The 160,000 members of the collective that represents cinema and television announced on Thursday that they would join the strike of the scriptwriters, on strike for two and a half months, after rejecting the employer’s proposals. One of these, paradoxically, looks like something out of a movie: using artificial intelligence to replace the extras. Fran Drescher, the president of the actors’ union, called the measures proposed by the Alliance of Film and Television Producers (AMPTP) “insulting and disrespectful.”
The controversial proposal would allow that, when a study hires an extra, it could also digitally scan that person. In this way, a digital version of that person created with artificial intelligence could continue to appear in the film later. The measure was among those included in the employer’s offer to the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and which it rejected.
Specifically, what AMPTP was proposing was an artificial intelligence capable of “protecting the digital resemblance of artists”, who should give their consent for “the creation and use of digital replicas or digital alterations of a representation”. That is, versions created by special effects of these people could be included without the need for them to go through the set to play their role.
In a statement sent by AMPTP and collected by Deadline, the organization pointed out that it had offered “historic increases” in salaries and various benefits, including this “revolutionary proposal”. “Unfortunately, the union has chosen a path that will spell financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry.”
“If you think that this is a revolutionary proposal, I suggest you think again,” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, who led the negotiations on behalf of the union, summed up at a press conference. What they were proposing, he lamented, was that companies could pay the actors a single day of work and then they would own the rights to that scanned image and the very appearance of these people “and could use for the rest of eternity, in any project and without consent or compensation.”
However, Scott Rowe, spokesman for the employers, qualified the proposal and accused Crabtree-Ireland of having made a “false” interpretation. “AMPTP’s current proposal only allows a company to use the digital replica of an extra in the film for which they have been hired,” he explained. Subsequent uses “require the consent” of that person, who could negotiate a new payment, for which a minimum amount would be established.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project