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Marvel Studios has been a global entertainment juggernaut for the past 15 years, turning beloved but sometimes obscure comic book franchises into huge hits in film and television.
But his latest TV series, Secret invasiondebuting on the Disney+ streaming service and starring Samuel L. Jackson in his iconic role as former SHIELD director Nick Furyfaced immediate backlash upon its premiere today, June 21, 2023, over the use of artificial intelligence to generate the title card images in each episode’s opening sequence.
“I am very disappointed that Marvel Studios has decided to use artificial intelligence for the opening credits of Secret Invasion”, tweeted a photographer with the handle “@HairyShortStack” on Twitter, including screenshots of the title sequence showing a variety of eerie, green-tinged images of city skylines, explosions, and deformed human figures resembling Nick Fury.
Other Twitter users called the opening credits “ugly”, “disgusting” and “repulsive” and complained about the company’s treatment of human visual effects (VFX) artists and concluded that Marvel had chosen to use the ‘AI in this case to replace human artists.
Method Studios human artists credited
However, at least a Twitter user responded to these objections by noting that Studios methoda split VFX and motion graphics of the bigger parent Company 3had been credited in the credits as the creators of Secret invasion main title sequence and that the names of real human artists were listed among the team working on the sequence.
Wonder has worked with Method Studios and Company 3 previously on successful projects such as Spider-Man: Far From Home AND Avengers: Infinity War, among others. Method Studios also lists Top Gun: nonconformist, Blade Runner 2049 AND Elvis among several Hollywood film sets for which he helped create graphics.
In an interview with Polygon, Secret invasion Director and executive producer Ali Selim confirmed that Method Studios used artificial intelligence to design the opening credits of the series and stated that artificial intelligence was chosen as a creative medium because it reflected some of the themes of the series, in which shapeshifting aliens called Skrulls masquerade as humans. , just as AI can sometimes produce convincing impressions of humanity or human creativity.
Creative justification for using AI
“When we reached out to the AI vendors, it was part of it — it’s just out of the Skrull world’s identity shape-shifting, you know? Who did this? Who is this?” Selim said Polygon.
Selim didn’t explain exactly what AI tools Method Studios used for this project, and the VFX production company wasn’t responding to the reporter’s questions as the story went live.
VentureBeat has also reached out to Marvel Studios and Method Studios and some of the artists credited with the title sequence to get more information on how it was designed and their reaction to the backlash taking place on Twitter, and we will update if and when we get to know. news. .
Context of the strike
The use of artificial intelligence to create The Secret Invasion opening credits comes during a particularly difficult time period between major Hollywood studios and the creative community: At the time of this article’s publication, the Writers Guild of America union representing Hollywood film and TV writers has been on strike for more than seven weeks (almost two months) on disputes over renewed contracts and residual payments in the age of streaming and AI, with no immediate resolution in sight, and the SAG-AFTRA union representing film and TV actors remains in talks with studios over some of the same issues with authorization to strike if a resolution for their guild is not fulfilled by June 30th – 9 days from now.
In the meantime, it’s worth pointing out that key creatives within Marvel’s massive cinematic operation believe it’s inevitable that AI will disrupt cinematic operations. Joe Russo, co-director of many of Marvel’s most financially successful films, including Avengers: Finalehe told the outlet Collider in a panel discussion earlier this year that he believed AI would be able to create a feature film within two years and that he himself served on the board of several AI companies.
“The value of that is the democratization of storytelling,” Russo reportedly said of artificial intelligence. “This is incredibly valuable. This means that anyone in this room could tell a story or make a large-scale game, with the help of a photorealistic engine or an AI engine and tools. This, I think, is what excites me the most.
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