We pride ourselves on staying connected and up-to-date with trends in our sector and beyond. It’s hard to ignore the impact of AI, which has become embedded in many tools across industries. In the film production industry in particular, the use of generative AI is particularly controversial.

What is generative AI?

Generative AI is a general term to describe any machine learning or AI tools that generate images, stories and ideas.

How do you use generative AI?

Long story short, we don’t. We believe that telling stories requires human voice, and generative AI doesn’t offer this - especially on the sensitive projects we often work on. We are also against the opaque and often unethical practices used to train these generative models, which can draw from and restrict business for human artists.

The only exception to this rule is where we use a service that has embedded generative AI (for instance, Google search). Where possible, we opt out of these elements, or otherwise avoid actively using them.

Are you against AI?

Not in principle, and we do use non-generative AI in some of our work – for instance, using machine-learning powered tools to make rotoscoping more efficient. If the ethical and environmental issues around generative AI are addressed, we may well shift our position in future, but we will always prioritise human workers and artists in our projects, and clearly label any generative AI use in those potential cases.