by A.J. Catoline
Sound editor Matt Klimek has been amazed to run indecipherable dialogue through the latest audio processing software and have it come out clean.
“It was like witchcraft,” he marveled.
But in post-production rooms all over the nation, that magic is sparking anxiety as well as awe for Local 700 members. Both peril and promise are seen as artificial intelligence (AI) — technology that allows “trained” machines to not only simulate human-oriented skills, but also generate creative content — charges its way into the post-production industry.
Members of Local 700, from picture and sound editors to story analysts, are grappling with the profound ways AI could at best reshape, or at worst downsize, their jobs. And the union leadership is stepping up to help them navigate the changes.
“AI is inevitable,” said Spencer Koobatian, an assistant editor and member of the Guild’s Emerging Technology Committee (ETC). “We have to not fear it, nor merely just adapt, but know how to use these elements of technology to further storytelling.”
Editors Guild National Executive Director Scott George notes that industry pros have weathered change before – like the leap from film to digital – and will again.
“Twenty-five years ago, we made the transition from film to digital,” George said. “The Guild is committed to helping guide our members to use the latest technologies, including AI, to produce outstanding results in this very competitive and rapidly changing industry.”
A Committee Emerges
The ETC was formed in 2022 to study how AI could affect jobs, and the committee delivered its first in-depth report to a general membership meeting in 2023. The task of presenting the findings fell to Asher Pink, a visual effects editor and ETC co-chair.
“I saw there was a huge technological shift coming,” said Pink. “I think a lot of people were understandably concerned about what will happen to our jobs.”
The report was titled “Exposure to Emerging Technology by Occupation,” and it categorically listed the threats and opportunities for each classification represented by the Editors Guild. In some cases the prognosis was dire, detailing job duties of Loggers and Transcribers that AI could replicate, though not with perfect accuracy.
The workflows of Dialogue Editors were flagged as high risk, because software already exists that can substantially improve audio quality, remove background noise, and even change the pitch and style of an actor’s voice.
The same is true for Music Editors, who can already use AI to categorize, analyze, and alter music. For example, the latest versions of both DaVinci Resolve and Adobe’s Premiere Pro software boasts a music “Remix Tool” that uses a drag-and-drop feature to easily extend or shorten a song in seconds. It works reasonably well for music with predictable rhythm and melody, but would it succeed to auto-edit “Bohemian Rhapsody?”
Conversely, the committee suggested that, for now, some job duties of post-production classifications may be more secure from AI technology. Those that require highly interpersonal interactions with producers, directors and studio executives may remain intact. Interpreting and executing notes on cuts will likely remain a “predominantly human-driven field.”
“A computer is not going to know what actor’s performance my producer or director likes or hates,” said Harry Miller, co-chair of the committee, a picture editor who has worked in the business for over 30 years and says he has seen drastic changes in workflows in his career. Editors are likely safe for now. “You’re not going to be able to train a computer to know what we know,” said Miller.
Assistant Editors may see their roles evolve as AI automates routine tasks like script syncing, creating string outs, and preparing sound turnovers. While these innovation shifts could potentially free time for assistants to do more creative work in collaboration with their editor, they could also bring added responsibilities, such as managing vast amounts of metadata.
If past is prologue, increased workload from technical innovations will alter the assistant’s relationship with the editor. A similar trend began in the 1990s during the transition from film to digital, when production increased the amount of footage shot each day.
As AI technology in post-production advances, members may be pressured to complete work faster and without as many people. Some members are reporting significant loss of work, though the committee cautioned the work slowdown may not entirely be the fault of AI, but more due to industry consolidation in the post-streaming wars.
“We’re seeing a large reduction in the amount of time ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) mixers are getting booked,” said Klimek, the sound editor, who also serves on the Guild’s Board of Directors.
Story Analysts — long said to be the gatekeepers of Hollywood and the first audience to weigh in on a film’s script — are among the smallest classifications represented by Local 700. For decades, the studio development pipeline relied on storytelling insight that only experienced humans could provide. Today, AI can read a book or screenplay in seconds and write a synopsis, analysis of characters, and even a log line that describes the story in one sentence.
The Trouble with Robots
But AI, however, can also result in errors or “hallucinations,” where the model authoritatively spits out information that is entirely incorrect. Human oversight – from, say, a Story Analyst – is still necessary, although AI could certainly be one tool in their kit.
“My fellow story analysts and I were paying attention to the fact that AI was this coming tsunami,” said committee member Alegre Rodriquez. “We’ve been sounding the alarm about automation done cheap and fast in our line of work.”
The ETC recently sponsored a study comparing human story analysts to AI programs. The result? Machines failed key aspects of judgment, advising the studio to greenlight every script. It might be part of a “positivity bias” commenters have noted in some AI models.
“AI never passed on anything,” Rodriquez said. “It loved everything it read. It wants you to win. But storytelling requires nuance—subtext, emotion, what’s left unsaid. That’s something AI simply can’t replicate.”
The Emerging Technology Committee came together in preparation for the contract talks in 2024. The Board of Directors wanted advice on what was coming and how to deal with it.
“Our first year in the committee was figuring out what the giant changes were going to be. I think we did a pretty good job with our analysis,” said Pink. “We continue to look outward years in advance, not just the current technology that’s on the market right now. We’re basing a lot of our research on tech that won’t actually become commercialized for many years.”
The ETC was consulted during negotiations for the last Basic Agreement to help create verbiage around AI. One key victory was helping to get an indemnification clause in the contract that shields members going forward.
“It protects us from being the fall guy for reckless use of emerging tech,” Pink explained. “As long as we follow the policies set by the studios, we won’t be held liable for things beyond our control.”
There’s the Vub
With the arrival of new technology, this could create new positions. For example, a new post-production craft has been building momentum in the last couple years — “vubbing,” the effect of changing video to match additionally dubbed audio. In the past, picture editors needed to cut away from a character speaking in-sync on camera to cover a newly added line of dialogue.
A new software called Deep Editor, designed by the company Flawless, uses AI to alter the movements of a character’s lips to match the new dialogue. Executives and software engineers have met with the ETC to explore how this technology would mesh into post workflows, mindful of the legal and ethical hurdles that arise. A new job description, like Vubbing Editor, could be added to the existing Sound Editor classification’s job duties.
Guild members working on the issue are ready to dive in and help companies understand the nature of post workflows – and also help members understand the tools’ potential.
“One of the most important aspects of our committee is to educate our members and tell them about what’s coming down the pipeline,” so that they may be trained and ready to use the tools, said Koobatian.
There is also the emerging craft of synthetic dialogue recording and editing, using tools like ReSpeecher and Elevenlabs. “These tools are the gold standard for synthetic dialogue,” says Klimek. “Respeecher in particular has positioned itself as a company at the forefront of the field, having been used on multiple Lucasfilm projects and even going so far as to license James Earl Jones’ voice rights, so that Darth Vader could live on in perpetuity. And these tools have landed firmly in the audio department.”
The Path Forward
The Guild is focusing on member education and training. Classes have been set up for understanding the basics of automation workflow and coding using Python software. And a class on Flawless and Deep Editor is in the works.
Members need to be proactive about AI. Discussions within the ETC continue to reveal both deep anxieties and thoughtful strategies for facing a film business that could soon be drastically altered.
”Maybe your job won’t look the same in the future,” Miller admitted, “but my job isn’t the same as it was 30 years ago either.”
Ultimately, both the Guild and the ETC’s messages are clear: the industry’s heart beats through its people. AI may become a powerful tool, but the irreplaceable spark—the human connection that breathes life into every story—must be fiercely protected.
“How long can we keep doing something that we really love for as long as we possibly can?” asked Rodriquez. “It’s the human touch that makes everything we do so magical.”
