{"id":221777,"date":"2025-10-18T03:33:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T03:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/221777\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T03:33:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T03:33:06","slug":"have-we-done-ourselves-out-of-a-job-concerns-in-film-and-tv-industry-over-on-set-body-scanning-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/221777\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Have we done ourselves out of a job?\u2019: concerns in film and TV industry over on-set body scanning | AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

For performers on TV or movie sets, it is not unusual to receive a request to enter a booth filled with scores of cameras ready to capture their likeness from every possible angle. Yet with the cast and crew of productions already fretting over the coming role of AI in the industry, it is an increasingly troubling undertaking<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt happens without warning,\u201d says Olivia Williams, who adds she has been scanned more times than she cares to remember during a career that has spanned from The Sixth Sense<\/a> to Dune: Prophecy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are on set. You are in costume. A friendly assistant director who is already known to you, who brings you tea and holds your phone while you\u2019re acting, says that the VFX [visual effects] team are in today \u2013 and just after you finish the scene, could you pop over to the VFX bus? And off you go.<\/p>\n

\u201cActors are, by and large, people pleasers<\/a>. To have a standoff about scanning when you are in the midst of a scene annihilates your creativity, engenders fear that you will never work again, that your agent will drop you. So you comply.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lead and supporting actors, stunt performers and dancers have all told the Guardian of similar experiences on set, of being ushered into scanners despite being unclear on their rights relating to the biometric data produced.<\/p>\n

Williams said performers were told that \u201cif you want to be in the scene, or you want the scene to look cool with the alien crawling out of your brain\u201d, then scans were needed.<\/p>\n

Scanning \u2018happens without warning\u2019, said Olivia Williams, who said actors complied through \u2018fear that you will never work again\u2019. Photograph: David Vintiner\/The Observer<\/p>\n

The experience has caused unease for some time, but the development of \u201cAI doubles\u201d for performers and claims about the arrival of \u201cAI actors\u201d has injected urgency into clarifying exactly what is happening to the data harvested on set.<\/p>\n

Those concerns were flushed into the open with the publicity around an AI actor called \u201cTilly Norwood\u201d<\/a>. It seems unlikely that the company behind the creation will generate the first AI star, but it has given a focus to an ongoing fight to clarify performers\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n

Williams decided to put her head above the parapet out of concern for young actors just starting out, as well as the existential threat posed to performers known in the industry as supporting artistes (SAs), who populate a show\u2019s crowds and backdrops.<\/p>\n

Dave Watts, an experienced SA who has appeared in numerous superhero movies and major productions, has been scanned several times. He said there were wider implications for the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cI already hear crew members saying: \u2018To be honest, we don\u2019t even need to do this any more. We can just ask AI to create a crowd of 1,000 people based on information which has already been captured,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t have your usual crowd of 100, 200 or 500 SAs on a big production, then you also don\u2019t need the assistant directors that look after them, and you don\u2019t need the hair and makeup people. You don\u2019t need the costume people, the costume fittings, all the caterers, all the drivers and location marshals. There\u2019s a whole range of jobs there that AI effectively puts at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Images of the AI-generated actor \u2018Tilly Norwood\u2019 have heightened concerns for performers. Photograph: Reuters<\/p>\n

A dancer, speaking anonymously due to concerns speaking out would affect their work, raised similar points about the pressure to be scanned and the use of the data. \u201cFilming is gruelling \u2013 you\u2019re getting up at 3am,\u201d they said. \u201cIt\u2019s now 8pm and you\u2019re not allowed to go home until you\u2019ve done it. The way it happens, you just really don\u2019t have a choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou wonder, have we all done ourselves out of a job? It makes you feel a bit of a fool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex Lawrence-Archer, a data rights lawyer from the law firm AWO which has been working with actors on the issue, said performers were hampered by a morass of complicated, overlapping laws. He said it was crucial for them to have clearer agreements going into a production, rather than trying to reclaim their data after the fact.<\/p>\n

\u201cContracts are often quite poorly drafted, often industry-standard wording that has been around for many years,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re really not designed with these kinds of technologies in mind. What you have is kind of a vacuum of uncertainty. In that vacuum, AI developers and studios are doing as much as they can get away with.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s the future instances of training that actors and the representatives really need to turn their attention to. They need to negotiate better contracts that are clearer and that truly reflect a fair agreement between actors, studios and AI developers.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are now signs of a fledgling rebellion. On one recent shoot, performers were given advanced notice of scans after concerns were raised.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cast has collectively been pushing back against the atmosphere of ambushing actors,\u201d said one of the performers, speaking on condition of anonymity. \u201cWe succeeded in getting them to put a sort of addendum into our agreement, which basically prevents them from using the digital scans for anything other than the show without our written consent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Filming in Cardiff for Mr Burton. As well as actors, AI puts the jobs of assistant directors, hair and makeup artists, costume designers and wardrobe staff, caterers, drivers and location marshals at risk, says one supporting actor. Photograph: Sarah Lee\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

The battle for rights in the face of the AI industry\u2019s thirst for data can seem hopeless. Such data can be harvested from various footage and sources that sidestep professional performers. However, there is a consensus over attempting to take back some control.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe technology could conceivably be used in a reductionist way that drastically reduces the need for human performers, or it could be used to benefit creativity and build things out in a really positive way,\u201d said Theo Morton, a professional stunt performer and member of the British Stunt Register. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of uncertainty and no one truly knows. That\u2019s why it\u2019s so important to create safeguards contractually, to protect against this potential erosion of control that could happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams, however, is among those who despair that control has already been lost.<\/p>\n

The great unknown is where exactly the data training AI models is coming from. Lawrence-Archer said that remained a closely guarded secret, but needed to be exposed. He also warned against reducing the issue to extra compensation for performers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe AI industry relies on large amounts of data,\u201d he said. \u201cSomeone is gathering it. We know that these questions are very sensitive for AI developers and studios. We have supported actors to make these data access requests, trying to learn more. I personally know of actors who have been paid off by AI companies in order to withdraw those requests.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be building a world in which the human creativity, connection and performance of actors carries on being valued. If we focus only on legal and compensation questions, there\u2019s a risk that you end up with actors becoming data gig workers, rather than the creative performers they are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For performers on TV or movie sets, it is not unusual to receive a request to enter a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-221777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}