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Art Directors Guild Rebukes Martin Scorsese Over AI Storyboarding Endorsement

The guild says the endorsement threatens union jobs, raising questions about the use of copyrighted art to train image‑generation models.

Overview

  • Black Forest Labs announced Scorsese as an adviser on June 2 and published video of him using its FLUX generative‑AI tool to create storyboards for preproduction work.
  • The Art Directors Guild, IATSE Local 800, issued a public rebuke Tuesday that accused Scorsese of "turning his back on" human artists and of promoting a tool that would do work under the guild’s jurisdiction.
  • The guild argued FLUX produces what it called “cinematic intelligence” only by ingesting large amounts of copyrighted artwork, likely scraped without consent, credit, or compensation.
  • Scorsese has defended the collaboration as a preproduction visualization tool that helps him show his vision to designers and cinematographers and said he tested the system and found it sped work without sacrificing craft.
  • The dispute has not produced a substantive public reply from Scorsese’s camp and highlights larger industry fights over job protections, contract language on AI and possible changes in how films are planned and staffed.