These IATSE Artists Are Voting ‘No’ on Their Next Contract, and AI Is to Blame
Members of the Art Directors Guild are raising alarms that protections related to artificial intelligence in the latest IATSE bargaining agreement don’t go far enough to protect the future of their professions.
On Saturday, the Set Designers Council, a craft committee within the ADG, recommended that IATSE members vote against ratifying the deal. In a memo, the council compared the AI protections unfavorably to those won by the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA after last year’s strikes.
While actors “were able to maintain the rights to their own images and identities and to choose to be replicated or not,” the memo read, “in the new contract language, we have not been given any protections relating to our individual processes when designing, building models, illustrating or creating documents.”
This week tens of thousands of entertainment workers will vote on the latest IATSE bargaining agreement. It contains significant gains on compensation and set safety, but on the issue of artificial intelligence, concerns persist for members of Local 800, a.k.a. the Art Directors Guild.
“These provisions look like they were just written by the employer and signed without any pushback,” said Matthew Cunningham, an industrial designer who has worked on vehicle design for films like “Aquaman” and has spoken to federal legislators about the threats AI poses to his profession. “They don’t really reflect the scope and impact that this technology is going to have on our livelihoods.”
Zach Berger, the lead creature designer of the in “Avatar: The Way of Water,” also published a social media thread outlining why he was voting against the contract. Berger explained he was part of the AI task force for the ADG that constructed “proposals that both acknowledged AI’s proliferation, but attempted to protect members’ jobs.”
To his dismay, he did not find any trace of the proposals the task force had assembled in the tentative agreement.
“At very least we should be getting protections that match the WGA,” Berger wrote, referring to provisions in the WGA contract preventing writers from being forced by studios to use AI in their writing or to use AI-generated material as adaptational material. “A labor union that represents film illustrators allowing an automated illustration machine into the workplace is not something I should have to argue against. But the threat to members doesn’t stop at just illustrators. We’re just the canary in the coal mine.”
Three sources with knowledge of the contract preparations told TheWrap that IATSE’s AI local task forces had included AI proposals similar to what the WGA negotiated, but none could pinpoint where those fell by the wayside.
“At least the writers have the ability to refuse these AI systems. We as designers don’t have that,” Cunningham said. “A lot of artists have had and will continue to have their styles and artistic identities taken and absorbed into these systems, and the result is going to be very derivative output that is going to affect the quality of these productions.”
“Driving efficiencies”
IATSE’s two main contracts — the Hollywood Basic and Area Standards Agreements — are structured much differently than the Writers Guild’s agreement. While WGA only represents writers, IATSE represents dozens of different professions, from script coordinators and grips to sound editors and concept designers — so its contract language must be broad enough to cover all of those jobs.
But the ADG members who spoke to TheWrap said they believe that the tentative agreement’s section on AI, which covers pages 38-43 of the memorandum of agreement sent to IATSE members on Wednesday, leaves the door open for exploitation. One example cited by several members is a clause stating: “Employees who are assigned to utilize an AI System to perform services, including by inputting prompts or otherwise overseeing the use of the AI System, shall continue to be covered under the terms of the applicable Agreement while performing such work.”
Representatives for IATSE declined to comment. A union insider told TheWrap that IATSE’s position is that the term “employee” refers to a crew worker who is a member of the local under whose jurisdiction the work is covered.
In other words, only a member of the Art Directors Guild would be allowed to use an AI system that a studio chooses to implement on a production for concept design. The union maintains that interpretation based on on-the-record conversations between the IATSE negotiating committee and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) during contract talks, the sort that unions can use during contract disputes with employers.
It’s up to the union to convince members who have a different perspective, like Phil Saunders, a veteran concept designer whose work for Marvel Studios includes designing all of Iron Man’s suits. He subscribes to the belief that “if it’s not in the language, it doesn’t exist.”
“If a producer wants to effectively pre-design the movie for themselves before it even gets to an art department…they want to have the power to do that,” Saunders said. “It’s a huge, huge, huge cost savings. I don’t believe for a second that it’s an accident that stuff was left out.”
The studios’ view that AI can be used to make productions cheaper and more efficient is not hypothetical. In his first call as the new chairman and CEO of Paramount Global following Skydance’s approved merger, David Ellison told reporters on Tuesday that under his leadership Paramount will “utilize artificial intelligence tools to enhance creativity and drive production efficiencies.”
For Saunders, that’s a sign that Hollywood is heading to a future where studio-developed AI systems result in fewer union members being hired. A clause in the contract that prohibits producers from having an employee use AI prompts that “results in the displacement of any covered employee” would be unenforceable, he said, because the ADG doesn’t have minimum staffing requirements.
“We can’t say, ‘Well, this work would normally have taken 10 illustrators three months, and now you’re having two illustrators do it in three weeks,’ Saunders said. “The displacement doesn’t come from the prompts. The selling point of these AI systems is that it means fewer people need to be hired to start with, and that will lead to the credits lists getting shorter on films.”
“Nothing like CGI”
In the agreement, both IATSE and AMPTP acknowledge “the importance of human contributions in motion pictures” and the history of producers using “digital technologies, including without limitation so-called ‘traditional AI’” like CGI software.
To that end, among the gains in the contract touted by the union are training programs designed to foster new skills to boost employment and “effective use of AI tools” and that will teach affected IATSE members skills that will help them transition to other work covered by the contracts.
According to union insiders, IATSE’s contract gets ahead of the potential for studios to use new technologies to create a non-union workforce. That happened with the advent of computer visual effects, which led to an entire workforce of VFX artists that today are key to producing the industry’s biggest blockbusters but that are only recently getting unionized.
The selling point of these AI systems is that it means fewer people need to be hired to start with.”
Phil Saunders, concept designer
Saunders, who has worked for more than 30 years in the industry, skeptical about the work training programs, as he says that generative AI is “nothing like CGI.”
“Every time I had to train for Renderman or motion capture or some other VFX technology, there was a really complex system that I had to train for,” he said. “It expanded my skill set. AI does not do that. My 11-year-old can type in a prompt as well as I could with my 30 years of experience.”
The contract states that any decision by a producer or studio to use AI as part of IATSE-covered work “will be subject to consultation with the employee at the employee’s request, provided that the requirements of production allow time for the consultation.”
For the ADG members speaking out against the provisions, that’s no substitute for giving IATSE members the contractual ability to say no to the technology the way writers can.
“The studios fought to be able to force IATSE members to use [generative AI] models that will significantly impact and displace fellow workers. These are models that in essence and function, are used to slowly but surely bust/weaken the union,” concept artist Karla Ortiz wrote in a social media thread advocating a vote against ratification.
Generative AI has already been used to create commercials — such as this one for Toys R’ Us — without any crew workers whatsoever. Cunningham sees a future where many sectors of the IATSE membership see a decline in active workers.
“That means fewer contributions to our health and pension plan, fewer members providing bargaining power, and damage to the solvency of the union,” he said.
Despite the concerns, Chris Brandt, a storyboard artist whose credits include “Hidden Figures” and “How to Get Away With Murder,” expects members to ratify the contract; they can vote until July 17. He points to other major gains in the contract, including increases in minimum rates, double and triple pay for shoot days that extend for more than 12 hours, and gains on set safety.
“I will be surprised if this doesn’t pass by a wide margin,” Brandt said, adding, “I don’t see a future for me in this industry if it passes.”
Should the contract be approved, much of how AI will manifest itself in the below-the-line work on studio productions will be influenced by how the contract is enforced. IATSE is urging members to inform their locals about how studios implement generative AI programs like Midjourney in their projects.
Despite assurances from the union, artists like Brandt are calling on fellow union members to push IATSE to ask for more, arguing that stronger AI protections will better preserve all the other gains that have been won in this year’s talks.
“Bankable hours, safety, overtime, pension, healthcare and everything else become meaningless once AI is fully implemented,” he said.
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