St. Bernard's mixed dog Rocco, which has appeared in films such as the drama Morning News, has been unaccompanied for years, and is not a single case in Hollywood. From Golden Race Dog Park to Duck Bob, more and more Hollywood animal actors are facing a "unemployment" crisis. With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, producers are more inclined to synthesize animal performances in post-production rather than using real animals, a trend that makes animal trainers worried about career prospects.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the job opportunities for animal actors are declining dramatically, and the head of the relevant agency said: “AI technology has had a huge impact on animal trainers and animal performance business.”The agency had provided animal actors for films such as “Humor”, “Low City Secret”, and is now facing a serious challenge.
There are various reasons for this situation, including the subsequent impact of the epidemic, the Hollywood strike and the overall shrinkage of the entertainment industry, but the rise of AI technology is becoming the most deadly threat. In recent years, more and more filmmakers have chosen to replace real animals with digital animals: in 2020 's "Call of the Wild", the Buck hound played against Harrison Ford was entirely generated by CGI technology; in this year's "Superman", the protagonist's pet dog is also a digitally scanned version of director James Gunn's pet dog. Even horse actors who have long been active in Westerns and historical films are now at risk of being replaced by "digital horses."
However, animal protection organizations, which have always advocated the abolition of the use of real animals in film and television production, welcomed this. They believed that forcing animal performances was exploitative, and film and television projects such as The Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Mufasa, which used cutting-edge technology to shoot animal themes, were the embodiment of progress. Animal experts in the industry insist that the emotional resonance brought by real animal performances cannot be replicated by AI.
Animal coordinator Bonnie Judd shared that in the 2019 movie "A Dog's Journey", her pet dog Belle closed her eyes according to the instructions when filming the death scene, and as the camera slowly pushed closer, "The whole studio everyone burst into tears. This kind of emotional resonance AI can never give". (Gu Anan)