Extras worry they'll be replaced by AI. Hollywood is already doing body scans
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And that's just what's available off-the-shelf, not what specialized studios are doing with huge budgets. The Marvel movies are already close to being "animated movies in a live-action style". Even basic helicopter shots flying over real-life locations like the coast of California are totally CGI because it's easier to animate than get a permit. Actors entire bodies will be replaced on a whim because they didn't like the costume choice. Putting a new face on someone is not that big of a deal.
Case in point go watch the latest Top Gun movie. Sooo much better visually.
So even 20 years ago, before the advent of ML driven deep-fakes, the tech existed to capture, digitize and generate photorealistic copies of actors[1], which they used for the Matrix sequels, so the writing was on the wall for at least that long.
And matte paintings have been taking away jobs from set-builders for some time....
Actually I am in favor of real human actors, practical effects — just pointing out that things are going the way they've always gone.
And matte paintings were always parts of the sets, not in lieu of them.
You can kinda see how the actors fight versus their shadows with CGI while in LotR each blow looked heavy.
Not just that, but people are missing the point. It's not about CGIing an extra so they can use them as background characters. What the studios are fighting for is the right to hire a person for a single day's labor, scan them, and use those scans in perpetuity for any purpose.
What that means is, if you suddenly become a big-name movie star, that studio no longer has to pay you to act in their movies, because they have the rights to scans of you from 10 years ago, and they can just use those instead.
The studios have said multiple times that this is not true. Rather this is a fear that the union brought up, not an actual request from the studios.
Incorrect. The current contracts (and relevant laws) arguably[0] allow this already. Actors want to explicitly prohibit it, and the studios have said they want to preserve that option.
Whether or not the studios are claiming they want to exercise that option is irrelevant; their insistence on maintaining that option is one of the core sticking points of the entire strike.
https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/PROPOSALS.pd...
[0] Actors claim it is already prohibited by the existing contracts, and AMPTP claims it is not.
I posted a primary source which corroborates everything I explained above. If you'd like to provide a primary source that says differently, go ahead.
What is said publicly, or even to internal employees, ir even in the course of negotiations is not what is actually said in the boardroom. If you think any executive is straightforward on intent, the only person you're fooling is yourself.
They also drilled, slept, and fought like real 1815 infantrymen and cavalrymen, as it was.
"It's only a model."
Have you checked the VFX in recent movies? Most look worse than 20 years ago precisely because clueless directors have been tricked to believe that one guy with a computer can do the work of 100 VFX artists used to do by hand in the past, so VFX get rushed and end up looking like dogshit.
Yes, modern tech can get you 80% there of what used to be long painful manual labor, but you're still in uncanny valley so you still need the careful eye of experienced artists to do the rest to make it actually believable.
Imagine you were an extra in a Star Trek : Next Generation episode where the editor didn't notice you were caught on camera picking your nose. In the modern era, decades later, someone notices it on blue-ray and the scene goes viral. Should Paramont have the rights to generate a collection of NFTs based on your image? [Forget for the moment that NFTs are stupid.]
The law in this case leans towards "no" because it recognizes that as an actor, your image is a valuable asset actors usually control. Also, the idea of an NFT didn't exist in a form made manifest or even predictable in 1987 when you were an extra. Who owns the rights to your image applied to new technology? That question has been a little harder to answer recently.
And that's sort of what's going on. It's not that CGI and AI exist, it's that they're being applied in a non-traditional way without an explicit agreement ahead of time to divvy up the cash.
With how advanced ML deep-fakes have gotten, digital actors could go from background details that nobody really cares about to "the lead actors are all digital homunculi, their visages the result of blending multiple actors together"
Exactly. People are talking as if this is just about background roles, but that's not the point. Studios already use CGI people for background roles. That's cheap and easy, and there's no need to scan individuals for that.
The whole point of doing these body scans is to generate images that look like that specific actor. They're not doing that because they loved Joe Schmoe's performance as Silent Background Witness #4. They're doing that because Joe Schmoe might become a big star ten years down the line, and if that happens, they want to be able to produce movies with Joe Schmoe without paying him, or without even asking him beforehand at all.
The chances of that happening are indistinguishable from zero.
Besides, if technology could create a CGI actor as good as a real actor, the screen actors' guild is finished anyway, one way or another.
Yeah, no. John Krasinski was waiting tables and struggling to make ends meet before getting his part as Jim in The Office that made him a household name today.
The casts of Friends and The Big Bang Theory were mostly nobodys before getting their parts which made them multi-millionaries that everyone recognizes today.
It's survivorship bias, but some of those "nobodys" actually do end up becoming very big "somebodys" later on, and the movie studios want to own their digital likeness for cheap early on, just in case, so that if they do become somebodys, they can pump out and monetize valuable ML generated content based on their likeness without having to pay them.
The chances that it is what happened, given a big star, is near unity.
The chances of it happening for any given extra are near zero.
But that means capturing the data (EDIT: and, more importantly, rights; the data on its own is mostly harmless) on every extra means destroying the negotiating power of basically everyone who might become a star with any negotiating power, even though each capture is unlikely to have long term value of that kind.
Aside from the whole question of consent to the "in perpetuity" side of the issue, the law does actually care about fairness when it comes to contracts.
For example, Carrie Fisher (I'm reading her biography) lived off of her fame from Star Wars for the rest of her life (and she got the role in Star Wars because her mother was famous). Her movie roles after SW were not particularly memorable. But, like the Kardashians, she made a lot of money by being famous. Even her novels were autobiographical. Her show (Wishful Drinking) was about herself. When she needed money, she'd go to a SW convention and sign autographs.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
99% of people starring in movies don't have nowhere near the fame and bargaining power to demand royalties from past work the way stars like Carrie Fisher does.
Yes, some unknown actors got super lucky and struck big the first time, which gave him/her leverage to negociate deals to live off the royalties off one single great movie/franchise for the rest of their lives because they became invaluable to the franchise, but the vast majority don't, and need to bounce around begging for parts in mediocre movies to make a living.
It's why unions and regulations are important otherwise unscrupulous movie studios will just screw everyone entering the industry into signing off the rights to their visual likeness for pennies just so they can monetize them down the line.
For every Tom Cruise there are thousands of talented people whose careers didn't go anywhere.
Do you think anyone would pay to have a hologram of Carrie sign your t-shirt? Would anyone watch Larry King interview a hologram of Carrie? Would anyone pay to hire a hologram of Carrie to sing at their wedding? Would you pay to see a broadway show starring Carrie the Hologram?
I mean, I thank the GP for choosing the most interesting example possible, because Fisher is literally famous for being a hologram.
David Fincher's movies / shows is a good example:
But I must be in the minority bc the whatever-marvel-movie part 8 sells a lot of tickets.
I think for folks like me, there will still be a market for real actors in real scenes. Especially for live theatre / broadway. I refuse to let Disney choke me with fast-food visuals and marketing gimmicks.
That a good way to describe it, I think I'm gonna steal this term and start using it myself.
A.I. content is for the masses, not upper echelons of society and the hippies.
There are parts of what AI is doing that feels like it could harm artistic expression, but I'm not sure I care about this very much.
I'd wager that more societal good comes from paying actual humans actual money than it does to digitize those humans' likenesses so that money can instead remain in producers' pockets.
It's not just Hollywood extras who are victims here - it's everyone.
I don't think laws requiring that extras in films be real humans is a very effective social safety net.
computer generated characters are not the problem. scanning real humans and keeping the perpetual right to use the data without paying is the problem.
It's scanning humans without telling them that's what they're being scanned for.
While the stories I've heard may be anecdotal, I've heard people who, as extras on a production, tell stories about being scanned with zero explanation as to why.
If people want to sign away their likeness, fine, but they need to be the ones agreeing to that.
not until we have laws that make sure that those rights can not be signed away exclusively. no contract should be able to prevent someone using their own likeness to make a living.
it's the same problem as with non-compete clauses.
> I don't have a good solution to the problem that UBI solves though
These sentences are at odds, you admit that UBI solves a problem, but since it doesn't end classism altogether is's not worthwhile?
I don't believe your calculator example was written as a way to compare "societal good" as much as it was written to be an example of a tool that replaces a human.
To answer your question, I don't feel the same when using a calculator. When I use a calculator I'm not putting someone out of a job. If I don't have a calculator, I don't go hire a human computer - I just use different tools (my brain).
That's not the say calculators, or similar, haven't put people out of jobs in the past.
I think digitizing someone's likeness so that you don't need to hire them again is a different thing entirely. When talking about that in the context of "societal good", replacing an entire segment of jobs that humans can get paid for (so that studios can keep a few bucks) doesn't seem like it increases "societal good", and actually decreases "societal good."
Maybe that could have been said about calculators ages ago, and maybe 20 years from now the notion of hiring extras will feel a lot like replacing human computers with electronic calculators.
I don't know. We have automated a ton of jobs with technology, and while that makes some rich people richer there is great societal good in it. In fact I think keeping any job that can be automated artificially existing through regulation decreases societal good, in my opinion.
I think pushing for regulation here can actually backfire. A big studio can handle the logistics and costs of hiring extras, while a smaller one may not.
Well, slap my @$$ and call me "The Ancient"...
One problem was that DeNiro - while still a fine actor - was a man in his mid 70s trying to portray a man in his 20s/30s, as seen in the somewhat cringy fight scene.
So why not just do this: Get some cheap no-name actor / double do the acting, and let DeNiro license his face to the movie.
FWIW, I don't like that idea - but it seems to make sense? Especially with actors that are long gone. That's already been done. Speech synthesis is also becoming pretty remarkable, so you can also provide voice.
In fact, I'm surprised this tech hasn't completely taken over dubbing yet. Both the deep fake tech to get the right mouth movement, and speech synthesis to match the voice.
Anyway, I think that in 5-10 years this will be case. Unless SAG-AFTRA is powerful enough the curb that kind of use of tech.
I would still prefer a full ban on this. Maybe it'd be okay if theater or non-CGI film end up becoming their own booming industries owing to people enjoying being together in a place and seeing the limits of modern practical effects. With these deep-fake films and shows being labeled as "CGI" and letting the market decide.
Unlikely. after the '78 commercial strike most studios made sure to keep a buffer of more than a year of content. animation studios are effectively immune to strikes since most animators arent unionized, and most of the voice work isnt either.
SAG also routinely spent time trying to turn acting into a racket. Membership was notoriously difficult and hasnt evolved with content creation in the 21st century. Ultra Low Budget, Student, or Short Films do not qualify towards SAG-AFTRA eligibility (Youtube/TikTok/etc...) SAG-AFTRA membership is also restricted to SAG-AFTRA job sites, so it doesnt really "grow" per say. Were you a grip or gaff on the set of a Ford commercial and it wasnt a SAG-AFTRA job? you're not eligible to join.
SAG's demands in the current strike are nearly as unreasonable as the studios.
I watched some movies from the 80s recently, kids movies, and I was blown away with the special effects. IMO they were more enjoyable than what's being output today from a special effects POV and the overall cinematic experience and skills involved.
Today's movies just seem so fake, empty and forced.
Obviously there are some exceptions if you go looking.
But modern movie style has its pros, the dreamlike quality that once your brain adjusts to the clean unreality makes it feel far more real and lets movies push further in bending reality, the truly incredible soundtracks that amplify emotional moments and build such beautiful tension, modern cgi that puts even the best horror makeup to shame, waaaaay better audio compression and mixing making jump scares truly terrifying and action hit harder, the ability to bend or break the rules of camera focus to create movies where the whole screen is sharp to show off the set or build dramatic irony for someone paying attention.
There is a lot to love about movies in the last 15 years. People seem to have forgotten how fucking good the first two Iron Man movies were, how mind boggling the first Avatar was visually. We've been eating so well we're sick of the taste.
You know how people get really creeped out with ultra-targeted ads? Imagine if you had an entire TV show that was ultra-targeted. How creeped out would you be?
I don't even know what an "entire TV show that was ultra-targeted" would even be, shows that could be customized by personal preference? That seems like something people would actually like.
Yes, but full of product placement and other marketing messages.
So like a regular show.
The whole article puts "extras fear" up front, and then follows up with a whole cascade of them not having evidence for those fears, studios dismissing those fears, CGI extras being something used for decades, etc.
Not sure what the story is supposed to be here.
Combined, it implies that the threat to actors’ livelihoods is quite real.
Although clearly even if it is codified in the union contract it just adds a layer of security for the actors... they still have to trust the production companies to do the right thing.
To say that fears are baseless because corporate will not take advantage of new methods and technology in spite of the workers is beyond ignorant. It's quite suspect, especially from a forum about the automation business.
Newer tools are making the modelling part way easier, Eg, epics human making kit. Libraries like mega scans are enough for many projects too, and mixamo has replaced a lot of animator hours alone
Weird contrast, considering recent events
Hollywood doesn’t need a bunch of blah blah men to sit in a coffee shop and pretend to talk.
It exists, but you often see crap like this https://youtube.com/shorts/naDRRFFVNZM?feature=share
They want your productivity, appearance, style, and abilities and they want to give you nothing. Don't be fooled into a sense of pride because you're an engineer or a designer or a director or an executive or even a CEO - don't be someone who thinks that an extra in Hollywood is far below you and that this doesn't affect you. The technology is the same and will be applied to everyone's likeness unless you say no and unless the Federal Government gets involved to issue laws with serious teeth against this brazen theft.
You can't fix this problem with guns.
/s
Regardless... I can't see this really going anywhere. Background actors are just not important enough to matter.