THE CREATIVE COMMUNITY

Well, the curtain came down on our show last night for the final time at South Hill Park… and what a wonderful week it has been.

It’s been a few years since I have ‘trodden the boards’ as I have had to focus my time on motherhood. But since my own babe is old enough for me to leave her home so I can rehearse, I decided now was the time to flex my acting muscles and get back to it. And I couldn’t have found a more beautiful place to do it.

The stage is where I fell in love with my profession- and to share it with some incredibly talented children and young adults has given me a sense of hope and optimism.

From the effervescent Directing Team, full of drive and creativity, to our simply wonderful cast, it has been simply beautiful to be back where my heart feels happiest.

A Creative Community that came together to pull off something magical.

It wasn’t lost on us yesterday, as we said our lines to the sound effects of WW2 bomb sirens and harrowing stories from the war, that in the modern day world outside of the theatre, bombs were showering down in the Middle East.

A stark reminder that while we create meaningful art on stage, inspired by war stories of the past, war is happening right now as we go about our daily lives.

The Creative Community

Being a part of a company of actors is the loveliest form of Community- and right now, Community is what we all need.

With the world in a state of flux, world conflicts playing out in real time on the news and the rise of AI stealing livelihoods, it’s that sense of Community that is going to keep us going.

Whether it’s the cast and crew meeting up in the theatre bar to giggle over something that happened during the show.

A group of seasoned Voiceovers meeting in the pub to chat about the business, have a blether and share tales from their home studios.

Or bunch of creatives sitting round a table in a board room, brain storming ideas, finding that perfect creative team and commissioning people to create things with their bare hands and beautiful minds. 

Don’t let AI steal our Creative Community

If we lose that sense of Community and let AI take over- what are we left with?

For the Creative World to be held ransom by AI is an utter travesty. Those years of training, hard work, initiative, blood, sweat & tears, industry knowledge and pure talent are wasted. All because someone thought replicating what humans do would make the world a better place.

The world NEEDS live theatre.

TV & Radio advertising campaigns need to feature REAL human voices to be authentic.

We want professional photographers to take beautiful photos to represent our brands- not allow an AI generated set of images that are fake, inauthentic and put real creators out of a job.

Brilliant and talented Animators, Prop Makers, Costume Makers, Directors, Choreographers, Musicians, Singers, Dancers, Graphic Designers need to be kept in work.

It is the work of all these people that has been stolen to create AI- and now AI is wrecking that sense of Community and putting these people out of work.

AI isn’t the answer

So, STOP using AI as a short cut. It might be cheaper. It might make shareholders happy to keep costs down and drive up their profits. It might be popular and in vogue right now. But that doesn’t make it ethical or right.

And if you have used AI to create a cartoon of yourself on Facebook- shame on you. Doing this has ultimately put an Artist or Cartoonist out of work. That ‘fun’ image of yourself to get you a few likes on social media has used your physical image and  personal data and pushed all that information into their servers for them to use as they wish. Your data is feeding their machine and you can’t ask them to get your personal data back.

The AI machine devours but does not reward.

And if you are a Voiceover and have sold your voice to AI without proper contracts or agreements in place or have become one of the tens of thousands of voices on Eleven Labs hoping to ‘earn money for nothing’- Congratulations.

Not only have you been sold a lie (because we have factual evidence artists are getting nowhere near the proper renumeration promised by the platform), but you have contributed to the demise of your own industry as millions of free users are using your voice on their products and you aren’t being paid a penny for it.

Which means Voiceover Artists around the world are losing work to AI. And yes, that’s you too.

Where is the sense of Community in that?

So- let’s all just slow down, take a step back, and wise up.

Think about your actions and what YOU do as an Artist. Do you want to push all your data and creative skills into a machine so other people can use it for free and put you out of a job?

Or would you prefer to be part of a Creative Community- where we help each other make the business thrive, stay real and authentic, fight for proper rates of pay, create real art and keep humans at the heart of all things human?

I know where I want to be- and that’s smack bang in the middle of a beautiful Creative Community where we lift each other up- like the incredible one I have shared the theatre with this week.

Keep Theatre alive. Let’s protect creativity to keep Actors and every Artist out there in work.

In a world of vulnerability and uncertainty- Community is the only thing to get us through.