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Seems like an improvement - nobody argues that a career as "bleacher actor #847" is something to aspire to. It's something we should AI away.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Teever 3y ago
But you know that the bleacher actor #847 of today is the single line actor of tomorrow and potentially one day a leading role. How do you expect actors to get a start if there's no where to start?
- variants 3y ago
  They will start where the next starting line is
  - pavel_lishin 3y ago
    The next starting line has significantly fewer spaces available.
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    Yes. That’s what’s being criticized!
- zdragnar 3y ago
  Does "bleacher actor 847" actually lend credible experience to getting bigger roles? If I'm putting someone in front of a scene, I don't really think I'm going to care that they've had more or less experience in the background amongst a sea of a thousand other people.
  - BoxFour 3y ago
    > I don't really think I'm going to care that they've had more or less experience in the background amongst a sea of a thousand other people. You might! Having extra credits at least indicates familiarity with the film environment. It suggests you can: 1) Arrive punctually. 2) Handle extensive downtime. 3) Repeatedly execute identical actions for many takes. 4) Take basic film direction instructions and so on. For smaller speaking roles (which are generally a prerequisite for larger speaking roles), where consistent delivery on strenuous and fast-paced sets might be far more crucial than pure acting talent, this background can be a beneficial indicator.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  So union protectionism. What next, "Studios forbidden from using CGI extras if a SAG member is available and willing"?
LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
Nobody aspires to peak as a junior software engineer even though they mostly just do small, easily automated tasks. Is that a valid reason to completely gut a set opportunities that provide a foot in the door to something bigger?
- zamadatix 3y ago
  Sure, if it's so valuable to have a training type role we'll keep it on those grounds (or find some alternative) instead of roundabout reasoning which requires us to be inefficient to hide the real reason it's valuable. Anyone not expecting job roles, opportunities, or pathways to change in their career is going to have a very rough time, even more so than the hard time people from the last 50 years had.
  - LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
    > Sure, if it's so valuable to have a training type role we'll keep it on those grounds There’s no guarantee of this happening whatsoever. We’ve already seen private companies gut internal training programs in favor of increased hiring of experienced people and this is only going to continue. Economies have to provide work in order to facilitate consumption. If there are a handful of people making all of the money and gutting pay and job security to the core (i.e. improving efficiency), people are going to start rejecting the system wholesale and it’s not going to be pretty. The French Revolution didn’t happen in a vacuum, once people lost all hope of having a semblance of a decent standard of living, they didn’t just let rich keep on living, did they?
    - zamadatix 3y ago
      I think this is a great argument on the future role and place of loosely-controlled capitalism as these kinds of advances continue to come but, at the same time, a sorely lacking argument for why we should avoid technological advances which replace existing jobs for the sake of keeping the same jobs we have now. After all, the aforementioned French Revolution happened prior to the 1st (for the French), 2nd, and 3rd industrial revolutions but you don't see the French rallying to disown all technology and go back to the jobs of the time as a way to increase their standard of living - because it wouldn't, even if everyone were 100% employed and worked twice as much in doing so. As a further point, by this logic the very tasks of the Junior Developer role itself would never have been available - hell, society wouldn't even be investing in teaching everyone how to type in school because computers take jobs and people need work to do! It follows that societies are quite capable of A) finding new meaningful sources of work to be done B) having people do more than one course of work throughout their lives C) changing the ways they educate and train beyond the way they did it before D) ensuring fairer distribution of wealth by means other than artificially keeping previously useful jobs around (which is not what the e.g. French Revolution aimed to do).
joneholland 3y ago
This isn’t even AI. This is just low budget VFX. Something that has been done since the 90s.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Teever 3y ago

But you know that the bleacher actor #847 of today is the single line actor of tomorrow and potentially one day a leading role. How do you expect actors to get a start if there's no where to start?

variants 3y ago
They will start where the next starting line is
- pavel_lishin 3y ago
  The next starting line has significantly fewer spaces available.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  Yes. That’s what’s being criticized!
zdragnar 3y ago
Does "bleacher actor 847" actually lend credible experience to getting bigger roles? If I'm putting someone in front of a scene, I don't really think I'm going to care that they've had more or less experience in the background amongst a sea of a thousand other people.
- BoxFour 3y ago
  > I don't really think I'm going to care that they've had more or less experience in the background amongst a sea of a thousand other people. You might! Having extra credits at least indicates familiarity with the film environment. It suggests you can: 1) Arrive punctually. 2) Handle extensive downtime. 3) Repeatedly execute identical actions for many takes. 4) Take basic film direction instructions and so on. For smaller speaking roles (which are generally a prerequisite for larger speaking roles), where consistent delivery on strenuous and fast-paced sets might be far more crucial than pure acting talent, this background can be a beneficial indicator.
FireBeyond 3y ago
So union protectionism. What next, "Studios forbidden from using CGI extras if a SAG member is available and willing"?

LapsangGuzzler 3y ago

Nobody aspires to peak as a junior software engineer even though they mostly just do small, easily automated tasks. Is that a valid reason to completely gut a set opportunities that provide a foot in the door to something bigger?

zamadatix 3y ago
Sure, if it's so valuable to have a training type role we'll keep it on those grounds (or find some alternative) instead of roundabout reasoning which requires us to be inefficient to hide the real reason it's valuable. Anyone not expecting job roles, opportunities, or pathways to change in their career is going to have a very rough time, even more so than the hard time people from the last 50 years had.
- LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
  > Sure, if it's so valuable to have a training type role we'll keep it on those grounds There’s no guarantee of this happening whatsoever. We’ve already seen private companies gut internal training programs in favor of increased hiring of experienced people and this is only going to continue. Economies have to provide work in order to facilitate consumption. If there are a handful of people making all of the money and gutting pay and job security to the core (i.e. improving efficiency), people are going to start rejecting the system wholesale and it’s not going to be pretty. The French Revolution didn’t happen in a vacuum, once people lost all hope of having a semblance of a decent standard of living, they didn’t just let rich keep on living, did they?
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    I think this is a great argument on the future role and place of loosely-controlled capitalism as these kinds of advances continue to come but, at the same time, a sorely lacking argument for why we should avoid technological advances which replace existing jobs for the sake of keeping the same jobs we have now. After all, the aforementioned French Revolution happened prior to the 1st (for the French), 2nd, and 3rd industrial revolutions but you don't see the French rallying to disown all technology and go back to the jobs of the time as a way to increase their standard of living - because it wouldn't, even if everyone were 100% employed and worked twice as much in doing so. As a further point, by this logic the very tasks of the Junior Developer role itself would never have been available - hell, society wouldn't even be investing in teaching everyone how to type in school because computers take jobs and people need work to do! It follows that societies are quite capable of A) finding new meaningful sources of work to be done B) having people do more than one course of work throughout their lives C) changing the ways they educate and train beyond the way they did it before D) ensuring fairer distribution of wealth by means other than artificially keeping previously useful jobs around (which is not what the e.g. French Revolution aimed to do).

joneholland 3y ago

This isn’t even AI. This is just low budget VFX. Something that has been done since the 90s.