yes/no to particular faces, and bam, hundreds of extras ready to be used and abused for decades to cover.
Which is why these union negotiations are so important. Sure, that will probably happen. But if SAG-AFTRA says they can’t be used on union shows, well, they won’t be lol
When I first started in film any time I had a SAG actor there were requirements I had to adhere to for their pay and hours, no exceptions. And I live in a right to work state!
Right-to-work is the work-for-welfare program. I would imagine it would have no impact on people who aren't applying for social services.
I'm assuming the overlap between right-to-work and at-will-empmloyment states is a near perfect circle, though. And the fun thing about at-will employment is that it's totally nullified by an actual, mutually negoatiated employment contract, with, like, responsibilities laid on the employer and consequences for failing to perform them. You know, like what you get with a strong union.
49 states are "at will"
"right to work" aka fuk ur union boy is limited to southern degeneracy along with maybe Michigan.
It’s meant to emphasize the power of SAG-AFTRA not endorse my region’s regressive work/social policies.
I think they were saying “and this is in spite of me working in a ‘right-to-work’ state”
Bingo.
I think this is the right-to-work they were referring to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law. It’s a type of law that undercuts unions by preventing shops from requiring union membership for employment.
Union shows immidiately get outcompeted by AI generation and all studios doing business with them go out of business.
AI is the future here guys. Union won't stop it. They'll just drag Hollywood down with them.
Only if Hollywood wants to go completely non-union. Good luck with that. IATSE isn't going to crow a movie if SAG-AFTRA and the WGA aren't involved. Maybe they'll find enough non-union crew to do a big time movie, but they'll be making it in the Philippines.
Or in America.
In the long term, AI is going to be such a massive force multiplier that you'll be able to get away with non union writers and actors.
If all goes well you will be able to produce a film in your basement and have it rival the quantity of the current big boys. That will be a long while, but in the meantime any industry that loses a 2x productivity boost will die to its competition.
Especially in the modern world. Centralized stars and production is crazy in a world where you can pull out a camera and buy a rendering supercomputer for a few thousand dollars.
Maybe years down the road, but we're talking about today. Making a non-union movie and expecting it to be something like a Marvel movie- it won't. It will be a movie that will end up on Mystery Science Theater 3000 because it will suck.
A deal made today will still be in effect in a decade, and the use of AI is already in effect in smaller ways, especially with the deage tech.
There’s a difference between “no AI allowed” (not what the unions are calling for) and “contracts need stipulations about AI usage” (reasonable).
If you are not familiar with what is actually being negotiated over, then please don’t weigh in. WGA/SAG-AFTRA are not calling for an AI ban. Every time these debates come up armchair AI “advocates” swarm like cryptobros to call everyone backwards/ignorant/resistant to change regardless of the context.
If those contacts include paying actors as much as they would have needed to act and restricting it's usage when writing scripts the difference is moot. If your erase all benefit to using AI it becomes worthless.
They 100 percent want to reduce AI usage so that writers can't be automated away.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/business/media/writers-guild-hollywood-ai-chatgpt.html
Yes I agree. That is what I’ve been saying this entire time.
I don’t see the problem. Want to use AI to fart out cheap written content or highjack someone’s script? Don’t use the studio system. It’s never been easier to shoot and distribute without Hollywood/unions.
Either way, AI isn’t banned from Hollywood. They are calling for regulation on specific use cases involving union writers.
Reduce =/= ban
I can assure you that AI is not anywhere near the level you think it is right now.
I use it every day. I didn't say it was as that level. I said it would get there in the future.
Crowd extensions are already pretty common with traditional VFX techniques.
I worked in Hollywood editorial for a bit and, IMO, the producers are playing up the AI stuff so that said stuff can be given to the writers and actors as a "victory" instead of the real spectres in the room:
streaming residuals need to get the same payout and transparency as home video and syndication did
streaming numbers need to be made available to creators to facilitate the above.
the 'mini-room' system that totally disconnects writers from the productions they are writing for needs to be broken down.
Yeah I’m a bit confused why suddenly ‘being scanned’ is news. Digidoubles have Been commonly used for well over a decade now in film.
It's because the producers want their counterparts spending time, energy, and perceived social capital negotiating over it rather than the things the Producers actually worry about having to give up.
IMO it's pretty transparent, but creative people are pretty scared of AI right now so it might be a good bargaining tactic if they can get rank and file Union members to tie up the negotiatiors by reacting.
Scabs are the worst.
Why wouldn't they just use pure cgi generated faces? Apparently it's not hard.
I think a combination of 3d animation and 'ai postprocessing' is probably the most effective result.
As much as I respect the rights of extras, they are expensive and easier to replace than lead actors. Disney already has things setup so extras never have to be on set with your lead actors, although you get a lot of backgrounds with 'people just walking back and forth with no purpose', but a bit more effort will mean those prefilmed backgrounds wont even require human actors, they barely do already.
Or they’ll pay people to be part of scans that an AI uses to generate extras
They’ll charge people extra at the theater to be scanned and then digitally inserted into the movie in real time.
Yep, union can hardly stop that with a union contract and people will do it since they are not invested.
Funny that studios did not bother avoid this easily avoidable fight but it does show you how they think if of their slave... I mean work force.
They behave like they own you lol
Hopefully people end up owning their likeness regardless if it’s a lengthy contract and are made to be paid fairly and compensated for streaming rights as well. I feel like we are approaching same time frame as non compete clauses becoming illegal in comparison to AI generated images/actors. They are already working to make their likeness illegal to be used for pornography. IMHO I think the actors and the writers s tricking together signifies a united front and could force change as long as the powers to be don’t bleed them out beforehand, but I’m hopeful with suck a strong backing social media wise and industry (the workers not the owners).
Eventually the cg tech will get good enough that digital people can be used cheaply without even scanning anyone
Who needs a body scan or LIDAR data? Just use an LLM to make one up
I don't really see a problem with this. Is it so much different from making a good 3D model?
We're talking about assets that will be used for generating massive crowds. That's already done with CGI. These scans aren't even "AI"... they're just like metahumans in Cryengine.
This guy just put the term AI on it because it freaks everyone out.
If you take the $200 for a motion and body scan and you sign your rights away, that's what you get. This isn't a change to how Hollywood already operations. Fear-mongering for nothing.
That's not what's happening here. These extras are being paid the same to act in the background of a shot, just like always, but the studio expects them to give up the rights to their likeness forever after so they can try to replace them.
The studio expects the extras to participate in the destruction of this job with nothing in return.
The problem is that Hollywood could make it a requirement to work. All actors might be forced to get scanned and sign their likeness away.
And this is why unions are important. If it's a single desperate person, then the big corporation gets its way. But if it's a union, the corporation has to negotiate.