As both writers and actors are on the picket lines in Hollywood, the stakes couldn’t be higher: Will average entertainment workers be able to eke out a living in an industry awash in cash, or will studio executives use new tech like AI to gobble up all of it?
I think the idea is more about how people in the background aren’t really active members of the shows’ action, so they are very expensive decorations to the studios.
And I guess to play devils advocate, I sorta get it. It costs a lot of money and people-hours to get crowds of people just standing around pretending to be crowds of people. You have to do a lot to keep them fed and happy for very little payoff or return on investment.
If you could somehow get the same effect of a crowd without actually having to just literally pay people to stand around and do nothing in the background, you’d either be able to save a lot of money/time or use that saved money to improve other areas of the production.
This is a good point, but I think assuming they’d use the money to improve the production overall is a bit generous. It’d go to profits. So at the end of the day it’s less people employed and lower quality for the consumer.
I mean I’m very pro-labor my guy but what exactly is it we’re defending here? They aren’t exactly busting ass at McDonald’s like you and I. They make almost 60k a year to literally stand around and do nothing while playing pretend.
https://www.cityheadshots.com/blog/background-acting#:~:text=Most background actors earn between,%2458%2C588 for full-time work.
I don’t really blame the studios in this scenario since the technology has progressed enough to replace them here quite well, nor do I blame the background actors for being upset their golden goose is wanting to fly off.
They’ve had workarounds to this forever. Marvel movies just use CG background characters. The Matrix 3 used a couple of background actors and then cloned the rest. Star Wars phantom menace used little toothpick people. There is absolutely no reason for these policies other than abject greed.
LOTR did it too with it’s battle scenes, it’s been pretty SOP for awhile now in hollywood. But the difference is in the past those actors who were recreated knew it, it wasn’t like they were unaware of the fact or anyone else on the production line
What hollywood is trying to do now with this technology is just plain theft to get away from paying anyone
Exactly. It’s the difference between being used for one instance and being used in perpetuity for all time. It should be completely unthinkable to even suggest that kind of contract and yet here we are.