Looking for the union label

by liberal japonicus

Being on the left of the political spectrum, I wish the members of SAG-AFTRA the best of luck. If you read the reportage, they do seem up against the cartoon villains of the Judge Doom sort in Roger Rabbit. Here is the Guardian's take. However, just following some of the discussions, I don't see any sort of realistic compromise, it's either break or be broken.

But one thing that I find interesting is that this is a very US-centric story, or, given that the British union, Equity, has expressed their full support, an Anglo-American story. It certainly is complicated.

Many actors belong to both SAG-AFTRA and Actors' Equity since they work both on film and television and in the theater. But the two unions, though they often share similar interests and members, are not one and the same. The current SAG-AFTRA strike is specifically for TV, theatrical (meaning theatrical release of feature films), and streaming, not for stage work, which is covered by a different set of contracts negotiated by Equity.

This might be especially confusing given that in the United Kingdom, actors are represented by Equity UK for stage, film, and television work. Additionally, though Equity UK released a statement standing in solidarity with SAG-AFTRA, they also made it clear that their members do not have the legal right to participate in the strike if they are working on an Equity UK contract due to separate labor law in the country (hence why House of the Dragon is still filming).

Two of the issues are the payments actors and writers get for streamed content and the looming possibilty of AI created work, ranging from appearances to fully generated characters. I thought this Youtube video shows some of the possibilities. But what I wonder about is whether the world of -woods (Bollywood, Nollywood (Nigeria), Hallyuwood (Korea)) as well as other world cinema markets (Japan, China, Hong Kong and France come to mind). This link discusses the case of Priyanka Chopra, and she and other stars are allowed to work on within their own indigenous cinemas, but not in the US.

There are a couple of obvious explanations, perhaps the payment model for foreign cinema industries is different, so these issues don't come up and perhaps the level of CGI use within movies is also minimal, so the idea that an actor could be AI generated seems far off as well, though the Youtube video suggests that it is out there. It may also be that the stars for foreign movies do not have the power that US/UK stars have, so raising these issues could be too dangerous for them. To me, that is the most intriguing: Part of becoming a Hollywood player is to not simply act, but to write, direct and produce. And the Directors Guild agreed to a new contract 3 months ago:

With screenwriters on strike and the actors’ union still in negotiations, the directors saw their deal as a first step on the way to labor peace in the entertainment industry. It included improvements in both wages and the amount of royalties that directors would receive from projects on streaming services, and it placed guardrails around the use of artificial intelligence.

However, it wasn't a slam dunk, the deal passed with 87%. On the other hand, 98% of SAG (actors) and just under that for AFTRA (writers) voted in favor of a strike. I imagine that if there were a bright line between producers and actors/writers, the situation would be the same as overseas. However, as I understand it, to bring the biggest stars on to a movie, they often demand production credit, so the battle lines are blurred. Every labor fight I've been involved with has had two sides, so I'm wondering if what makes this different. Your ideas are welcome.

Comments

[wj]

My sense (I haven't been following this closely) is that the folks most likely to get hurt by AI (other than writers, obviously) are extras, character actors, etc. Plus the support staff, like costumes, makeup, craft services (which is film speak for catering), etc.

The big stars are less at risk, both because they are recognizable by viewers as individuals, and because having them doing in-person appearances is an integral part of hyping a new work. Although there is some question in my mind about how you get to be a big star if the pipeline is shut down.

On the other hand, while SAG and its members are potentially impacted by AI, I don't see an issue (other than solidarity) for Equity. I'm just not seeing how AI can infringe on live performances.

[wj]

One other thought occurs to me. I can see AI writing a new script "in the style of" an existing script or scripts. Certainly for sequels or a TV series. But actual innovation would seem to require a whole new level of AI capability.

And if you want at least some human writers to privide innovation, how do you develop them when that pipeline is no longer available? I've seen screenplays from first time writers. Even those who get good eventually learn a lot from watching their early works actually filmed.

[liberal japonicus]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/charliefink/2023/07/18/new-showrunner-ai-the-sum-of-all-hollywoods-fears/

[Girl from the North Country]

Equity is for all actors, not just live theatre.

[Girl from the North Country]

And not just actors, either. This is from their website:

Who can join Equity?
We represent actors, choreographers, comedians, dancers, drag artists, theatre directors, models, singers, stage management, storytellers, stunt performers and co-ordinators, theatre designers, theatre fight directors, TV and radio presenters, variety, circus, cabaret and light entertainment artists, voice artists and supporting artists.

Examples of professions we do not represent include writers, session musicians who do not sing, camera operators, sound engineers and fitness instructors.

[JanieM]

@GftNC -- I think wj is referring to the US union "Actors' Equity," mentioned in the first quoted paragraph in lj's post, which is for theater/live performers.

From their web page:

About Equity https://www.actorsequity.org › aboutequity Actors' Equity Association (“Equity"), founded in 1913, is the U.S. labor union that represents more than 51,000 professional Actors and Stage Managers.

I've never heard it referred to as anything but "Equity" -- didn't even know the formal name was "Actors' Equity."

[JanieM]

The relevant quote from the post:

Many actors belong to both SAG-AFTRA and Actors' Equity since they work both on film and television and in the theater. But the two unions, though they often share similar interests and members, are not one and the same. The current SAG-AFTRA strike is specifically for TV, theatrical (meaning theatrical release of feature films), and streaming, not for stage work, which is covered by a different set of contracts negotiated by Equity.

[Girl from the North Country]

Ah, that explains it, Janie. Thanks!

[wj]

I do know that, in the UK, a single union represents both groups of actors.

Once again, two countries divided by a common language. :-)

[JanieM]

Equity/Equity, Times/Times, LOL

[hairshirthedonist]

Doesn't "LOL" mean "Lord of Light" in the UK? ;^)

[JanieM]

What does ROFLMAO mean in UK-ish? ;-)

[wj]

JanieM, isn't that properly ROTFLMAO?

[JanieM]

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ROFLMAO

Heh.

[Michael Cain]

But actual innovation would seem to require a whole new level of AI capability.

I can almost guarantee that somewhere there is a graduate student thinking about how to represent plot points, and how to score sequences of plot points, and how to train a machine learning arrangement to conduct a tree search over (potentially) all sequences of plot points. Along with other things that popped into my head as I sat here and thought about the problem: maybe it's better to work backwards from the climax to the beginning; how do you represent more complicated structures than a tree?

Consider the "Here We Go A-Plotting" sequence on this page making fun of the story creation process at Marvel Comics. Comic books get a lot of mileage out of a small set of characters and a small set of plot points.

[nous]

That sort of plot mapping was a big project for structuralism. The most commonly cited example of this would be Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale, but it also extends to things like Jeaninie Basinger's The World War II Combat Film: Anatomy of a Genre.

AI doesn't actually track plot points, though. All it does is track and replicate language patterns and correlate terms, so it's not even as if it's building a structure of the plot and generating new forms. It's just madlibbing its way through the old forms.

The real nightmare for writers/authors right now is that the publishers will not buy any original works, but will take popular titles and generate AI works based on the models, then hire authors to script doctor the AI generated work for a flat fee with no residuals or royalties.

It's in line with the crap that Disney pulled with Alan Dean Foster over his Star Wars novels, when Disney bought the license for the works, but not the contracts with the creatives, a few years back. SFWA went through a big legal battle at the time, this is more of the same.

[Girl from the North Country]

Doesn't "LOL" mean "Lord of Light" in the UK

Well, David Cameron famously thought it meant "lots of love" when he ended his emails that way to Rebekah Brooks, and had to be put right.

[Michael Cain]

@nous, I'm thinking about software at least a level above today's LLM stuff. Eg, software that generates "Write a two-page fight sequence between John and Bob, John wins and leaves Bob unconscious with a broken arm." Hopefully the software is good enough that at least sometimes the broken arm has a role later. We're a long way from doing it at all, let alone well, but I'm quite sure someone is at least thinking about how to do it.

Can we do it? Sure, eventually, if we can hold civilization together long enough. After all, all the information to build an adequate, trainable processor and its storage system can be encoded in 23 finite DNA strands.

[wj]

After all, all the information to build an adequate, trainable processor and its storage system can be encoded in 23 finite DNA strands.

And at some point, somebody figures out that they can create an "artificial intelligence" by mixing up some DNA. Not duplicating that of a specific (living?) person, so not merely cloning. And we thought we had problems already with who gets defined as human....

[novakant]

I'm doubtful about AI content creation - it's been tried forever by humans with middling results, so why should AI be any better at it? And viewers have become much more sophisticated, while having a huge variety of content at their fingertips.

[Hartmut]

The prolefeed of '1984' will become reality and it will be electronic not mechanic thus avoiding workers getting accidentally caught and injured in the pörn novel writing machines.

An then there is of course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
Of course according to what I heard about the current dispute the studios plan to pay far less for the rights to the images.

Btw, I wonder what Lem would have thought about the film. It isn't a straightforrward adaptation of his novel (he hated most of those) but takes central concepts from it and adapts them to a more modern frame in a direction that imo address some of his later years worries.

[JanieM]

I'm doubtful about AI content creation - it's been tried forever by humans with middling results, so why should AI be any better at it?

I'm reminded of Amazon's billion-dollar attempt to out-Tolkien Tolkien, which more or less flopped.

Also, in more general terms -- this seems like just the latest chapter in the age-old game of making sure the sharks get the $, and not the people who created the content originally. (Or, for that matter, the inventor who actually dreamed up the innovation.)

I.e., maybe the thing that matters in this story isn't AI at all, it's the prevalence of greed and cunning in human affairs.

Cheap philosophy for the day.

[bobbyp]

Cheap philosophy for the day.

Cheap but good is OK by me.

[wj]

Cheap but good is OK by me.

Although "inexpensive" might be a better marketing label....

[liberal japonicus]

Consider the "Here We Go A-Plotting" sequence on this page making fun of the story creation process at Marvel Comics. Comic books get a lot of mileage out of a small set of characters and a small set of plot points.

I feel like comic books are the modern equivalents of Greek myths, a group of characters who embody particular traits and characteristics and are endlessly remixed. So the Greek listening to the Iliad references that Achilles fell in love with the Amazon queen Penthesilea just as he was killing her and weeps over (and possibly violates) her corpse. Thersites makes fun of Achilles which leads Achilles to kill him. (or Thersites violates the corpse and Achilles kills him) Perfect character to put into the reboot, Homer has him as the lame bow-legged soldier who insults Agamemnon, saying what Achilles (and everyone else) thinks, and finds himself on the short end of a beating from Achilles. It's not much different from having Spiderman pop up in the Avengers movie to fight Captain America.

[CharlesWT]

Some of the earliest written science fiction & fantasy I read as a kid was rewrites of classical myths. Later writings seem to have replaced cowboys, horses, and Indians with spacemen, spaceships, and aliens.

[wj]

Later writings seem to have replaced cowboys, horses, and Indians with spacemen, spaceships, and aliens.

I seem to recall "Space western" being a standard label at the time for that particular genre. The better examples at least refrained from duplicating a specific, identifiable, western story.

[CharlesWT]

A short Western story:

The Ungentling

Rewritten by Claude-2-100k as a science fiction story(scroll down for the SF version):

The Ungentling

[CharlesWT]

Story rewritten by Claude-2-100k to locate it on Arrakis(scroll down):

The Ungentling

[CharlesWT]

I forgot to check to see if it had written a complete story. I had to prompt it to finish.

End of the Arrakis version:

The Ungentling

[Hartmut]

And the horse opera turned into the space opera.
Not sure whether the soap opera came in between or before. Beating an undead space horse there, I fear.

I am the space force here on my space horse. Excuse my voice hoarse and habits quite coarse. Trademarked it, of course, see me veer off-course. Still don't feel remorse.

[Pro Bono]

First, I haven't followed the details of the dispute, so I don't mean to comment on them.

In general, I can't see why film and television production shouldn't be subject to automation in the same way as farming, textiles, and everything else. The result is that we get more product for less human labour.

For example, if I want to make a film with crowd scenes, why should I have to raise funds for hundreds of extras if computers can do an adequate job almost for free?

But I do think that one should have rights to control the use of one's own image.

[novakant]

if I want to make a film with crowd scenes, why should I have to raise funds for hundreds of extras if computers can do an adequate job almost for free?

While computer-generated crowds are probably cheaper and often the only option, since using extras would be too dangerous / technically impossible, they are still very expensive, look at e.g. Game of Thrones. There is no way to automate these things, instead a whole army of well-paid VFX artists is working for weeks or months to create these scenes and then there are the costs for rendering etc.

Granted, GoT is an outlier as far as budget is concerned, but the studios have been in a constant fight with the VFX companies to push down costs, because VFX are so expensive.

[CharlesWT]

Using AI to create a South Park episode.

"In this work we present our approach to generating high-quality episodic content for IP's (Intellectual Property) using large language models (LLMs), custom state-of-the art diffusion models and our multi-agent simulation for contextualization, story progression and behavioral control. Powerful LLMs such as GPT-4 were trained on a large corpus of TV show data which lets us believe that with the right guidance users will be able to rewrite entire seasons."
To Infinity and Beyond: SHOW-1 and Showrunner Agents in Multi-Agent Simulations

[Snarki, child of Loki]

I *think* the term "soap opera" came from radio dramas, sponsored by soap companies that target the "bored housewife" demographic.

Unfortunately, horse operas were not trying to sell horses; even moreso for space operas.

BUT, on the subject of old-time radio shows, I got a lot of enjoyment out of a modern incarnation of radio horse opera/space opera fusion: "Sparks Nevada: Marshal on Mars". It was available as a podcast, but since has been pulled back behind a subscription paywall.

[Hartmut]

I know what soap operas were but I do not know whether the term preceded horse opera as a term for Western movies (where there any on radio too?).

[Hartmut]

Of course there were literal horse operas at baroque courts, i.e. operas with the participants on horseback (I assume that most musicians were on foot though).

[nous]

According to the OED "Horse Opera" dates back to 1927 and "Soap Opera" to 1939, with "Space Opera" close on its heels in 1941, and used with explicit reference to the previous two.