Director Eriq Wities–whose work calls on a range of techniques from stop-motion (with people, puppets and inanimate objects) to trick photography, hand-crafted art direction and in-camera, design-driven practical effects–has joined the roster of The Artists Company. Wities has up to this point done most of his projects through his own shop, Open Content; he previously was with mixed-media house ka-chew!
The New York-based director’s stop-motion and storytelling acumen are showcased in a campaign for the Illinois Institute of Art which takes accomplished professionals back in time before our eye to their beginnings as students at the art institute; Open Content produced the spots for David&Goliath. Among Wities’ other credits are a Save The Bay spot, out of agency Free Range Studios and produced by Open Content, in which plastic bags collectively form a rising tide that engulfs a woman standing at the shoreline; and client-direct gigs for the American Jewish World Service, Rainforest Action Network and U.C. Berkeley. All these jobs reflect a strategy of taking on socially conscious PSAs rather than spec work to not only demonstrate his talent but also gain airplay and online exposure to promote worthwhile causes.
Wities’ reel also includes a Djuice spot for Lowes Ukraine, and a client-direct YouTube job.
Wities was raised in the rolling foothills of Kilimanjaro, in the beautiful Tanzanian town of Moshi. He began experimenting with filmmaking and animation at an elementary school age, and his early works reflect colors and motion deeply influenced by centuries of East African dance and ancient textiles. It was in the Tanzanian street markets where Wities’ early sense of design and body movement was defined. The traditional East African wooden dolls were his original puppets. Fabricating joints and armatures from scrap metal and found soda cans, he assembled puppets out of antique Makonde sculptures and a love for animation and stop-motion was born.
AI-Assisted Works Can Get Copyright With Enough Human Creativity, According To U.S. Copyright Office
Artists can copyright works they made with the help of artificial intelligence, according to a new report by the U.S. Copyright Office that could further clear the way for the use of AI tools in Hollywood, the music industry and other creative fields.
The nation's copyright office, which sits in the Library of Congress and is not part of the executive branch, receives about half a million copyright applications per year covering millions of individual works. It has increasingly been asked to register works that are AI-generated.
And while many of those decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, the report issued Wednesday clarifies the office's approach as one based on what the top U.S. copyright official describes as the "centrality of human creativity" in authoring a work that warrants copyright protections.
"Where that creativity is expressed through the use of AI systems, it continues to enjoy protection," said a statement from Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter, who directs the office.
An AI-assisted work could be copyrightable if an artist's handiwork is perceptible. A human adapting an AI-generated output with "creative arrangements or modifications" could also make it fall under copyright protections.
The report follows a review that began in 2023 and fielded opinions from thousands of people that ranged from AI developers, to actors and country singers.
It shows the copyright office will continue to reject copyright claims for fully machine-generated content. A person simply prompting a chatbot or AI image generator to produce a work doesn't give that person the ability to copyright that work, according to the report. "Extending protection to material whose expressive elements are determined by a machine ...... Read More