Not the tech, the terms: a Hollywood veteran's century-spanning case for how AI reshapes creative work
ccerrato147 · x · 2026-09-24
A thread distilling a veteran's take on AI vs Hollywood: "It was never settled by the technology. It was settled by the terms."
- Three precedents: Sousa fought the phonograph over money, not machines, and won composer royalties; sound film killed theater-pit musician jobs forever but created sound design; 1980s Disney films needed 125,000 hand-painted cels, and digitalization succeeded because Walt only ever cared whether audiences believed the character.
- The honest part: the exec who shut down hand-drawn animation at DreamWorks doesn't dress it up — talented people lost their place, some thrived, some never recovered. "Nobody in the Valley says that part out loud."
- Reasoning vs creating: per his AI conversation — reasoning works on what exists and lands where the input pointed; creating starts from a blank page with infinite valid answers, and taste picks. He admits the impossible is no longer improbable, but nobody can describe the path.
- The ask: to the Valley — build with storytellers, not on top of them: credit, consent, compensation; to Hollywood — AI isn't leaving, spend hours setting terms instead of wishing it gone.
Cheaper films mean more films, bolder bets, and more seats. Not the tech. The terms.
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