A brand new ad from Under Armour featuring boxer Anthony Joshua has come under fire from creatives on Instagram after its director claimed it because the “first Ai-powered sports business” — but critics within the industry say it blatantly reused others’ work without credit as a part of an AI hype cycle money grab.
Director Wes Walker posted the spot, together with several variations and riffs, on Instagram earlier this week, saying: “Under Armour asked us to construct a movie from nothing but existing assets, a 3D model of Anthony Joshua and no athlete access. This piece combines Ai video, Ai photo, 3D CGI, 2D VFX, Motion graphics, 35mm film, digital video and advances in Ai voiceover. Every current Ai tool was explored and pushed to the utmost.” [I have left “AI” as “Ai” throughout.]
Seen by itself, the ad is just not in itself objectionable. Live footage is intercut with 3D models, landscapes and abstract scenes, all rendered in contrasty monochrome.
Walker claimed that the entire thing was done in three weeks flat, which is kind of short for a significant brand and athlete, and noted of the reliance on AI that “Key on this industry shift is that we stay true to the core of what we’re here to do – tell powerful stories and uplift the human soul with beautiful, provocative and interesting visions…Ai will integrate into our workflows in ever evolving ways … but the guts and the mind that peer behind the veil and doors of perception … remains to be and can all the time be ours.”
“Ours,” nevertheless, can have been an overstatement. While that is all quite run of the mill self-promoting pablum, as one often finds in such captions, the director was quickly taken to task by other creatives who identified that his ad largely repackaged one other’s work — and way more difficult and useful work at that.
The caption says that 35mm was a component of this “mixed media” production. What probably must have been said is there was an entire existing but unmentioned film-based production, directed by Gustav Johansson two years ago. “Cool film, But all of the stuff with athlete is shot by André Chementoff [Chemetoff ] and from a business I did?” asked Johansson in a comment.
It looks really good! But neither creator was initially credited within the caption, an expert courtesy that costs nothing and would have way more truthfully represented who actually created the pictures seen here.
Johansson, Chemetoff and others showed up within the comments incensed not that their work had been used (it’s inevitable in commercials) but that it was seemingly just redeployed as a cost-cutting measure and credit taken without acknowledging their contribution.
In an apparently now-deleted comment, Walker says that they did ask for access to Joshua, but “were rejected several times. UA had limited time, limited budget, 3 weeks from ideation to delivery… Timeline, budget, access, and the realities of production are all real and highly limiting concerns with commercials of this level.”
“UA get to do what they need with the footage after all but slippery slope you as a creative saying it’s AI when it actually humans behind it? AI has nothing to do with it really, it’s more how you select to label and promote your work [is] much more vital when times are shifting,” wrote Johansson in conversation with Walker.
“The longer term is brands training Ai on their products, athletes, aesthetics + repurposing existing footage bases + using Ai to do more with less in less time,” wrote Walker. (After arguing for a while, he did relent and successfully petitioned to have credits for them and others added to the post.)
This angle had creatives from across the industry coming out of the woodwork to decry what they perceived as one other step down the road of AI not replacing what they do but getting used by corporations to benefit from them. While there may be an expectation that business work might be abused and reused to some extent, they identified there may be an enormous gulf between shooting stock footage or on a regular basis stuff, and being commissioned to create a movie with a singular treatment and artistic vision — but each are being treated as raw material by brands.
Wrote cinematographer Rob Webster: “If times are shifting, surely it’s the responsibility of creatives to withstand changes that allow agencies and types to steal work from colleagues without appropriate credit…. Using this technology is inevitable but the applying of it, and discourse around it is extremely much in our hands.”
Video production firm Crowns and Owls: “When you’re someone that shoots for Shutterstock then you recognize you’re handing over work with the literal purpose behind it being re-use/recyclability. There’s a fundamental difference for those who did a business three years ago after which it’s kept on a hard disk drive by a brand just in order that they can wheel it out and bastardise it at any time when they don’t have ‘time or budget’, which let’s be honest, is nearly all the time and might be increasingly so.
“The legality is the legality – corporate worlds will all the time thrive within the grey area, but there’s a blatant artistic moral coding that’s been overstepped here, and it signifies a pivotal moment. The change is already underway. As artists, now greater than ever we must prove our price and we should be in dialogue.”
Producer Elise Tyler asks: “Once you see the unique, you start to grasp why this conversation needed to occur already. Why didn’t they simply commission the unique director again? Why would a brand new director make an ungodly by most standards day fee to ‘direct’ this? They didn’t need crew, they didn’t need locations, they didn’t need craft… Filmmakers should stand together as we traverse this recent AI landscape. Not turn a blind eye and say ‘however it’s the long run!’ ”
Director Ivan Vaccaro summed up what could also be amongst creatives’ last resort: refusal. “Saying no to a client and an agency is essentially the most powerful creative and human tool we will have. Something that no artificial intelligence will ever achieve.”
While Walker and his production would be the villain of the week, they’re hardly unique of their approach, and indeed the buck may not stop with him for accepting a job that will or is probably not ethical, but with Under Armour for rushing a fast turnaround to capitalize on the AI craze. Perhaps they underestimated the fervour of the creators whose decidedly analog and human-focused processes actually produce original and compelling content.
