- Striking actors say studios want full discretion over any digital replacements of background actors.
- It evoked a recent “Black Mirror” episode in which actors on screen turn out to be digital versions.
- Studios dispute the characterization, saying their proposal includes seeking actors’ permission.
In the episode “Joan is Awful” on the latest season of the show “Black Mirror” on Netflix, a digital likeness of the actress Salma Hayek poses a Kafka-esque conundrum for its protagonists.
These digital versions of actors in the episode fulfill a fictional Netflix-like streamer’s push to create infinite possibilities of content to fill out its programming.
In the real world, members of the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA worry that such a dystopian future may not be far off. The studios they’re negotiating with proposed something eerily similar, the union’s national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said at a press conference on Thursday.
He said that the studios had proposed to pay background actors for a day in exchange for companies taking scans that can be used to create their digital likenesses.
The proposal had also stated that the companies “should be able to use it for the rest of eternity in any project they want with no consent and no compensation,” Crabtree-Ireland said. “Actors now face an existential threat to their livelihoods with the rise of generative AI technology,” he added.
The studios and streamers, represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), have disputed that characterization, and said that their proposal does include seeking permission from actors.
“The claim made by SAG-AFTRA leadership that the digital replicas of background actors may be used in perpetuity with no consent or compensation is false,” an AMPTP representative said in a statement to Insider.
“In fact, the current AMPTP proposal only permits a company to use the digital replica of a background actor in the motion picture for which the background actor is employed,” the representative said. “Any other use requires the background actor’s consent and bargaining for the use, subject to a minimum payment.”
A representative for SAG-AFTRA did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment on Friday.
The union’s national board voted on Thursday to order a strike, a move that will see actors meeting with Hollywood writers on the picket lines, since members of Writers Guild of America went out on strike in May.