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Disney’s sneaky move caught by Twitter users – Will it revolutionize the film industry?

C. Douglas GoldenJune 23, 2023
29

Disney’s Dirty Trick Noticed by Twitter Users – Could This Change the Film Industry Forever?

Of all the problems posed by artificial intelligence, opening sequences to Disney+ streaming shows didn’t seem too high up on the list.

However, the media giant’s use of AI in a new Marvel series is making waves — and drawing renewed attention to the company’s overworked and underpaid computer graphics animators.

According to Breitbart, the studio has been hit with a backlash after this week’s premiere of  “Secret Invasion,” yet another entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe being shoved out by the House of Mouse.

At the very least, the series stars Samuel L. Jackson, so there’s some acting talent behind it.

Animation talent, however, is somewhat lacking — particularly when it came to the opening sequence, which was created by AI.

However, does artificial intelligence equal artificial creativity? You make the call:

So, is this the future of content creation? It certainly appears a bit cheap, particularly for a series featuring Jackson reprising his Nick Fury role.

More important, however, it could signal a dirty trick that leaves the studio’s animators out of a job.

On Twitter, concept artist Jeff Simpson — who worked on “Secret Invasion” — expressed his disgust.

“Secret Invasion intro is AI generated. I’m devastated, I believe AI to be unethical, dangerous and designed solely to eliminate artists careers. Spent almost half a year working on this show and had a fantastic experience working with the most amazing people I ever met,” he said Wednesday.

“I worked with the Vis Dev team on character design, props, keyframes for the show etc. and nothing to do with the intro which would have been done much later I assume — to clarify.”

He added that it appears the AI-developed opening credits were outsourced to Method Studios.

Stephen Ford, an actor and director, also expressed his disgust.

“Marvel/Disney have infinite money yet used AI for the Secret Invasion opening credits. A slap in the face to literally every artist Disney has ever worked with & something that overshadows the hard work everyone did on this show,” he tweeted.

And then there were those less concerned with the jobs that were being displaced and more concerned with the fact it looked like hot garbage:

Breitbart said “‘Secret Invasion’ would mark the first time that AI has been used in mainstream television.” That’s perhaps not entirely true, although this depends on what your definition of television entails. In fact, this maybe isn’t the first time Disney has been caught using it as a shortcut on its streaming service.

A crowd scene from the Disney+ feature “Prom Pact” was scrutinized when it was released earlier this year when what appeared to be AI-generated individuals appeared in a crowd scene:

Disney did not comment when the U.K.’s Independent reached out about it.

Given that “Prom Pact” was a Disney+ exclusive, one might charitably call it a made-for-TV movie in the current streaming model context. Whatever the case, it somehow managed to look even worse than the opening sequence to “Secret Invasion,” which is indeed saying something.

But, perhaps most important, the AI-generated opening sequence for “Secret Invasion” came as the Writers Guild of America is on strike — and AI-generated content is one of the strikers’ chief concerns:

It also picked another scab off a wound, again shedding light on the fact that Disney — and its Marvel unit in particular — underpays and overworks visual artists and engages in “bullying” to meet strict deadlines.

According to the U.K.’s Guardian, Dhruv Govil, one of the artists on “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” made news last summer after a now-deleted tweet thread in which he blew the whistle on Disney’s practices.

“Working on #Marvel shows is what pushed me to leave the VFX industry,” Govil wrote. “They’re a horrible client, and I’ve seen way too many colleagues break down after being overworked, while Marvel tightens the purse strings.”

“The issue is #Marvel is too big, and can demand whatever they want. It’s a toxic relationship,” he said.

Another artist talked about the culture of bullying and long hours imposed by Marvel in a piece for New York Magazine’s Vulture.

“It’s pretty well known and even darkly joked about across all the visual-effects houses that working on Marvel shows is really hard,” the person said in the July 2022 article. “When I worked on one movie, it was almost six months of overtime every day. I was working seven days a week, averaging 64 hours a week on a good week.

“Marvel genuinely works you really hard. I’ve had co-workers sit next to me, break down, and start crying. I’ve had people having anxiety attacks on the phone.”

The issue is that Marvel and Disney have “a lot of power over the effects houses, just because it has so many blockbuster movies coming out one after the other.”

So, the production companies often underbid each other and then work hard to fulfill the whims of directors.

“The other thing with Marvel is it’s famous for asking for lots of changes throughout the process,” the artist said. “So you’re already overworked, and then Marvel’s asking for regular changes way in excess of what any other client does. Some of those changes are really major. Maybe a month or two before a movie comes out, Marvel will have us change the entire third act.”

Joe Pavlo, an Emmy-winning visual effects artist who talked to The Guardian, said he wasn’t surprised after his work on “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

“The visual effects industry is filled with terrific people with lots of goodwill who really care, but, at the end of the day, there’s nothing in place when their backs are up against the wall and Disney is making crazy demands,” Pavlo said.

“All the goodwill in the world just evaporates when everything gets changed and they decide they’re replacing that character with a different actor or changing the entire environment — they’re now in a pizza restaurant instead of a cornfield. It can be that extreme at the very last minute … It can be characterized as bullying but filtered through multiple layers of management and supervisor and hierarchy.”

Quite the irony, then, that one of the wokest companies in the entertainment industry sees fit to treat its contractors like sweatshop workers — and then replace them with AI when given a chance.

Talk about a bad year for Disney — and one that could see the company open the Pandora’s box of AI in the entertainment industry.

The post Disney’s Dirty Trick Noticed by Twitter Users – Could This Change the Film Industry Forever? appeared first on The Western Journal.

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C. Douglas GoldenJune 23, 2023
29
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C. Douglas Golden

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