The Art Directors Guild is not happy with Martin Scorsese’s promotion of an AI tool for storyboarding.
The Studio City-based crew union clapped back at the Killers of the Flower Moon director on Tuesday for a recent ad he filmed with startup Black Forest Labs. In the video spot, Scorsese — an advisor to the company — creates a storyboard featuring a medieval street with the use of the company’s FLUX technology and lauds the model’s display of “cinematic intelligence.”
The ADG called this an example of the director “turning his back on the human artists who throughout his career have helped him create his most memorable works.”
In its remarks, the labor group quoted a recent statement from Scorsese about his partnership with the AI company. “There’s always been this problem of how do you communicate what you see in your head to your cast and crew,” he said. “There are some things you have to see and feel. I’m interested in the intersection of technology and storytelling, and seeing how that can push the bounds of creativity to create deeper and richer experiences for audiences.”
From the ADG’s point of view, he was advocating for potential job displacement. ”He claims the solution is the use of this generative AI program to do the jobs that are rightfully the jurisdiction of Art Directors Guild Local 800 artists and designers — human artists and designers who have been successfully collaborating with directors to visualize their films for decades,” the labor group said in the statement. “Mr. Scorsese’s promotion of a generative AI product circumvents the input of Art Directors Guild Local 800 art directors, graphic artists, illustrators, production designers, scenic artists, set designers, and other talented Union professionals.”
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Scorsese for comment.
The ADG bargains on behalf of storyboard artists, who create visual sequences from written scripts that can guide the filmmaking process. The union also represents concept artists, illustrators, graphic artists, set designers and production designers. Scorsese himself has long drawn storyboards, and in his statements around his partnership with Black Forest Labs, he has suggested the company’s technology can help with this process.
With a membership that also includes art directors, scenic artists and others, the ADG has recently been hit hard by the recent contraction in the entertainment business. In 2024, the union paused a training program for young professionals due to mass unemployment in their covered crafts. According to annual filings with the Department of Labor, the union’s membership declined from 3,492 in 2022 to 2,966 in 2025.
And its members are among those most threatened generative AI, according to a 2024 study commissioned by the Animation Guild and The Concept Art Assn.
The ADG isn’t having it. “The skills of Art Directors Guild Local 800 artists and designers bring the highest level of value to any film or television production,” the union’s statement continued. “To think their professional contributions can be mimicked or outshone by generative AI, which is built on work likely stolen from them and many other artists from around the world, is a betrayal of the collaborative nature of cinema.”
Read the union’s full statement below.
