Right out of a Hollywood Horror Movie

July 23, 2023 7:49 PM

In Hollywood, there's a profession called Background Actor. These are non-speaking roles for people used in the background of a scene. Recently, actors have been getting digitally scanned after getting cast. It turns out that in the fine print of the contract, they own and can use the actor's image, in perpetuity (forever). Hmm, that reminds me of a murder mystery movie I saw a long time ago.
posted by eye of newt (8 comments total)

I thought the same thing.
Great song, OK movie - it floundered a bit in the second act, IMO :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV8C90xCZAo
posted by drinkmaildave at 8:07 PM on July 23, 2023

I wish we could start by trying this on the people at the top of the pyramid first instead of the bottom.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 8:09 PM on July 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

I am so grateful I never wanted to work in the film industry.

I'm honestly suspecting that the studio execs are gonna be like "fuck you humans, we're going to have AI written scripts and AI characters and we literally don't want or need actual human creativity any more," and then I'm afraid that will catch on and there goes humanity.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:22 PM on July 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

"then I'm afraid that will catch on and there goes humanity."

Past writer's strikes helped give a boost to reality TV shows, which put Trump on the path to residing in the White House, so... not implausible.
posted by jzb at 8:32 PM on July 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

Hold on, I'm a little skeptical of this claim :

"It turns out that in the fine print of the contract, they own and can use the actor's image, in perpetuity (forever)"

I'm not seeing anywhere in that thread where this is claimed as fact. The background actor who made the post appeared to be asking IF it were possible (emphasis mine) :

I was not informed that the studios could use my image/likeness, indefinitely/ in perpetuity and we (actors and stand-ins) were told that they images would be used to fill in gaps where the production had not used actors during the original scene. I was under the impression that the Post Production would use this for the VFX. Which they absolutely could be, but could these images be farmed out to other productions?

I know the studios have absolutely said they WANT to do this. It's part of the current negotiations, in fact. So, yes, this is something that may one day be true - once all the legalese is worked out and some weird deal is reached that just becomes standard and background actors get another legally-sanctioned railing. I'm also certainly not arguing this is a good / right / moral thing to do and it is unequivocally a bad thing for all (okay, almost all) involved.

But, as of this post, it does not appear to be the case that it IS or HAS happened (yet).

If I missed something in that post, or there's another reliable source stating otherwise, then... THAT'S the post I want to see.
posted by revmitcz at 9:19 PM on July 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

All this AI stuff lately has me perpetually thinking about Harlan Ellison’s “Laugh Track” an unforgettable and unfortunately prescient tale for our age that wore a deep groove in my prepubescent brain.
posted by Matt Oneiros at 9:19 PM on July 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

Hold on, I'm a little skeptical of this claim :
"It turns out that in the fine print of the contract, they own and can use the actor's image, in perpetuity (forever)"

You are right I haven't seen an actual contract with this (also, I'm not in the industry). The SAG-AFTRA union is claiming such contracts exist and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) is saying that they don't. This may just be a bit of public jostling prior to negotiations.

At the very least, actors should be on guard and read their contracts carefully going forward as the technology improves.
posted by eye of newt at 9:53 PM on July 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Just to add slightly to the AI discourse around screenwriting, my big concern is that they'll try to use AI to write the scripts, the scripts will be unbearably awful, the shows themselves using AI everything will be even worse, but they'll make a calculation that it's much more profitable to turn out completely unwatchable trash on the networks they own rather than pay all those pesky production costs that go into making something half decent. The golden age of TV turns to the golden AI toilet of TV simply because it's more profitable. "Quality" simply becomes financially unattractive to studio execs, and writers, actors, and studio hands are out of a job not because AI could do their job better, but because AI could do it infinitely cheaper. All major entertainment becomes artistically similar to those bizarre kids youtube channels where Spiderman and The Joker have a birthday party for Wolverine and dance in a circle for 20 minutes.
posted by Philipschall at 10:26 PM on July 23, 2023 [1 favorite]