TV Craft Artists on Using AI in Your Favorite Shows: ‘I Don’t Feel Threatened in Any Way’

Because of the 2023 WGA and SAG strikes, a lot of the initial conversations surrounding artificial intelligence in Hollywood has focused on whether A.I. will be used to produce film scripts or recreate performances. But the highly controversial technology is already being used behind the scenes on your favorite television shows, as a tool to help stimulate the creative process. On Saturday afternoon at the ATX TV Festival, a group of craft artists discussed the perils and premiums of AI on their industry, during a wide-ranging discussion on their respective programs.

“We’re very computer-heavy, software-heavy in my art department,” Seth Reed, the production designer on the acclaimed Apple series “For All Mankind,” said during the panel. “We’re running Unreal Engine and we’re rendering out of Twinmotion almost exclusively now [two pieces of software used without AI]. So for us, they’re all tools. There’s an AI component to these things. When you’re running Unreal, you practically feel like it is AI because you’re telling it to just add textures and do things that seem way beyond what a concept artist would do in Photoshop or whatever.”

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Echoing comments made by other panelists, Reed stressed that AI wasn’t creating anything on its own. Various artists had experimented with AI — testing whether AI could help stimulate creativity or efficiency in the workplace — but it was never seen as a replacement for an actual artist’s work.

“No one is really feeling excluded by this. The people are still there, they’re just using a new tool,” Reed said, adding that the Unreal Engine and Twinmotion are “revolutionizing our department. […] And believe me, it’s made us much, much more creative. We’ve been able to expand our worlds tremendously in what we’re doing. But I don’t feel threatened in any way [by AI]. That’s me, personally.”

Reed also noted that the “For All Mankind” art department had tried using MidJourney in the past, and it didn’t work out. Similar malfunctions proved prevalent among the group.

“I’ve tried [to use AI] unsuccessfully,” Colin Penman, the makeup department head for “Gen V,” said. Penman has tried to get various AI programs to generate various concepts for the imaginative Prime Video superhero series, but instead of producing anything close to what he’s instructed, it’s “two hours later, when I could’ve just put pencil to paper, and I’m still talking to my phone trying to get it to generate something [useful].”

“Sometimes you can look at it and recognize what it’s going for,” Victoria Paul, the production designer on “Twisted Metal,” said. “Oh, I can see… architecture? [But] everyone is worried it’s going to take our jobs. It’s not going to take our jobs because it doesn’t function — yet. But it will. So I think we need to learn [how to use it.]”

“It’s a tool, as we’re all saying, but for ideas. The [AI’s] ideas aren’t real,” Sharon Gilham, the costume designer for “The Wheel of Time,” said. “The ideas aren’t based on human bodies, they’re based on concepts. So I think it’s interesting, but it’s not there yet.”

Earlier in the week, speaking to The New York Times, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said, “I don’t believe that an AI program is going to write a better screenplay than a great writer, or is going to replace a great performance, or that we won’t be able to tell the difference. AI is not going to take your job. The person who uses AI well might take your job.”

Speaking to the sentiment of the later quote, “Justified: City Primeval” director of photographer John Lindley said, “That, I think, is sort of the long and the short of it. I’ve been teaching myself Midjourney so I can create artwork. I don’t know how to draw, so I couldn’t do that otherwise. But I remember when digital cameras came out, and they said, ‘You’re gonna put a camera on a tripod, hit the on switch, and an hour later there will be a show.’ [But today] I’ve never worked with more people and more stuff.”

“Often the future is unclear, and this particular question is really unclear, but I think as everyone has said, we’ll all use it, and we’ll all use it effectively,” Lindley said. “It won’t replace humans.”

The ATX TV Festival panel featuring each of the aforementioned craft artists was presented by Sony Pictures Television and moderated by IndieWire’s Ben Travers. The ATX TV Festival runs from May 30 – June 2 in Austin, TX. You can now watch the full panel video below.

[Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with the names of specific software programs that were not initially included. Also, earlier comments that implied AI was being used to create finalized work were removed — AI has not been formally used to produce art for “For All Mankind.”]

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