The awards season has begun, and over the coming weeks we’ll see interviews, ceremonies, parties and acceptance speeches. There’s a sense of happiness in the air, that atmosphere of celebrating a job well done. And it’s easy for all of this to feed a kind of collective imagination in which it seems that those of us who work in the audiovisual world are always surrounded by famous actors and actresses, influential people, in idyllic locations, celebrating at festivals and parties, telling stories that fascinate and inspire us, and dressing up to attend galas and collect awards.
And it’s not untrue — but it’s far from being the full reality. Beneath the red carpets, and without having to dig very deep, we find a very different picture. Precarity in our sector is overwhelming. The vast majority of technicians and artists struggle to make a living in such a ruthless industry. Temporary, discontinuous jobs, with pay that does not guarantee a stable income.
In 2024, a socio-labour study by AISGE (the Spanish Association of Actors and Performers) found that 77% of artists in Spain earn less than €12,000 a year, 72% live below the poverty line, and only 7% make more than €30,000 annually.
Meanwhile, AI is rapidly entering and settling into every area of the industry, with a very clear dual effect. Some tools are going to greatly democratise the sector, but at the same time they may lead to the exclusion of many professionals: digitally created actors who never set foot on a set, full scripts generated from a single prompt, automated storyboards and video editing, synthetic voices and dubbing replacing voice actors, music and sound effects composed by algorithms, and entire locations and backgrounds created entirely by AI.
Will we be able to adapt our professions to this new landscape? What value does the human hold in a world advancing technologically at the speed of light? Is AI the modern version of the phenomenon unleashed by the Lumière brothers at the end of the 19th century? It’s clear that we are living through a profound change on every level. What remains to be seen now is how we surf this wave without being dragged down into the depths of an ocean of bots, generative models and deepfakes.
We dream of being able to use AI as the wonderful tool it is (the image in this post was created with generative AI), without letting AI be the one to tell our stories, to give them a voice or a face, or to decide our narratives. We dream of a world in which the human remains essential, and humanity is a driving force to create, care for and build a sustainable future for all.
