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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 1h

Oh I’m in it for the bags of money and respect Chloe!:)

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 3h

Some people love it! I find it very weird

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 3h

You can read up on that particular horror here:

theankler.com/p/run-it-thr...

‘Run It Through GPT-5’: The Phrase Changing Hollywood Overnight

Showrunners, writers, producers & marketing jumped on OpenAI’s update. Industry jobs will never recover

theankler.com

Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 3h

Yeah the horror of the all ai written book or even worse, what Hollywood are now calling the “GPT5 pass” on every script is very worrisome

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 3h

DON’T RUN, WE’RE YOUR FRIENDS

a cartoon character with a helmet on is holding a green gun

ALT: a cartoon character with a helmet on is holding a green gun

media.tenor.com

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 3h

I think i find it easier to do rough cuts in text, I always used to do “paper cuts” in tv before the tedious process of sorting it all into bins in avid. I’m obviously hugely spoiled by having brilliant sound designers who can go through and make those cuts work every time

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 6h

But - to use a concrete example - what if you hate transcribing and like that function in descript?:)

I know it's lazy but for me that feels like a Roomba, i don't mind robots doing the shit work, it's generative AI I have real concerns about.

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 6h

my sense is if you're trying to be ethical - marking footage etc - with it you're probably ahead of 99% of people deploying it:)

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 6h

Yeah I think we're in the same place there. I feel like if everyone is getting a fair wage and you're not using it irresponsibly, I think most people can live with it.

We all are Ned Ludd:)

Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 6h

oh god yes. You can't bloody turn it off!

On the other hand, I dealt with someone recently who was a huge purist, wanted us to not use anything but hand transcription, and I was a bit like...come on! Transcription is fine!

But clearly my line is different and so is everyone elses.

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 7h

For me, that's ok - it's basically editing, not journalistically different to covering a cut with a GV or a noddy. You could even do it with pre-ai tools for a ton of money.

But I appreciate some people are like "No ai, ever".

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 7h

Interested in people's views on whether ethical AI use is possible.

Say you shoot a video of someone, you pay them, get their consent etc and use AI to do lipsync marry it up to an existing audio edit of them (again, paid/consented with full knowledge).

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 8h

Wasn't he frozen in a Vietcong super plane at the North Pole? Surely we can do that one again.

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 8h

Politics + there's a business case you can make + passionate creatives in the room.

I know it sounds hard to believe but the pitches, especially the writer pitches from people/producers with deals, really matter.

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 8h

And "bankable team" + "It's very recognisable IP (even if not beloved)" + the sequel made money + studio politics (eg writer X has a deal they have to pay him for anyway) made it make at least internal sense.

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 8h

This is a great point, and it is odd. My guess though have done this Hollywood IP spin cycle a few times is:

It's probably not a spreadsheet business decision.

My guess is a bankable team of creatives including a writer, star (probably Leto, he's a producer on it), director all really liked TRON

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 16h

IMAGINE HOW FUCKING STUPID YOU HAVE TO BE TO INSTITUTE THAT POLICY.

Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 16h

That's not to say I haven't been astonished by dumb management decisions, or people just driving departments off a cliff.

My favourite, which happened in the year of our lord 2024, was a business refusing to operate a P&L on a show by show basis because that would "damage morale".

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 16h

The hardest thing on the business side is the constant churning change. The monetisation strategy of 2020 didn't work in 2021, what worked in '21 didn't work in '22 and so on.

Nobody knows what will work. And with the best guesses in the world, sooner or later you choose wrong!

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 16h

Baffling, dizzyingly rapid change has been a constant in my career in the media, which started not long after Facebook launched.

Almost this exact thing has happened to me, and I'd be astonished if many other reporters/writers/journalists haven't had a similar experience.

bsky.app/profile/jarj...

Michaël Jarjour @jarjour.bsky.social · 1d

An incredible speech by @marisakabas.bsky.social, and a tale of failed leadership that has shaped the situation journalism finds itself in today.

www.thehandbasket.co/p/grennell-c...

That's why I was taken aback when the Executive Editor asked me, "How do you think we can monetize our website?" I really wanted to say "how the fuck should I know?" and also "why are you asking me?" In retrospect it should've been a glaring red flag that the adults in charge had no idea what they were doing and that it would be up to me and my peers to figure it out. But that's something I wouldn't realize until much later on, after years of expecting someone else to fix it. Until I realized I was the adult.

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Reposted by Willard Foxton

Michaël Jarjour @jarjour.bsky.social · 1d

An incredible speech by @marisakabas.bsky.social, and a tale of failed leadership that has shaped the situation journalism finds itself in today.

www.thehandbasket.co/p/grennell-c...

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 18h

This is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT my experience of games for kids, it’s insane you can’t pay to have an ad free copy.

Also the ads are *insanely* mistargeted, my kids frequently getting ads for audible for example.

bsky.app/profile/gerg...

Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 1d

As a parent with a kid who’s starting to play games on the iPad, I’m so pissed at the predatory state of kid’s games.

1. I pay $7 to remove all ads from this game. Yet catch my kid watching ads - even after paying they are offered to watch for in-game rewards. WTH

2. (cont’d)

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 20h

I love the storytelling device in the books, which is old uhtred is telling you this WHOLE STORY at a feast, and therefore every time he does something dumb it’s redeemed by old him going “of course I was a FOOL when I did that side quest and I should have been more sensible, ah haha, more ale!”

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 1d

I’m very glad multiple people who knew me at the time have got in touch to say “no will you are selling yourself short here”

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Willard Foxton @willardfoxton.bsky.social · 1d

DoctorPepperCoin, the hottest new stable coin, based on Pepsi prices and long dated Grampian council debt

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