Unions: real members or no faces
Captions on jobsite stills.
Captions on jobsite stills. Real members or no faces. A union page does not need a photoreal "typical electrician" generated from a hall photo or a prompt that happens to look like the steward. That is a private person wearing a marketing brief. The work that ships is a plate the local already has permission to show — the hall, the site, a signed member still — with words burned on that you wrote.
A deepfake of a private person is not a style. TikTok's AI-generated content help forbids adult private figures used without permission. Minors are a hard stop. A labelled, obviously synthetic clip of an unnamed apprentice or a lookalike seeded from a real headshot is already over that line. Calling it solidarity does not move a platform. It does not move a decent local.
A generated member is still that person
A photoreal talking head from a steward's headshot, a crew Slack photo, or a "consistent on-brand worker" prompt is a replica. A standard photo release for a rally does not authorise new generated performances. If you ever generate someone, the grant has to say so — face, voice, duration, territory, take-down. A likeness release that covers AI generation is the clause list. Most locals do not need that clause. They need to stop generating members.
"We changed 15% of the face" is not a defence. Style-reference of a private headshot is how you get their head. A jobsite extra pulled off a contractor's Instagram is not an extra. They are a private figure on a site.
What is allowed, tightly: the building, the crane, the hall you photographed, a signed member photo used as a still (not a talking-twin seed), stylised illustration that is not photoreal of a real private person. Even an invented presenter is a poor fit for a wage card.
General information, not legal advice.
Jobsite stills you already own
Approved plates are files the local already owns: a walk of the site at lunch, the hall doors, a banner you printed, a signed still of a member who agreed to be shown as a photograph. You do not invent a crew to "humanise" the hall. You do not animate a member portrait "for reach." Reach is not a grant.
What you add is language you control — meeting time, hall address, a hiring-hall line — words you authored, not a generated mouth. If somebody who may be shown actually spoke on the file, transcribe that speech. If nobody spoke, write the line and overlay it. The picture underneath is a plate you can defend.
Captions are the words. They are not a face.
Add captions to a video is the transcribe-and-burn path: VEED speech-to-text on the clip's own audio, timed to the voice, burned in. 21 BASIC presets at the standard credit rate; 9 DYNAMIC presets at 2×. 165 language codes. It transcribes. It does not translate. It does not invent a speaker.
Accuracy depends on audio clarity. Jobsite noise and overlapping voices will degrade the transcript. Read it. Fix names and local numbers by hand. A misspelled hall is not a styling miss.
If the plate is silent — a still of the site, a still of the hall — do not run auto-captions hoping for a slogan. There is no speech to time. Add a text overlay burns one authored line: hook, headline, meeting time. You wrote it. A generate did not typeset it onto a helmet.
Auto-captions fail on proper nouns. Overlay fails only if you typed the wrong hall. Match the tool to whether someone actually spoke.
FAQ
If we label the video AI-generated, can we use a member's face?
Not on TikTok, and not as a general rule anywhere else. The private-figure restriction is permission, not labelling. A label tells viewers the media is synthetic. It does not create a grant from the person depicted.
What if they are a member and "we already have a rally photo release"?
Read it. If it authorises use of photographs from a shoot, it probably does not authorise generating new performances. Get a replica clause with a specific use, or shoot them. Use the still as a still.
Should we generate a "typical crew" so the site looks busy?
No. Invented crews are a likeness problem if they resolve to real people, and a trust problem if they do not. Empty sites you photographed are honest. Occupied sites you invented are not a style. Real members, or no faces.
How do we put hall hours on a silent jobsite still?
Write the line. Burn an overlay on the approved plate. Transcribe only if someone who may be shown actually spoke on that file. Do not generate a mouth to say the hours.