Founded in 2023, the Archival Producers Alliance (APA) brings together 300 archive producers to date. UNITED STATES and around the world with the aim of developing best practices around their role within the film industry. At the Getting Real conference in Los Angeles on April 16, the group unveiled a draft containing guidelines for using generative AI in accordance with the journalistic values long championed by the documentary community.
The founders of the APA, Rachel Antell and Jennifer Petrucelli and Stephanie Jenkins were present to address the subject during a round table. According to them, “the ultimate goal will be to create a set of principles that will be adopted as standards by filmmakers, production companies, platforms, awards bodies and distributors across the industry”. This first draft focuses in particular on how filmmakers could manage consent, primary sources and transparency in an era where generative AI tools are an option.
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Supervise without denying the advantages of AI
The Hollywood Reporterpresent on site, reports the exchanges of the discussion. “We recognize that AI is here and it’s here to stay. And we recognize that it brings the potential for incredible creative opportunities,” Jennifer Petrucelli said during the session. “And at the same time, we really want to encourage people to take a collective breath and move forward with thought and intention as we begin to navigate this new, rapidly changing landscape.”
Proof of the impact of this technology, the APA was created in the summer of 2023 after noting an increasing use of AI in documentaries – all without any framework having really been established. “We began to see that people were being asked to create fake archival materials, such as photorealistic images indistinguishable from primary sources,” says Stephanie Jenkins.
A call to put in place safeguards
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Last November, the APA therefore published a open letter calling for safeguards to be put in place around the use of generative AI. “In the documentary field, we are on the front lines of preserving the integrity and journalistic ethics of the archival material used in the films we work on – and together, we express our concerns about how the Generative AI will affect our work and documentary films as such,” can we read.
Today, far from denying the benefits of AI, the guidelines mentioned this week therefore aim rather “to address the creation of new documents, as well as substantial modifications to existing primary source documents that change their meaning in ways that mislead the public.”
Differentiate between synthetic production and historical archive
APA representatives add that when generative AI is to be used in place of these sources, filmmakers should take into account the algorithmic biases produced by the data the technology is trained on. Likewise, they must bring as much intention to the use of generative AI as they would to reenactments and consider in their production process how it “synthetic material”, if it is shared online and in other spaces, “risks forever confusing the historical record.”
There is also a question of transparency regarding the use of AI. From production teams to spectators, everyone must be made aware if this is the case. The legal aspect must also be taken into account in order to ensure the proper use of artificial intelligence.
A guide published by this summer
In their session at the conference, Rachel Antell and Jennifer Petrucelli and Stephanie Jenkins said the next steps for the APA would be to seek input from as many archive producers as possible and meet with broadcasters , to find specific filmmakers and production companies willing to adhere to the guidelines. The group hopes to release its final guidelines in summer 2024, Stephanie Jenkins added.
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