Unions Opposition to Digital Capture?

[Max Field]

So we are seeing a whole lot about AI replacing the jobs of traditional artists, writers, actors, and more, but I feel like the transition from digital to film over the last 20 years could provide some insight on where this new AI technology might take the industry. Does anyone have any particular stories regarding unions opposing sets that used digital capture? I feel like I heard one fleeting story in the past where actors didn't like it because of increased take ratio...

Whether it was on or off camera, what were the particular oppositions in the 21st (or 20th) century that come to mind for digital capture?

[David Mullen ASC]

I’ve never heard any general opposition to digital cameras by actors because it allowed them to do more takes; the most common complaint was just that they felt they were unflattering. One actor saying that they preferred fewer takes isn’t indicative of a consensus - besides, if they wanted to do fewer takes, they would just tell the director that. The director couldn’t say “you have to now that we have a digital camera!”

The camera union was not opposed to digital cameras IF it made no change to the number of crew people hired nor affected their rates. The issues to be worked out back then regarded digital loaders, DITs, and whether daily back-ups should be done by the camera crew or editorial.

[Jon O'Brien]

I don't know about union opposition but the advent of AI and where this is all going is interesting. I'm not knocking AI as I did really enjoy the latest Indiana Jones movie and apparently it used it.

I wonder if there could be some return of interest in a completely photochemical process and projection of film prints as it makes it fairly clear that the film was made by people not machines. Well, AI could still be used in pre-production and concept etc. If that matters to enough people.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

There’s one aspect that will make the use of AI inevitable: money. The computer doesn’t produce anything where it later owns any copyright. So you will only have to pay for the energy and the computing time. This will save you a lot of money (and maybe even time and hence more money).

 

There’s another aspect that nobody has thought of so far: No AI is able to create anything new (yet?). It can only remix already existing human ideas/creations. Therefore it might violate existing copyrights. And the results might become boring and predictable on the long run.

 

Another copyright-related topic: When fed with enough visual and acoustic material, it can easily replace a human‘s head/body/voice with the corresponding data from someone else. So you could shoot with some cheap, unknown, newbies as actors and then replace them with data from e.g. John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe. And then you can do the same for the same movie with data from Dwayne Johnson and Scarlett Johansson. So you can easily flood streaming services with millions of variations of the same movie that you only shot once. Perfect, isn’t it? But here comes the tricky part: The famous actors never got paid for this and their data. (That’s one point that will sooner or later lead to more strikes and endless legal disputes. - But this point is similar to the previous/current strikes where the employees wanted to get their share from the profit made with „new markets“ like video-cassettes, DVDs or streaming services.)

Edited August 5, 2023 by Joerg Polzfusz

[Max Field]

On 8/3/2023 at 9:05 PM, David Mullen ASC said:

The camera union was not opposed to digital cameras IF it made no change to the number of crew people hired nor affected their rates

This is genuinely surprising given how cheaper digital capture utterly destroyed the middle class of film/video production. Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose

[David Mullen ASC]

The cheap video cameras that replaced, let’s say, 16mm film, weren’t necessarily on union productions anyway. I was doing low-budget non-union features when digital arrived in 2000 and joined the union in 2003 — I didn’t see any change in crew rates or hiring practices when union film shows switched to digital, the contracts were the same. With sitcoms there were some adjustments, often video used pedestals and a single person to operate, pull focus, push the camera around… but there was always a mix of sitcoms being shot on video versus film for decades so this was not an entirely new situation for the union.

What “middle class” union production situations are you referring to where the switch from film caused a lot of union jobs to disappear or the rates to be lowered? Or are you saying that these productions went non-union simply by switching from film to digital?

[Max Field]

36 minutes ago, David Mullen ASC said:

What “middle class” union production situations are you referring to where the switch from film caused a lot of union jobs to disappear or the rates to be lowered? Or are you saying that these productions went non-union simply by switching from film to digital?

Going back to the original post's analogy with the current AI scare of today, everyone in the industry period is worried about what AI will do to artists whether they are union or non-union.

The budgets for corporate and commercial video productions have nose-dived in the last 20 years because digital capture is far easier and more accessible than film capture, most of the upper class in this example is working on those larger union sets so wouldn't feel the brunt of it. The lower class greatly increased in numbers because of lower barrier of entry (friend or nephew with a DSLR). And the middle class (local business commercials/music videos) barely exists nowadays because clients see the cheaper option so don't even consider shelling out budget for a better set. These dynamics weren't nearly as staggering as they were 30 years ago.

I feel like this bleak state of video production can paint some of the picture of what we can expect with the AI shift.

 

Edited August 6, 2023 by Max Field

[David Mullen ASC]

But is the drop in corporate and commercial budgets due to technology (and if the drop is only in the camera budget, does it matter in terms of salaries?) I think the drop in commercial/corporate budgets has very little to do with what camera is used. There are a lot of other financial forces at work, like the movement from broadcast to streaming, the decline of print advertisements, etc. Digital distribution and the internet have more to do with budgets today than what type of camera is employed. Companies don't have the deep pockets that they used to for promotional work.

Yes, at the bottom end, the cost of entry is a lot lower.

AI is certainly going to affect some jobs out there, no doubt. Some fields will be devastated probably.

And I'm sure some creative content on streamers will be AI-generated though whether that will be a significant number, I don't know. For now, a total AI art creation head-to-toe tends to look like CGI animation. Is that what a large number of viewers want to see? I don't know.