even if you think there’s no way they’ll have the game u want. they probably do anyway. when i first downloaded flashpoint i thought for sure theres no way they will have the obscure flash game i played for hours as a kid that was only even available on the internet for like 2 months in 2006. but you know what. they had it. seriously, download flashpoint
With the WGA and SAG-AFTRA on strike, I want to take this moment to talk about one really important thing that I’ve alluded to but haven’t gone into depth on, and people don’t like to hear because of a lot of the noise, but-
We need to also support VFX unionization efforts (everyone’s with me so far right…?), and in doing so, acknowledge the labor actually involved in using new technology (not just AI, but whatever the NEXT big breakthrough is too, and the one after that, and the one after that, indefinitely) and credit the people operating it properly-
Aaaand I’ve lost some people, but hear me out.
Sure, it’s easy to type a single prompt and get a result that looks kinda nice. “Kinda nice”, however, isn’t going to cut it for most productions! It’s like photography that way. As ubiquitous as good-quality cell phone cameras are, anyone can just point and click with some very basic understanding of what makes a passable composition and get something that’s pleasant on the eyes.
And yet, generally speaking, people aren’t grabbing random people with cell phones off the street to shoot movie posters! Because even a layperson can tell the difference between the photo you get when you stop a random stranger on the street and ask them to take a photo of you and your friends together, and the photo you get when a trained professional sets up the actors in a studio, with deliberate lighting, a thorough understanding of what lens(es) to use, and so much more.
Photography is easy. To be able to get a professional quality result? Not so much. Sure, sometimes a total rando who barely knows how to use a camera will luck out and get the shot of a lifetime - but it sure doesn’t happen often and you DEFINITELY can’t make a whole profession out of hoping for it.
The same goes for AI.
Most singular AI pieces that are high enough quality to get people really excited take hours, and hours, and hours of work and refinement and retrying and tweaking to get right. I mean, go test out a free image generator and pay attention - you might get a lot of results that look fun just by typing in a very silly prompt, but good enough to be a major part of a movie without any alteration? ….maybe one in a million - and then you still probably have to upscale it! And the standard for “nice to look at for a moment” vs. “good enough to be a major part of a professional production” will only get stricter and stricter as things get more saturated and people see Default Midjourney Style or the like as being super boring and amateurish for anything bigger than a literal one-man production, too (which sucks on a tiny level for me personally because I like Default Midjourney Style, but that’s not important).
I point this out because bringing this up in the context of unionization helps to kill the entire motivation behind using AI to undercut manual art. The higher-ups want the world to think it’s just mindless, super-easy button-pushing that anyone can do, so it’s fine to crunch people even HARDER than they already crunch VFX artists or outsource it to people they can pay subminimum wages, right?
It’s not. It never is. It never will be. We need to cut it off at the pass before one more studio even fucking tries it.
The reason companies keep trying to take work from other sectors and dump it on VFX and other production sectors is because that labor is cheaper - but it’s not cheaper because it’s easier. It is, in fact, MUCH easier to have an actual human actor give a real performance than it is to have someone else animate a convincing photorealistic one! Yes, even with new AI models! Yes, even in the background - in fact, arguably ESPECIALLY in the background!
It’s cheaper because the work is horribly undervalued. Because the “it’s JUST pushing buttons” - “it’s JUST some cleanup” - “we’ll JUST fix it in post” attitude and the lack of union protection has enabled this.
Other creative jobs will not be safe until digital production work is recognized for being real work.
They will not be safe until lean-staffing and other forms of crunch are eliminated throughout the ENTIRE production pipeline.
Support VFX and production unionization.
AI is a tool. Like any tool it is best in the hands of an expert, and experts must be treated with respect and their skills not devalued. If the skills are not valued, the tool can’t be respected.
(I’ve had art stolen by someone using MSPaint. People have stolen art with a light table. AI is just another tool. And thieves will use whatever’s available.)
ALT
