So I saw a local play my wife was in yesterday, and everyone in the cast did a great job. Truly. But the play utilized rear projection for scenery and a lot of it was really obvious genAI rooms and man it brought me down. Like it looks like ass but more importantly it ruins the artifice of it all - ThreadSky

voicesbyzane.bsky.social • 13 days ago

So I saw a local play my wife was in yesterday, and everyone in the cast did a great job. Truly. But the play utilized rear projection for scenery and a lot of it was really obvious genAI rooms and man it brought me down. Like it looks like ass but more importantly it ruins the artifice of it all

Comments

voicesbyzane.bsky.social•13 days ago

I love theater. I really do. From Broadway to local. And I love local BECAUSE it often involves having to cut certain corners due to budget. It often leads to really fun creative workarounds for the grandeur of Broadway. Creative lighting and set dressing can do so much with so little.

voicesbyzane.bsky.social•13 days ago

Like I know I'm watching a play. You don't need a big aigen dining room with melting sets of armor and asymmetrical windows to tell me "we are now in the dining room." Just a really grim example of how this tech hurts art by removing the creative restrictions that force us to, you know, create

voicesbyzane.bsky.social•13 days ago

Again, the cast? Did great. It was a real funny play. Solid all around. But man I was just sitting there the whole time like

voicesbyzane.bsky.social•13 days ago

Like another way it was used was that the play involved old portraits that are meant to look like actors. Instead of finding portraits that sort of looked like the actors or, hell, just getting funny portraits, they used one of those "turn yourself into a classical painting" genAI plug-ins.

voicesbyzane.bsky.social•13 days ago

So now there are these glossy, obviously not painted ugly fucking computer slop portraits on the wall for entire scenes and it's like I understand you won't have unique portraits painted for this small local production. But is this really better? It's like anti art to me. Fuck.

voicesbyzane.bsky.social•13 days ago

I know this is a lot of emotion over a local theatrical production but it's just another very tangible example of this garbage tech worming its way into the art that brings me joy. It's a fucking cancer, spreading to every part of our culture.

raffsputin.bsky.social•13 days ago

Yeah. I had similar feelings seeing those particular elements. Unfortunately not my place to say anything.

Really enjoyed seeing you yesterday - you look great and I hope you'll come to the cast party! Would love to catch up.

kennady.bsky.social•13 days ago

thedevteam.itch.io•13 days ago

This is especially egregious to me because they could’ve partnered with local artists to do them.

thedevteam.itch.io•13 days ago

To be clear, I’m not saying local artists would be a free or even cheaper option. I’m saying that one of the joys of art is the way it connects people, especially people of different artistic disciplines. Cutting that off for AI slop is absolutely insulting.

kaseygifford.bsky.social•13 days ago

But thats one of the great things about theater...you can do so much with basically nothing

voicesbyzane.bsky.social•13 days ago

I grew up watching and partaking in a lot of black box theater. It's amazing how much the audience will just accept if you don't acknowledge what isn't actually there.

captainbragd.bsky.social•13 days ago

had a GM use AI gen backgrounds for every scene in a roleplay for a virtual tabletop. Took me a while to notice, but I would much rather have had no pictures and just theater of mind for that shit =m= really disapointing.

kennady.bsky.social•13 days ago

Man seeing that would have gutted me. I’m so sorry. Like I know it’s ‘just a backdrop’ but man. :(

kennady.bsky.social•13 days ago

Ok the rest of the thread loaded nooooooooo no no :( that is so :(

soleigh.bsky.social•13 days ago

it sounds stupid compared to this but at my nephew's 3rd bday recently, they had a giant banner hanging up with his name on it just *covered* with the most dogshit genAI made-up dinosaurs i have ever seen. i got whiplash seeing it when i arrived i hate it all so much!

voicesbyzane.bsky.social•13 days ago

But that's real because as a Dinosaur Kid (tm) dinosaurs are such a good gateway into getting into both science and history. Like you need those little moments, those little stimuli, to get kids into these things and if the people making it don't care the kids won't either

soleigh.bsky.social•13 days ago

you're right; my one hope is this kid grows up and looks back on that banner in old photos and has this "what...what the fuck who thought this was a good idea??" because at 3 i kid you not he is already VERY articulate with real dino names! he's so sharp he deserves better banners 😤

soleigh.bsky.social•13 days ago

but like...there are so many simple and good ways to do things like this. fron stageplay backdrops to posters and decor for a kid's party. folks dont have to get this embarassing ai slop so it's so frustrating when they do it anyway!

soleigh.bsky.social•13 days ago

on a good note since you also mentioned simple bgs and creative lighting...i caught an incredible burlesque show recently that did this SO well! like i am still thinking about the sets that used nothing but lighting tricks and it filled the scenery so much!

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply