The future of customized films

[funkervogt]

Here's a good Twitter thread on the subject:

SAG ACTORS:
I want to talk about AI and how it will affect you.
I’m a former SAG Board Member and former SAG Negotiating Committee member.
I’m also WGA and DGA. 1/

1. AI-written scrips & digitally-scanned actors (image and/or voice). Both already exist. Some talent agencies are actively recruiting their clients to be scanned. You choose the projects and get 75 cents on the dollar. 3/

Your digital image can be triple and quadruple booked, so that bodes well for a 10 percenter. 4/

2. Films customized for a viewer, based on their viewing history, which has been collected for many years. Actors will have the option to have their image “bought out” to be used in anything at all. 5/

3. Films “ordered up“ by the viewer. For example, “I want a film about a panda and a unicorn who save the world in a rocket ship. And put Bill Murray in it.” 6/

4. Viewers getting digitally scanned themselves, and paying extra to have themselves inserted in these custom films. 7/

5. Licensing deals made with studios so that viewers can order up older films like STAR WARS and put their face on Luke Skywalker‘s body and their ex-wife‘s face on Darth Vader‘s body, etc. 8/

6. Training an AI program on an older hits TV series, and creating an additional season. FAMILY TIES, for example, has 167 episodes. An AI program could easily be trained on this, and create an eighth season. We only shot seven. 9/

AI has to be addresses now or never. I believe this is the last time any labor action will be effective in our business. If we don’t make strong rules now, they simply won’t notice if we strike in three years, because at that point they won’t need us. 10/end

I think this could also resolve the controversy over "race swapping" actors. Hollywood would release films, with viewers able to select which digitally generated actors they wanted to see in each role. You could make the cast all one race, or any mix of races you wanted.

[funkervogt]

In the future, selecting which actors you want in films you're about to watch could be as natural as customizing your character at the start of a video game today.

[funkervogt]

The same scene, by three different actors of different races and sexes, all excellent.