1 hour ago, Moontanman said:

I wonder if AI will replace live actors in regular movies as well. 

Any studio that does this (where CGI is not required) had better quickly transition to doing it 100%, because I think they will be boycotted by the SAG, and possibly other unions. I don’t see them passively watch as AI eats into their livelihoods 

10 hours ago, swansont said:

Any studio that does this (where CGI is not required) had better quickly transition to doing it 100%, because I think they will be boycotted by the SAG, and possibly other unions. I don’t see them passively watch as AI eats into their livelihoods 

Is this not another Luddite-like, ultimately futile protest? It's going the way of film cameras, to use an example from the last 25-30 years?

Edited September 23, 20241 yr by StringJunky

6 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Is this not another Luddite-like, ultimately futile protest? It's going the way of film cameras, to use an example from the last 25-30 years?

Not futile for the actors, film crew and possibly writers who would currently be displaced from work.

I think it will happen via an independent movie maker. The big studios will only go that way after it has seen success 

Tech advancement in the entertainment industry isn't like tech advancement in other industries, because you have to cater to an audience.

What this means for AI in film and tv, is that there will always be movies and tv shows that use real actors and actresses because there will always be an audience for it. How things are marketed may change slightly, you may see studios that development purely AI portrayed narratives and some that never use it, then you'll have studios that combine elements of both, saving money on extras while keeping real actors in for the crowds they draw. Each of these studio types are going to be mindful of their audience types. 

There will also be times where AI will potentially be able to save the planned narrative of a show.

Exhibit A: Helen Mcrory, playing Aunt Polly in Peaky Blinders, died before the 6th season and death caused the trajectory of the shows narrative to change out of necessity. There will come a time when it may be possible for AI to continue an actors path after death or other instances that may warrant an AI replacement. 

There will also probably be many different forms of AI and ways it can go about being involved in a movie or tv show. You'll have AIs able to either generate complete cinematography and all the characters and you'll have AIs who are avatars of individual characters in mixed cast sets. 

There will be an audience who loves AI movies and others who prefer real actors and some who don't mind either way so long as what they are waching is entertaining. 

You're absolutely going to have studios that overuse AI just to cut costs and not have to pay actors, but what you'll probablu find is that the creators of these AI are going to demand a piece of the pie the actors would normally get and since it's the entertainment industry they are going to want pay levels near what actors themselves expect. 

When actors themselves go up in arms over AI stealing their jobs, that will be around the time where a savy studio will realise it can make it's mark as the studio of traditional acting and cater to the audience that demands that. 

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Not futile for the actors, film crew and possibly writers who would currently be displaced from work.

I think it will happen via an independent movie maker. The big studios will only go that way after it has seen success 

On reflection, they can't stop the wave, but they can redirect it more in their favour with negotiations locking them down in labour law.

Edited September 23, 20241 yr by StringJunky

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

On reflection, they can't stop the wave, but they can redirect it more in their favour with negotiations locking them down in labour law.

If a big studio gambles on this and the movie tanks, they’re in trouble if nobody is willing to work for them. The movie industry has some pretty strong unions.

6 minutes ago, swansont said:

If a big studio gambles on this and the movie tanks, they’re in trouble if nobody is willing to work for them. The movie industry has some pretty strong unions.

That's true, but future movie stars could be pure AI creations that are composites of many images and modelled behaviour patterns. Something like Al Pacino's 'SimOne', if you've seen that.

Edited September 23, 20241 yr by StringJunky

An older actor/actress might allow the use of a young version of themselves in their prime and do the voice over for the younger version of themselves or just straight up license their young image to a movie and AI can do the voice but the older actor or thier estate gets paid.   

Imagine John Wayne rides again, lol 

 

 

10 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

An older actor/actress might allow the use of a young version of themselves in their prime and do the voice over for the younger version of themselves or just straight up license their young image to a movie and AI can do the voice but the older actor or thier estate gets paid.   

Imagine John Wayne rides again, lol 

Fred Astaire’s widow licensed his likeness for a vacuum cleaner commercial but they were paid, so that’s not the same thing as using AI as a replacement; AI purveyors are notorious for scraping content without regard for copyright (or other rights) and have admitted they can’t be profitable if they have to pay for content. LLMs degrade pretty quickly if they are cannibalizing generated content.

I don't think that pure CGI films will garner the public interest that live-action films do, due to the fandom that follows celebrity actors. Sure, animated characters (e.x. video game characters) do develop fan followings, but, to me, it isn't the same as the culture which develops around celebrities and their personal lives.

Edited September 24, 20241 yr by Night FM

There is also the uncanny valley to consider.

 

It occurs to me that the way they do this now is with animated movies and voice actors. But animation often involves some kind of element not easily replicated with live action, and there’s a suspension of disbelief- animated action can get away with things that look weird in a live action scenario, and I don’t think AI would look real enough (which is uncanny valley-related)

On 9/24/2024 at 12:06 PM, swansont said:

It occurs to me that the way they do this now is with animated movies and voice actors. But animation often involves some kind of element not easily replicated with live action, and there’s a suspension of disbelief- animated action can get away with things that look weird in a live action scenario, and I don’t think AI would look real enough (which is uncanny valley-related)

AI keeps getting better and better, unless there is some  actual limit I see no reason that AI animation couldn't be as good as Current AI generated still images which can fool even the discerning eye.   My main problem with them is that the AI images are often too good. 

 

Is there not a window of opportunity here, to decide what we as consumers want going forward. Slight tangent discussion on Mastodon about in Japan products being wrapped in plastic. My response was to suggest that to the generation brought up with this, wrapping everything in plastic is normal, same for the current generation seeing mobiles as normal, there is no frame of reference to the time when phones were attached by wires.

So back to AI generated movies or AI actors, once this takes over and we also have AI actors to a whole generation this will be normal, they won't know any different.

So I think we need to engage in a multigenerational way to decide what we want, debate pros / cons and decide the future.

AI can help us do stuff that was not possible before, I think we will still have model makers, at least in the sense we want a spaceship in a movie so someone will fashion one to get an idea of what is needed, that hands on physical model can be very useful. This can then be reproduced in a movie, if we then want 1000 ships then AI can make this possible.

3 hours ago, paulsutton said:

AI can help us do stuff that was not possible before, I think we will still have model makers, at least in the sense we want a spaceship in a movie so someone will fashion one to get an idea of what is needed, that hands on physical model can be very useful. This can then be reproduced in a movie, if we then want 1000 ships then AI can make this possible.

This was already being done, before modern ai. The big battles in LotR used digital characters with crowd simulation software called Massive, so this dates back ~25 years.

https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/features/how-lord-of-the-rings-used-ai-to-change-big-screen-battles-forever/

But battles aren’t the same thing as acting, with close-ups and dialog, etc. I guess we’ll see how well its received, since Tilly Norwood is set to appear in a film

https://variety.com/2026/film/global/ai-actor-tilly-norwood-movie-debut-misaligned-1236802325/

The wikipedia page gives some insight into the pushback within Hollywood

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilly_Norwood

It seems to me we have had "AI" in movies almost as long as there has been movies. The only difference I see between today and the first Mickey Mouse or Betty Boop cartoons is ease of generation and characters being more lifelike.

21 hours ago, npts2020 said:

It seems to me we have had "AI" in movies almost as long as there has been movies. The only difference I see between today and the first Mickey Mouse or Betty Boop cartoons is ease of generation and characters being more lifelike.

Depends, CGI traditionally required humans to generate the effects. AI sort of interprets the input but creates the outputs based on directions. I.e. the human input is vastly reduced and, in theory, could be eliminated entirely.

2 hours ago, npts2020 said:

It seems to me we have had "AI" in movies almost as long as there has been movies. The only difference I see between today and the first Mickey Mouse or Betty Boop cartoons is ease of generation and characters being more lifelike.

It’s in how the images are created. There’s no ai in things drawn by people.