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Strike Out
It may be a good time to start making a list of all the TV shows and movies you’ve been thinking about watching. Last week the Screen Actors Guild went on strike, joining the Writers Guild of America. The WGA has been striking for a month. Now come the big guns, the actors.
AI, of course, and the rights of ‘digital versions’ of actors are the big sticking point. Studios have been up-front with using digital actors or doubles to do the heavy lifting on a show. It’s how Peter Cushing returned in Rogue One and how a certain young Jedi appeared in The Mandalorian. Actors know that if a studio creates a digital version, they don’t own it. The same goes for their voice and voice actors’ voices. Unchecked, you could realistically ask “Did so and so even work in this movie?” if a digital version was used the entire time.
While I am quite bullish on AI, the graphical power to pull these tricks off is present today and this is not a “ChatGPT will take our jobs” kind of thing. Look at any AAA video game and you’ll see the threat to actors clearly.
Besides this, is the money and how streaming is Hollywood’s secret weapon to hoard more money.
The stories that have come out in the past weeks about how streaming has flipped the industry upside down are incredible. No longer are writers able to work their way up or to even be on set during filming. “Writer rooms”…
