PEORIA (25News Now) – Atlanta-based Andrew Velcoff has been an entertainment lawyer since 1986. He has negotiated movie deals with big talent, and he has been heavily involved with major motion pictures.
Velcoff was in Peoria Friday to tell Bradley University students about his career, in a lecture titled, “From Broadcast to AI.” Velcoff said that regardless of how one feels about it, Artificial Intelligence is coming to entertainment.
He thinks it could bring movie producers helpful and affordable new tools, but there may be drawbacks as well.
“There’ll be some jobs lost, and some jobs gained, and hopefully at the end of the day, we’ll be able to adapt, and good talented people will be able to find their place in that space,” Velcoff said.
He believes that the law has not kept up with this technology, and there are still new regulations needed for copyright and how the technology can be used.
25News asked him about the AI character Tilly Norwood, which generated controversy after reports that it was being considered for film and TV projects.
“Certainly, the law doesn’t prohibit anyone from creating a character. Now, the only question is, have you taken that character from someone else? Did I study your face in order to create that face, and I think that’s an issue,” Velcoff said.
The character has been criticized by the screen actors’ union SAG-AFTRA, which also represents 25News reporters, producers, anchors, and meteorologists. The union president, Sean Astin, alleges that the character has indeed been generated using stolen work.
“She, it, is a synthetic creation garnered from ill-gotten data. The data that comes from our performers,” Astin said.
The human behind the AI company that made Tilly Norwood, Eline Van Der Velden, posted on social media that AI is a new tool that filmmakers can use alongside others like animation, puppetry, and Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI).
“I hope that we can welcome AI as part of the wider artistic family: one more way to express ourselves alongside theatre, film, painting, music, and countless others,” Van Der Velden wrote.
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