Position Statement
The director's eye. Expanded, never replaced.
Generative AI is not neutral. The tools, the data they were trained on, and the workflows they touch all carry consequences. Basalt was built by people who have spent careers inside this industry — in construction, on stages, in VFX. We are participants in this transition, not spectators, and we intend to participate responsibly.
Our position is simple. Generative methods at Basalt exist to extend what a human-led production can achieve. They are an instrument available to the director's eye — never a substitute for it.
The director stays in command.
Camera, lens, staging, performance, lighting — the creative process is unchanged. Directors and key creatives make the same decisions they have always made, with the same authority. Production data drives the image: tracked camera, scene reconstruction, lens metadata, lighting reference, photographed performance. Not prompts. Not chance.
Every frame is authored, not generated at random. If a shot cannot be repeated, refined, and directed, it is not finished work.
We do not replace crews.
Generative techniques compress iteration; they do not compress headcount. Every project runs on qualified artists, supervisors, and technicians. The availability of a tool never drives a staffing decision. Thirty years of craft sits at the centre of this pipeline, not at its margins.
We do not train on unlicensed material.
The generative tooling in our pipeline is trained on licensed data, on material we hold rights to, or developed with rights holders. We do not use scraped or unlicensed creative work as training data, and we hold every third-party tool we integrate to the same standard.
We are transparent about method.
When generative methods are used in a deliverable, we say so. Shot type, methodology, and pipeline are disclosed as part of standard production reporting. No client is ever uncertain about what they are receiving.
We support the industry working this out.
We follow the development of emerging standards from BECTU, PACT, and the wider HETV sector, and adapt as those frameworks mature. Credit and fair compensation for the artists whose work informs generative outputs is a live and unresolved problem across the industry. We do not pretend otherwise. Where we can act — in our own contracts, credits, and hiring — we act. Where the industry needs structural solutions, we back the people building them.
Preserve filmmaking. Expand cinematic possibility.
Questions about how we use generative AI on a specific project, before commissioning:
info@basaltstudios.co.uk