Chronicle Cinema · Policy

AI Code of Ethics.

“We don’t use AI to cut corners, we use it to expand them.
Zach Meiners · Founder & Creative Director, Chronicle Cinema
Effective date: August 1, 2026  ·  Reviewed as the technology changes.
Purpose
To use AI tools responsibly and creatively, ensuring human storytelling, ethical boundaries, and artistic excellence remain at the heart of every project.
Core principles
How we work with AI.
01
Human-first creativity

We use AI to enhance our process. It does not replace the humans who lead it.

02
Consent and credit

No AI training on voices, faces, or footage without explicit consent.

AI-assisted content will not erase the creative credit of our collaborators.

03
Transparency & disclosure

If AI generates something a viewer sees or hears (imagery, a voice, dialogue, a performance), we tell the client, and we agree together on how it’s disclosed.

Technical work (transcription, cleanup, restoration, upscaling) is craft, not authorship. We treat it the way we treat color and sound.

04
Tool, not oracle

AI tools should support creative choices. They don’t make final decisions. A Chronicle Cinema team member always has the final say.

05
Empowerment, not exploitation

We use AI to increase our production speed, expand access, and elevate new voices. We don’t use it to undercut creative labor.

06
Learning, always

We evolve with the technology. We learn from our mistakes. We stay curious. We are committed to ongoing dialogue with our team and clients about AI’s role in our process, culture, and content.

In practice
The questions clients
actually ask.

Principles are easy to write. These are the specifics: the answers we give procurement teams, legal departments, and talent representatives, in writing, before they have to ask.

Does our footage, script, or unreleased campaign go into AI tools?

Not into consumer AI tools. Ever. Client material (footage, scripts, brand assets, anything unreleased) is never pasted into a free or personal AI account.

Where we use AI on client work, we use enterprise-tier tools configured so the vendor does not train on our inputs. Your material is used to do your job, and then it is not used for anything else.

Does AI generate any part of what we receive?

Sometimes, and never without your sign-off. Generative AI can be a legitimate part of the toolkit: a concept frame, a set extension, an element that would otherwise be out of budget.

When it is used in something you will deliver publicly, you know about it before it is made, not after. You decide whether it ships, and how it is disclosed.

Where is the line between “AI-assisted” and “AI-generated”?

This is the distinction most policies dodge, so here it is plainly.

Technical. Transcription, rough assembly, noise reduction, cleanup, restoration, upscaling, eye-line correction. This is craft, the same category as color grading or sound design. We don’t disclose it, for the same reason we don’t disclose that we used a colorist.

Generative. Imagery, voice, dialogue, or performance that a machine authored. This is a creative decision, not a technical one. It gets discussed, agreed, and credited.

Voice cloning, digital doubles, synthetic likeness?

Not without written consent and compensation. A performer’s voice and face are their livelihood, not raw material.

If a project calls for synthetic likeness, the performer agrees to it in writing, in advance, and is paid for it. No exceptions, no burying it in a release form.

Who is accountable for what AI produces?

A person. Always. Every frame that leaves Chronicle Cinema has been reviewed and approved by a named human being who is answerable for it.

“The tool did it” is not a defense we will ever offer you.

This policy is reviewed as the technology changes, and it changes constantly. If your organization has AI requirements we need to meet, or you want this in a form your legal team can attach to a contract, write to hello@chroniclecinema.com and we’ll answer specifically.

The future of storytelling
Technology and AI will continue to evolve, and so will we. Chronicle Cinema’s commitment is simple: to use technology in service of our work, never the other way around. Every frame we create begins and ends with people: human ideas, human emotions, human stories.
Let’s make something iconic.
Human vision, sharpened by the right tools. Tell us about your project. It might just be our next one.
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