Issue 86 - Cloning an Actor's Work
from 500 Words by Lee Schneider Hosted by Lee Schneider
Let's consider actors' voices as uncommon instruments, ready to fit vastly different roles and build big emotions with the smallest nuances of expression. Voice actors are hired on productions because their voice can be heavy as gravel or light as a butterfly. These voices may be virtually transparent to you, as you hear them narrating commercials, reading audiobooks, playing characters in animation and video games, and playing roles in podcasts. Some are famous, like Claire Danes and Maggie Gyllenhaal voicing audiobooks, and some you'd never expect to be voice actors, like Seth Green (Scott Evil in the Austin Powers movies), who has built up a repertoire of more than a thousand voice-acted roles. On August 12, the actors' union, SAG-AFTRA, closed a deal with Narrativ, an AI company, that allows union members to license their digital voice replicas for use in digital audio ads. Some actors are saying they have to fight the machine, and others believe they have to use the machine because the AI companies are going to clone them anyway. The read I got from friends in the acting community is that most working actors are against cloning their voices, because it will erode their standing as unique talents and ultimately reduce their income.
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