The Board of Governors of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) has held its annual election to appoint its new slate of officers. Richard Crudo will serve as president, along with VPs Owen Roizman, Kees Van Oostrum and Lowell Peterson; treasurer Victor J. Kemper; secretary Fred Goodich; and sergeant-at-arms Isidore Mankofsky.
The members of the Board, elected in May by the organization’s active membership, include: Curtis Clark, Dean Cundey, George Spiro Dibie, Richard Edlund, Fred Elmes, Francis Kenny, Matthew Leonetti, Stephen Lighthill, Michael O’Shea, Rodney Taylor and Haskell Wexler. Alternate Board members consist of Kenneth Zunder, Steven Fierberg, Karl Walter Lindenlaub, and Sol Negrin.
“I am honored to have another opportunity to serve this great organization,” said Crudo, who previously served three terms as ASC president from 2003 through 2005. “Our 94-year history makes us the longest standing group in the motion picture industry. As always, we will be aggressively promoting our art and craft, as well as the related interests of cinematographers everywhere.”
The ASC carries out its mission of inspiring the next generation of filmmakers through many industry events and initiatives, such as its Student Heritage Awards, Breakfast Club seminars, panel discussions by their Education and Outreach committee, the burgeoning Friends of the ASC membership level, and the org’s ongoing collaborations with other industry associations vital to the image-making process.
“I want to thank Stephen Lighthill for his hard work and dedication during the past term,” Crudo added. “We operate in an astonishingly fast-moving world, and I look forward to working with him and the other Board members as we expand our efforts on all fronts, from pre-visualization through post-production and image delivery.”
Crudo is also a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, serving as an Academy governor and chairman of the Cinematographers Branch. In addition, he has chaired and co-chaired the ASC Awards for several years throughout the past decade.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Crudo began his film career as an assistant cameraman. As a director of photography, he has shot a wide range of feature, television and commercial productions. Among his feature credits are Federal Hill, American Buffalo, American Pie, Music From Another Room, Outside Providence, Down To Earth, Out Cold, Grind, Brooklyn Rules, and My Sexiest Year. He has also directed several independent films, and currently shares cinematography duties with Francis Kenny, ASC on the popular FX Channel series Justified.
ASC was founded in 1919. There are 330-plus active members today who have national roots in some 20 countries. There are also 150 associate members from ancillary segments of the industry.
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