Skip to content
NAB Show NAB Show New York
  • Stories
    • Create
    • Connect
    • Capitalize
    • Intelligent Content
  • Events
  • Video Library
    • 2023 NAB Show New York
    • Demo Days
    • Video Learning Lab
  • Sign Up
  • Sign In
To See More Search Results, Hit Enter...
Showing 1–10 of 235 for “nab”
< Previous
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
Next >

Media Type: Text

December 4, 2023
Posted December 4, 2023

Evan Shapiro: We May Not “Get” Data, But We Know It Matters

author
Emily M. Reigart
Senior Editor
NAB Amplify


TL;DR

  • Evan Shapiro shares the results of a recent PCH Research study assessing American attitudes about data and privacy. The results are a bit surprising (and maybe even depressing at times).
  • The good news is that Americans believe their data is personal and that they should be responsible for maintaining their own privacy. But belief isn’t translating into knowledge or confidence in their choices.
  • Businesses need to account for these attitudes and help consumers, not take advantage of them. Americans say they are willing to punish companies that abuse their data-gathering or don’t respect privacy.


“Americans understand way less about how …personal data is collected and used than responsible adult humans should,” Evan Shapiro argues.

He grounds this opinion in a survey of 45,000 Americans (aged 25 and up) that he conducted with Publishers Clearing House, in conjunction with Syracuse University’s Daniela Molta and NYU’s Tiffany Johnson (founder of Xente Data).

Shapiro describes the findings as a “study of Americans’ knowledge, awareness, and understanding of their data privacy and how companies and organizations use the information we volunteer (often unwittingly)” in a recent Substack post.

Unfortunately, Shapiro says, “[T]he answers Americans gave to these questions are both surprising and alarming.” The study concludes, “Americans who are not data savvy are unlikely to see the value in their data and the ways to guard it.”

Some Topline Findings

First, it’s notable that respondents indicated that they considered all of their data to be personal, although they ranked social media, workout behaviors, political information and other readily available information as “less” personal.

Second, Shapiro and co. found “86% of Americans A25+ are concerned about the privacy and security of personal information and data. It ranks just below the current cost of living and just above the state of the economy.”

Interestingly, “[t]he majority of Americans A25+ consider themselves to be private people (82%) who are cautious about security (77%), yet only 51% feel informed about how their personal data is being used by companies, government, and social entities,” according to the PCH study. Yikes.

For example, consumers are not confident about their cookie decisions, despite being confronted with them daily. “Concern for data privacy and security, tied with increased data literacy, will place more pressure on companies to go above and beyond to protect people’s data,” Shapiro predicts.

What This Means for Businesses

Despite evidence of data illiteracy, consumers increasingly believe that they are responsible for their own data; 87% of respondents agreed they should take ownership of their data privacy.

Courtesy of PCH Research

However, “we know the barriers to managing individual data are high, especially for those who don’t have a strong foundation of data and digital knowledge,” Shapiro writes.

Despite the pervasiveness of the data economy, Americans also seem to be less than thrilled about data sharing. In fact, 38% of respondents said they’d prefer to never share their data, while 2% thought they’d trade it in exchange for knowing about new goods or services. One-third who’d be willing to share their data said they would want to control access, and it was slightly more important than monetary compensation (30%) and ranked significantly above altruism (24%).

But that doesn’t mean respondents don’t value their data. “Consumers view their DNA (50%), Biometric (47%) and Banking (44%) information as the top three most valuable categories of data, believing that data is worth $500+. While these top three categories are considered the most valuable to consumers, they are also the most widely sought after by public and private organizations (think Ancestry, Clear Travel, and every credit card and banking institution).”

And this doesn’t mean Americans expect businesses to eschew corporate responsibility.

If anything, it may indicate a lack of trust and an understanding that a two- or three-pronged (adding in government oversight) approach will be necessary to correct the path we’ve been on for the past three decades. In fact, the study found 64% “believe that both government and businesses should be responsible for data privacy and security.”

Additionally, past behavior shows that consumers will change their behavior if they believe companies have been irresponsibly using their data. Both Meta (formerly Facebook) and Wells Fargo saw significant fallout from privacy and data misuse scandals.

What Can, Will (and Should) Be Done

Shapiro writes, “[S]urvey respondents indicated they are willing to take more action against businesses they don’t trust, leading to a long-term decline for companies who violate consumer trust.”

Courtesy of PCH Research

Also, the study notes, “the change in cookie tracking and targeting will continue to make it difficult for quality advertisers to find their audiences. This signals a need to change their data approach, which opens the door for ‘Permission Marketing’ and gives businesses the chance to redefine how they think of loyal consumers and stops wasting marketing dollars on consumers who have indicated they aren’t interested.”

Shapiro notes that there is a current patchwork of data privacy legislation (and proposed legislation) in the U.S., creating a difficult environment for businesses and consumers alike. The study advocates for federal action to both regulate data collection and to educate consumers about their rights and responsibilities.

Some red flags: About two-thirds of respondents said they were unsure or chose an incorrect answer when asked whether “Companies with ethical standards and data privacy policies do not sell my data” and “I can stop advertisers and marketers from collecting and using my personal data to target ads online to me”. Also, Americans in the 44-65 year-old cohort were more likely to be unsure or incorrect about these answers, indicating that there is an information gap to be filled.

But the good news is that “there is a desire to learn more and do more” to protect consumer data; in fact, “48% of survey respondents agree with the statement ‘I am willing to learn what kind of data is being collected about me’.”

  • Streaming
  • Connect
  • Distribution and Delivery
  • Industry Resources
  • Expert Opinion
  • Research / Data Science, Analytics, Data Visualizations

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Evan Shapiro Navigates the “Dark Room:” How Data and Engagement are Shaping the Future of FAST
Evan Shapiro Navigates the “Dark Room:” How Data and Engagement are Shaping the Future of FAST

Evan Shapiro and Justin Evans examine how data analytics and engagement are critical in the maturation of Free Ad-Supported Television (FAST)

Leave a Comment on Evan Shapiro: We May Not “Get” Data, But We Know It Matters
December 4, 2023
Posted December 4, 2023

Lia Haberman: When Working With Creators, It’s All About Alignment



TL;DR

  • Hiring an influencer is about entering into a brand partnership, not tapping a living ad unit, says Lia Haberman. The gives and the gets have to make sense for all parties.
  • Don’t forget that the audience is an integral part of this equation. Factor in their expectations for content and what actions they’re primed to take when choosing the right creator with whom to work.
  • Creators, not just brands, must respect their audiences and what they want. A great way to consistently deliver this is serialized or franchised content.


Lia Haberman wants businesses to know that creators are people, too!

“When you’re hiring an influencer, they’re not just a living ad unit,” Haberman tells Connor Begley of the Earned podcast. “This is essentially a business partnership. And there are going to be influencers who deliver different results for you.” 

When partnering with a creator, remember, she says, “It’s not a one size fits all solution.”

Once you’ve found someone you think would be a good fit, she suggests, “It’s really important to be aligned internally on what you think an influencer can do, and have realistic expectations about the person you choose, the campaign, the type of content that gets produced.”

Haberman says, “Sometimes, you know, people are hoping to drive sales, and they’re not seeing those conversions. Whereas the influencer that you hired, and the type of content that they produced, was really great for awareness, but wasn’t necessarily going to convert.” 

Think about whether “they have an audience that is primed to shop or whatever it is that you’re hoping to kind of convert. And so, I think you need to look at: Is this person already doing this? Do they have a good understanding? And is their audience embracing that? Do they look to this person for recommendations to understand, like, what is the latest and greatest lipstick, pair of shoes, television, headset to buy?” 

In terms of alignment, “You’ve got the brand. You’ve got a creator-influencer. You’ve got their audience. You’ve got the needs, and changes in whims of the platforms. And so there are a lot of different parties in every equation.” 

To be successful, Haberman says, marketers should consider: “Is this good for the creator? Is this good for their audience or interesting for their audience? Is this going to work with how the platform is evolving and how good storytelling takes place on that platform?”

Advice for Creators

Haberman believes strongly that creators must develop their own perspective to be successful. “Especially as a solopreneur, you want to find your voice and really bring something to it that’s distinct and unique from what other people are doing,” she says.

“Think about your social voice or your newsletter voice or whatever as a persona,” Haberman suggests. She adds, “It should be as honest and authentic and close to the truth as possible. But it’s definitely a version of you.” 

Also, don’t be afraid to enter into partnerships. Haberman has found, via her students, that “people expect to be marketed to.” She says they understand creators need “to get paid” and aren’t offended by this type of content.

It’s all part of “understanding what the audience wants to read” or watch or listen to and “respecting that, looking at the analytics,” Haberman says. It’s crucial to avoid “letting your own judgment cloud what people enjoy.”

If you have an established business, Haberman advises, “You’ve got to respect what people want. Clearly, you’re not going to let them dictate the business. But I think if you have an already established audience, it does a huge disservice and disrespect to say, ‘Oh, we’re pivoting; we don’t want those people.’”

Obviously, “You can try and incorporate a new audience demographic” but don’t forget to serve those who made your business what it is.

One effective way to do that? Create “series or recurring content franchises,” Haberman suggests. “That’s what people love. They love the familiarity they love like these recurring characters.” 

As a consumer, she says, “ I know what I’m in for. I know what to expect. And so for creators, that’s the way to think about it. It’s going, like, super granular on a theme that you keep introducing to your content. And I think it’s super important. Brands love it, too, to be able to market through a creator.”

For brands, “It’s like a recurring chance to like get our message across. It breeds familiarity, loyalty. It’s an opportunity for really great storytelling.”

Yet, “It has to be compelling” and “Not any series is going to do, and you’ve really got to think about, like, what is good storytelling? Who’s telling the story? Is it more product integration than maybe product marketing? Which tends to work better in series?” 

When brainstorming serial content, Haberman says, “Make it easy. Make it interesting. Make it familiar.”

  • Content Creation
  • Streaming
  • Capitalize
  • Media Content
  • Creator Economy
  • Content Publishers
  • Interactive and Cross Platform TV / Web / Mobile
  • Social Networking / UGC

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Gavin Guidry: How to Get Great Content From/With/By Creators
Gavin Guidry: How to Get Great Content From/With/By Creators

Brands that “prioritize community and build authentic creator relationships” will benefit from influencer marketing, says Gavin Guidry.

Leave a Comment on Lia Haberman: When Working With Creators, It’s All About Alignment
December 4, 2023
Posted December 1, 2023

It’s Been a Year of ChatGPT. What Just Happened?


Introduced Nov. 30, 2022, OpenAI’s ChatGPT had one hell of a year, notching more milestones than some startups achieve in the entirety of their existence. But as is the case with every new technology, the not-so-little App That Can (Do Almost Everything) has also generated a number of dustups in its initial year.

Let’s review some of its wins, losses and more ambiguous landmarks. 

Win

DALL-E and Midjourney may have kicked off the conversation in Summer 2022, but ChatGPT succeeded in making generative AI a household topic. ChatGPT is miles ahead of other AI assistants in the brand awareness race, capitalizing on first-to-market features, easy name recognition and a number of controversies that kept it in the news.

ChatGPT alone has logged more than 14 billion visits, accounting for about 60% of visits to AI tools, as of August 2023, according to Writer Buddy. Can you say “market leader?”

Loss

The writing is on the wall for stringent interpretations of the fair use doctrine and copyright law. Despite challenges from a number of writers, performers and other creatives, lower courts have ruled that it’s reasonable to use copyrighted material to train LLMs. Exactly what that means is…confusing. 

This is a win for ChatGPT, but a serious bummer for those whose blood, sweat and tears will not be compensated or even acknowledged. It may be the way the wind is blowing, but it’s hard not to see this as a disincentive for (human) creators.

It’s a Toss Up

The Biden administration’s executive order on AI. It’s an important first step, but there are too many questions about how regulation will play out to count this as a true win (for OpenAI or for the American public). It may emphasize transparency, but we’re all in the dark about enforcement.

Win(ner) 

Sam Altman. The OpenAI CEO may have had, umm, a number of challenges in the fourth quarter, but he is still standing at the helm of ChatGPT’s parent company. This is no small feat, considering the criticisms leveled at his leadership, but it helps to have friends (financial backers) in powerful places (Microsoft).

Also, this drama was a win for the AI industry at large, Mike Beckley argues for Fast Company.

Loss

AI skepticism may persist, but those voices — even those loud and prominent in the tech industry — continue to be drowned out by the latest OpenAI feats. They called for a six-month pause and got accelerated uptakes and new features. 

You don’t have to be a Luddite to worry that general artificial intelligence is going to change how we do business and create art. It’s clear that, once again, caution will not win the day in Silicon Valley.

Looking at it another way, I suppose this is a win for techno-optimists, like Mark Andreesen…

It’s a Toss Up

Some of the sticking points of the Hollywood strikes centered on generative AI and synthetic media. It would be easy to put this in the loss column, but any publicist will tell you that there’s no such thing as bad press. 

As writers fretted about being replaced in the writers room, the public was introduced to the idea that ChatGPT could do punch-ups. Similarly, actors who worried over their likenesses being used without their permission spread the word that generative AI could be used to make movies with minimal involvement from actual human crews.

It’s a Toss Up

Some of the sticking points of the Hollywood strikes centered on generative AI and synthetic media. It would be easy to put this in the loss column, but any publicist will tell you that there’s no such thing as bad press. 

As writers fretted about being replaced in the writers room, the public was introduced to the idea that ChatGPT could do punch-ups. Similarly, actors who worried over their likenesses being used without their permission spread the word that generative AI could be used to make movies with minimal involvement from actual human crews.

Win

ChatGPT is a win for those of us who choose to embrace its capabilities without over-relying on it. Whether you go the centaur or cyborg route, ChatGPT likely has an offering that can facilitate some aspect of your life or your job — and if ChatGPT doesn’t, there are a number of industry-specific AI tools that can help you say goodbye to rotoscoping, for example.

(But it’s only a win if we’re able to recognize ChatGPT’s limitations and hallucinations.) 

Loss

This spring, OpenAI joined the dubious ranks of companies who have experienced a major data leak. In March, a bug exploited weaknesses, the company says, to release user information, including chat histories and personal identifiers.

Toss Up

Google was ahead in the race (or at least it was publicly), but now Alphabet is playing catchup and seems to be losing out to OpenAI (and therefore, Microsoft) at every turn. But despite ChatGPT’s headstart, competitors ranging from Meta to startups are finding ways to exploit the desire for the genAI tools.

More Memories <3

If you’d like a more comprehensive look at ChatGPT’s milestones, check out this Timeline of ChatGPT, courtesy of Script by AI. Engadget Senior Editor Andrew Tarantola crafted a human version of that list, emphasizing the more significant (and dramatic) moments. 

Also, Creative Media’s Peter Csathy laid out his predictions for ChatGPT’s 2024, writing for The Wrap. A tall order — and I salute him for his bravery in tackling this heretofore unpredictable topic. Csathy writes, “[W]e certainly can anticipate several major developments in 2024 that directly impact the media and entertainment business and how creative works are both developed and monetized.” 

  • Streaming
  • Intelligent Content
  • Management and Systems
  • Al / Machine Learning

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
ChatGPT and Other Language AIs Are Nothing Without Humans
ChatGPT and Other Language AIs Are Nothing Without Humans

Georgia Tech sociologist John P. Nelson explains how countless hidden people contribute to the magic of ChatGPT and other language AIs.

Leave a Comment on It’s Been a Year of ChatGPT. What Just Happened?
December 4, 2023
Posted December 1, 2023

Taryn Southern: AI Is Your Full Stack Creative Team and You’re the Director

creator economy


TL;DR

  • Content creator and AI artist Taryn Southern shares practical tips for how you can use AI to transform your creative process and your storytelling.
  • Southern thinks that in five years AI will enable storylines to shift along with our intended physiological states.
  • She stresses that AI is not a silver bullet for creativity and that there will be issues to manage (such as copyright) but that it’s up to us storytellers to determine what we want to use it for.


“In the time it takes for me to even finish the sentence, AI can create a 4K photograph, craft a pitch deck, produce pop songs,” says content creator and AI artist Taryn Southern. “We knew the robots would eventually come for our jobs but how do we feel about it encroaching on the last bastion of humanity, our creativity?”

Southern has released the world’s first solo pop album composed with AI and directed an award-winning film on the future of human and artificial intelligence. In a video released by Vimeo she shares how you can use AI to craft powerful stories that inspire action and impact.

Like many other creators, her message is that AI is a tool that for creation for imagination and for saving time and money.

“The only thing that I think we need to fear at this moment is complacency,” she says. “If we don’t learn how to work with the tools, if we don’t learn how to build and synthesize our own ideas with them, then AI could be a serious threat. But if we want to push creative boundaries, if we’re willing to learn and adapt quickly and iterate, I do believe we will thrive.”

She breaks down the steps to creativity. These include “exposures” to what we’ve been taught or educate; an “operational” component, which is “how we actually get from point A to point B,” and also for a lot of artists appointed great friction; and our ability to “synthesize,” which means taking an insight from one domain and applying it to another domain.

The fourth component of creativity, for Southern, “is that elusive, magical moment that we all just crave as creatives — illumination. It’s the unexpected ‘A-ha’ moment that happens in the shower when you’re least expecting it.”

Every creator will have their own relationship to these four ideas. She then proceeds to detail how AI can be used to augment or “fill in the holes of our own creative expertise,” which is currently typically done in collaboration “with real life people.”

That’s fine if you have a budget or are part of a business, but what if you’re a DIY creator? That’s where AI really scores, she says.

“Now with AI, you have access to all of these skill sets and perspectives and tools… and you get to collaborate with them on your own time, no budget required.”

Cr: Taryn Southern
Cr: Taryn Southern

She asks us to think of AI as our “full stack creative team” in which you are the director.

“To be a great director, you need to have clarity and specificity in your direction. You also need to have meta-awareness. You’ll be able to filter through the good ideas from the bad ideas, allowing for novel ideas to seep in, and also to separate and improve on each component part of your project before assembling it all back together. That’s really what an incredible director does.”

In order to work effectively with AI, you need to train it on the various components. That means giving some thought to the project goals (am I trying to sell a product? Am I trying to build a brand? Am I writing a musical?); the constraints (resources, time and budget) and the audience you are targeting.

All standard issue checklist for any serious content creator. Then it’s about selecting your “AI team” from the hundreds of off the shelf algorithms out there capable of generating text to images, video to transcription.

“You are going to find your own just by experimenting. And once you have your AI team members, you can actually select the tools that you feel best represent their skill sets,” she says.

“Once you’ve gone back and forth with ChatGPT, and you have a finished script, you can ‘gut check’ your work to ensure it meets your goals and that of your audience. You can also ask GPT to identify if there are any biases or critical missing pieces of information that you should be aware of,” she continues.

“Finally, it’s time to move on to production. Now I’m not a cinematographer, I have very little skills here. So of course, I started by asking GPT about specific lenses that I can use to inform the starting images in my work, I can take that information over to Midjourney and insert into my prompts there.”

Southern thinks that, by 2030, AI will enable us to be able to listen to music tailored to our cognitive and emotional needs, “storylines will shift for our intended physiological states, art will change in real time to optimize our brainwaves,” she predicts.

“So much will be happening, and it will be combined in real time with our physiological signals. But AI is not a silver bullet for creativity. The impact of this tech means we will see a lot of content, a lot of noise and information, and a lot of misinformation and copyright issues,” she says.

“On the other hand AI also will allow us to accomplish incredible feats of the human imagination and empower new ways of being and thinking across the human experience and across our storytelling. It’s really just up to us as storytellers to determine what we want to use it for.”

  • Content Creation
  • Intelligent Content
  • Management and Systems
  • Industry Resources
  • Creator Economy
  • AI
  • Expert Opinion
  • Al / Machine Learning

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Leave a Comment on Taryn Southern: AI Is Your Full Stack Creative Team and You’re the Director
December 3, 2023
Posted December 1, 2023

ChatGPT Turns 1: The AI Chatbot’s Success Says as Much About Humans as Technology

BY TIM GORICHANAZ, DREXEL UNIVERSITY
ChatGPT AI artificial intelligence

ChatGPT was launched on Nov. 30, 2022, ushering in what many have called artificial intelligence’s breakout year. Within days of its release, ChatGPT went viral. Screenshots of conversations snowballed across social media, and the use of ChatGPT skyrocketed to an extent that seems to have surprised even its maker, OpenAI. By January, ChatGPT was seeing 13 million unique visitors each day, setting a record for the fastest-growing user base of a consumer application.

Throughout this breakout year, ChatGPT has revealed the power of a good interface and the perils of hype, and it has sown the seeds of a new set of human behaviors. As a researcher who studies technology and human information behavior, I find that ChatGPT’s influence in society comes as much from how people view and use it as the technology itself.

Generative AI systems like ChatGPT are becoming pervasive. Since ChatGPT’s release, some mention of AI has seemed obligatory in presentations, conversations and articles. Today, OpenAI claims 100 million people use ChatGPT every week.

Besides people interacting with ChatGPT at home, employees at all levels up to the C-suite in businesses are using the AI chatbot. In tech, generative AI is being called the biggest platform since the iPhone, which debuted in 2007. All the major players are making AI bets, and venture funding in AI startups is booming.

Along the way, ChatGPT has raised numerous concerns, such as its implications for disinformation, fraud, intellectual property issues and discrimination. In my world of higher education, much of the discussion has surrounded cheating, which has become a focus of my own research this year.

Lessons from ChatGPT’s First Year

The success of ChatGPT speaks foremost to the power of a good interface. AI has already been part of countless everyday products for well over a decade, from Spotify and Netflix to Facebook and Google Maps. The first version of GPT, the AI model that powers ChatGPT, dates back to 2018. And even OpenAI’s other products, such as DALL-E, did not make the waves that ChatGPT did immediately upon its release. It was the chat-based interface that set off AI’s breakout year.

There is something uniquely beguiling about chat. Humans are endowed with language, and conversation is a primary way people interact with each other and infer intelligence. A chat-based interface is a natural mode for interaction and a way for people to experience the “intelligence” of an AI system. The phenomenal success of ChatGPT shows again that user interfaces drive widespread adoption of technology, from the Macintosh to web browsers and the iPhone. Design makes the difference.

A man wearing glasses looks at a laptop screen, his hands poised over the keyboard, text on the screen
The chat in ChatGPT is just as important as the AI under the hood. Cr: Nicolas Maeterlinck/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images


At the same time, one of the technology’s principal strengths — generating convincing language — makes it well suited for producing false or misleading information. ChatGPT and other generative AI systems make it easier for criminals and propagandists to prey on human vulnerabilities. The potential of the technology to boost fraud and misinformation is one of the key rationales for regulating AI.

Amid the real promises and perils of generative AI, the technology has also provided another case study in the power of hype. This year has brought no shortage of articles on how AI is going to transform every aspect of society and how the proliferation of the technology is inevitable.

ChatGPT is not the first technology to be hyped as “the next big thing,” but it is perhaps unique in simultaneously being hyped as an existential risk. Numerous tech titans and even some AI researchers have warned about the risk of superintelligent AI systems emerging and wiping out humanity, though I believe that these fears are far-fetched.

The media environment favors hype, and the current venture funding climate further fuels AI hype in particular. Playing to people’s hopes and fears is a recipe for anxiety with none of the ingredients for wise decision making.

What the Future May Hold

The AI floodgates opened in 2023, but the next year may bring a slowdown. AI development is likely to meet technical limitations and encounter infrastructural hurdles such as chip manufacturing and server capacity. Simultaneously, AI regulation is likely to be on the way.

This slowdown should give space for norms in human behavior to form, both in terms of etiquette, as in when and where using ChatGPT is socially acceptable, and effectiveness, like when and where ChatGPT is most useful.

ChatGPT and other generative AI systems will settle into people’s workflows, allowing workers to accomplish some tasks faster and with fewer errors. In the same way that people learned “to google” for information, humans will need to learn new practices for working with generative AI tools.

But the outlook for 2024 isn’t completely rosy. It is shaping up to be a historic year for elections around the world, and AI-generated content will almost certainly be used to influence public opinion and stoke division. Meta may have banned the use of generative AI in political advertising, but this isn’t likely to stop ChatGPT and similar tools from being used to create and spread false or misleading content.

Political misinformation spread across social media in 2016 as well as in 2020, and it is virtually certain that generative AI will be used to continue those efforts in 2024. Even outside social media, conversations with ChatGPT and similar products can be sources of misinformation on their own.

As a result, another lesson that everyone — users of ChatGPT or not — will have to learn in the blockbuster technology’s second year is to be vigilant when it comes to digital media of all kinds. The Conversation

Tim Gorichanaz, Assistant Teaching Professor of Information Science, Drexel University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

  • Streaming
  • Intelligent Content
  • Management and Systems
  • Industry Resources
  • AI
  • Expert Opinion
  • Al / Machine Learning
  • Business and Technology Consultants
  • Research / Data Science, Analytics, Data Visualizations

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
AI Will Be the Most Impactful Technology in 2024, Say Global CTOs (and Pretty Much Everyone Else)
AI Will Be the Most Impactful Technology in 2024, Say Global CTOs (and Pretty Much Everyone Else)

In 2024, AI applications and algorithms that can optimize data, perform complex tasks, and make decisions with human-like accuracy will be used in diverse ways, the study finds.

Leave a Comment on ChatGPT Turns 1: The AI Chatbot’s Success Says as Much About Humans as Technology
November 28, 2023
Posted November 28, 2023

As Broadcast and Cinema Workflows Converge, Everyone (Everyone!) Has Something to Learn

Watch “Decoding Broadcast: A Call to Filmmakers and Cinematographers Bridging Worlds” at NAB Show New York 2023.


TL;DR

  • Elements of broadcast and feature film are fusing as evidenced by the introduction of cine-style depth of field cameras into live sports.
  • Cinematographers are beginning to work within live broadcast although there are still huge differences in workflow, pacing and language they need to get to grips with.
  • It is thought that more cinema camera companies will open up their systems to allow for tighter broadcast integration.


The conventional wisdom is that live broadcast and cinema production will never meet, but the tools and the craft skills are beginning to blur. While there remain key cultural, equipment and workflow differences it seems as if there’s greater convergence ahead.

Mike Nichols, CEO at Surella, defines the core difference in terms of logistics and aesthetics.

“If ever there was an illustration of left brain, right brain, it’s that the broadcast execution looks at how we do it from the technology side, whereas in filmmaking, the tools are there to support a creative vision,” he said in the session “Decoding Broadcast: A Call to Filmmakers and Cinematographers Bridging Worlds for Filmmakers and Cinematographers” at NAB Show New York.

“When you’re executing broadcast, it’s really about the nuts and bolts: Does this signal get to this truck? It’s not as if the broadcast mentality doesn’t care about image quality, but it’s not really the primary driving force behind the execution. Whereas in film, you’re approaching the job to look beautiful, cinematic, aesthetically pleasing.”

Nichols is a 20-year veteran of the production and production resource industry, including a dozen years at AbelCine, where he helped grow the company in the large format multicamera space.

This year he launched Surella, a production company with strategic partnerships in the live multi-cam and immersive market.

His contention is that elements of broadcast and feature film are fusing. Perhaps there is no greater evidence of this than the introduction of cine-style depth of field cameras into live sports. He also has some personal experience of projects that have crossed his desk recently where cinematic style Look Up Tables were being applied to multi-cam studio setups.

There remain huge differences, however, not least if you are a cinematographer or a broadcast TD looking to crossover into the other’s world.

“In the broadcast world, you just don’t have time for the nuances of color space. You have to plot out everything well in advance in a way that is very different than storyboarding a film with your director. It’s a completely different pace. And the language that’s used is pretty jarringly different.”

He reports that there are more and more cinema DPs being brought in to do live, multi camera broadcast-style shoots but they are finding it a culture shock if they’ve never been in that environment.

“The good thing is some of the tech producers, the engineers that work at the high level understand both worlds and do a really good job of holding the hands of those cinema DPs because if not it could be very jarring,” he says.

“[In live broadcast] you’re under such immense pressure to nail it, you don’t have a second take.”

He advises DPs with no experience of broadcast but keen to get involved to listen to the communications / talkback between camera-ops, technical directors, vision mixers, replay ops and the director calling a show.

“If you really want to understand the live environment just listening to the comms and hearing how the communication happens during a live show. It’ll blow your mind. The main focus is collaboration because if you don’t do that, you’re going to be spinning off in different directions and not in sync.”

Nicols also talks up the skills of the camera-operator working with cine gear like Sony FX cameras in a live environment. It’s not easy to get the focus right in a split second.

“You’re pulling focus but you’re not on a 30-inch lens where you can kind of snap right to it. You’ve got to find it and it’s changing the way operators are approaching their work. It’s changing the way directors are calling shows because they know they have to give an extra beat when they cue up the next camera in their preview in the multi-cam. They know to give their operator that split second extra to find that focus. Because as beautiful as the cinema lenses are, the shallow depth of field is a lot more challenging for the operators.”

All in all, he thinks it’s easier to integrate the cinema workflow into the broadcast environment than it is to bring a broadcast environment into a cine workflow where DPs have to command bringing in more crew, a Steadicam op and focus puller, plus additional camera assistants.

In a recent job by Surella, Nicols reports shooting a concert at Radio City Music Hall using the same cameras, workflow and team for the concert as for the feed produced for the giant screen IMAG.

“It was great because it gave us this freedom to do this thing that really isn’t typically done where we we’re producing the IMAG but we we’re also cutting a concert film. And people really responded well to seeing what looked like a concert film on the big screens as opposed to just every shot being just of the talent. It really worked. I wouldn’t be surprised if we start to see more IMAG and concert film merging.”

Camera and videos systems developers like Blackmagic Design are already targeting crossover kit for this space. RED Digital Cinema has also recently developed cameras and systems aimed at live (notably live VR).

“I think there’s going to be more of a call to action for the companies that consider themselves more street level in terms of the market to be more active in this space. Blackmagic’s entire ecosystem is great. RED is sort of seeing the value in creating their own next tier ecosystem of multi-cam. But I think more and more the cinema companies are going to see that they need to open up their systems to allow for tighter broadcast integration.”

  • Content Creation
  • Live Event Production
  • Broadcast
  • Create
  • Acquisition and Production
  • NAB Show New York

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Leave a Comment on As Broadcast and Cinema Workflows Converge, Everyone (Everyone!) Has Something to Learn
November 28, 2023
Posted November 28, 2023

Jaron Lanier: We Need AI Regulation and Data Provenance (ASAP)

data big data AI artificial intelligence


TL;DR

  • Tech guru and Microsoft scientist Jaron Lanier adds his voice to those calling for regulation of AI.
  • He says all data should have its provenance tracked to ensure integrity, reward where reward is due, and to curb deepfakes.
  • Lanier thinks more executives in Big Tech companies (like him) should speak more freely and be prepared to criticize in order to build a better business and a better society. 


Tech guru Jaron Lanier has added his voice to those calling for regulation in AI, arguing that it is in the best interest of society — and that of Big Tech.

As part of that regulation, Lanier, who now works at Microsoft, also argues for all data used by AI models to have its origin and ownership declared, to counter the threat from misinformation and deepfakes.

“All of us, Microsoft, Open AI, everybody in AI of any scale is and saying, we do want to be regulated. [AI] is a place where regulation makes sense,” Lanier told Bloomberg’s AI IRL videocast. “We want to be regulated because everybody can see [that AI] could be like the troubles of social media, times a thousand. We want to be regulated. We don’t want to mess up society. We depend on society for our business. You know, markets are fast and creative. And you don’t get that without a stable layer created by regulation.”

Speaking to the idea of “data dignity,” Lanier explained that this is the notion that creators should be compensated, especially if their data is being used to train algorithms.

Provenance

“In order to do it, we have to calculate and present the provenance of which human sources were the most important to give an AI output. We don’t currently do that. We can though. We can do it efficiently and effectively,” Lanier says. “It’s just that we’re not yet. And it has to be a societal decision to shift to doing that.”

He admits to being “scared” of the potential for misinformation caused by unregulated AI use interfering with politics but feels the answer to deep fakes is provenance. “If you know where data came from, you no longer worry about deep fakes. The provenance system has to be robust.”

Lanier’s Role

Lanier’s bizarre title at Microsoft is “Prime Unifying Scientist,” something he admitted was a humorous attempt to encompass everything he does, like an octopus.

“I have come to resemble one, or so my students tell me, and I’m also very interested in their neurology. They have amazing nervous systems. So we thought it would be an appropriate title.”

However, this gives him something of a free-roaming role both inside and outside the company. He was at pains to point out that he was not speaking here in an official Microsoft capacity.

In fact, Lanier has become a fierce critic of the industry he helped build, but he wants to challenge it to do better from within.

“To be an optimist, you have to have the courage to be a fearsome critic. It’s the critic who believes things can be better. The critic is the true optimist, even if they don’t like to admit it. The critic is the one who says this can be better.”

Open Source Concerns

For example, he doesn’t think the open source model for AI or Web3 makes any sense. He poured scorn on the idea that open source would democratize and decentralize the internet and its reward system.  

“I think the open source idea comes from a really good place and that people who believe in it, believe that it makes things more open and democratic, and honest and safe. The problem with it is this idea that opening things leads to decentralization is just mathematically false. Instead of decentralization, you end up with hyper-centralization and monopoly. And then that hub is incentivized to keep certain things very secret and proprietary, like its algorithms.”

Instead, he advocates for a market economy, in which people and businesses pay to use technology, like AI. He hints that doing so would fund data provenance and retain data integrity.  

Lanier says he doesn’t agree with the founder of OpenAI, Sam Altman, on everything, including his notion of a universal cryptocurrency: “I think that some criminal organization will take that over, no matter how robust he tries to make it.”

The Benefits of Speaking Up

He says being able to criticize from within Big Tech is actually beneficial for Microsoft’s own business.

“I’ve tried to create a proof of that, where I can say things that are not official Microsoft. Look, I spend all day working on making Microsoft stuff better. And I really am proud that people want to buy our stuff and want to buy our stock. I like our customers. I like working with them. I like the idea of making something that somebody likes enough to pay you money for it. That to me is the market economy.”

Lanier wants to persuade colleagues at Meta and Google to speak their minds more, too. 

“If the other tech companies had a little bit of [free] speech in it might actually be healthy for them. I think it would actually improve the business performance of companies like Google and Meta. You know, they’re notoriously closed off. They don’t have people who speak, and I think they suffer for that, [even if] you might not think so because they are they’re big successful companies. I really think they could do more.”

He says there are four or five other execs at Microsoft with public careers outside the company who speak their mind. 

“I think it’s been a successful model. Do I agree with absolutely everything that happens in Microsoft? Of course not. I mean, listen, it’s as big as a country, you know.”

  • Content Creation
  • Intelligent Content
  • Management and Systems
  • AI
  • Virtual Production
  • Al / Machine Learning
  • Digital Rights Management / Content Protection

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Leave a Comment on Jaron Lanier: We Need AI Regulation and Data Provenance (ASAP)
November 28, 2023

The Precision Editing Required for David Fincher’s Assassin in “The Killer”

Michael Fassbender as an assassin in “The Killer,” directed by David Fincher. Cr: Netflix
Michael Fassbender as an assassin in “The Killer,” directed by David Fincher. Cr: Netflix


TL;DR

  • David Fincher’s go-to editor, Kirk Baxter, ACE helped achieve a new kind of subjective cinema with Michael Fassbender’s assassin character.
  • Although “The Killer” proceeds on a fairly linear trajectory, Baxter says this made it challenging to cut because there was nowhere to hide.
  • The rules for the visuals, the movement, and the soundscape were laid down in the film’s opening sequence set in Paris.


Critics are hailing David Fincher’s The Killer as his most experimental film since Fight Club: “a subjective, cinematic tour de force,” says Bill Desowitz at IndieWire, in which we get inside the mind of Michael Fassbender’s titular assassin after he experiences his first misfire in Paris.

The movie, now streaming on Netflix, divided into six “chapters,” each with its own look, rhythm, and pace tied to Fassbender’s level of control and uncertainty. According to the film’s editor, Fincher regular Kirk Baxter, ACE, the editorial process necessitated the creation of a visual and aural language to convey subjective and objective points of view for tracking Fassbender.

Baxter (Zodiak, The Social Network) goes into detail about working on each chapter with IndieWire. We learn that the opening sequence set in Paris took the most time for Baxter to assemble because it was stitched together from different locations including interiors shot on a New Orleans stage.

Michael Fassbender as an assassin in “The Killer,” directed by David Fincher. Cr: Netflix
Michael Fassbender as an assassin in “The Killer,” directed by David Fincher. Cr: Netflix

“I love the whole power attack, the stretching of time, the patience of what it takes to do something properly,” Baxter said. “And I love that it’s grounded in the rule of physics and how practical it is that each detail in order to do something correctly deserves the same amount of attention.”

Later, in a chapter set in New Orleans, the Killer exacts revenge on a lawyer. The setup prep is slow as he cunningly enters the lawyer’s office dressed as a maintenance worker.

“It was one of the hardest things to put together,” Baxter tells IndieWire. “It’s a little like a Swiss watch in terms of how exacting it can be in his control. David had like 25 angles in the corridor, but when you put it all together, I love how that scene unfolds by playing both sides of the glass [between the office and corridor]. Typically, he’s gonna say as little as possible and his stillness controls the pace, and when he gets fed up, these little, tiny subtle looks from him are letting you know that’s enough and where this conversation stops.”

The nighttime fight between the assassin and a character called The Brute in the latter’s Florida home is depicted as a contest between two warriors in the dark. Speaking to Dom Lenoir, host of The Editing Podcast, Baxter explains how he and Fincher choreographed this fight as well as talking more broadly about the director’s shooting style.

“David does always provide a lot of coverage [and] that gets misinterpreted as a lot of takes [but] what he’s extremely good at is making sure that I’ve got the pieces to be able to move around as needed, or to keep something exciting. It means I can edit pretty aggressively and use just the best pieces of everything. David knows these rhythms he shoots for an editor. So, if it’s a really long scene, you will find in the wide shot that they’ll often be blocking, for example, somebody coming into the room. You sort of work your way [into the scene].”

Baxter says all that matters to him once in production is the material Fincher has captured. “I will read the scene again so that I understand the blueprint of it. You know what its intention is, but then it can be thrown away because David can evolve beyond what the script was based on, whether a location or how our actors are performing. He’ll recalibrate and readjust.”

Although The Killer proceeds on a fairly linear trajectory (hey, like a bullet…) Baxter says appearances can be deceptive when it comes to cutting.

“I found it to be one of the more challenging movies to make because it’s not juggling a bunch of different character lines or going back and forth from past to present and that sort of thing,” Baxter told IndieWire. “It’s just a straight line, but the exposure of that [means there’s] nowhere to hide. It’s like everything is just under the spotlight and you’re not having dialogue and interaction to kind of dictate your pace. It’s a series of shots and everything has to be manipulated in order to give it propulsion, or how you slow it down.”

He continues this train of thought with Lenoir, “It was a challenging movie to make from my perspective because you are showing an expert on the fringes of society but he’s still a person that operates with precision. You’re trying to illustrate that by showing precision. And it is just a lot of fiddling to make things seem easy.”

Michael Fassbender as an assassin in “The Killer,” directed by David Fincher. Cr: Netflix
Michael Fassbender as an assassin in “The Killer,” directed by David Fincher. Cr: Netflix

He also discusses perhaps something that you may not notice in a first watch which is that The Killer doesn’t seem to blink. It doesn’t just happen in this film either but in other Fincher movies where Baxter says he has consciously selected shots of actor’s not blinking.

“I don’t think that it was an effort to remove them through the film,” he says. “It’s just the nature of how his performance was. But there’s been an effort to remove them in previous films when they’re all kind of landing off rhythm. It’s mostly about when you get into the meat of a scene and you’re in close ups and you want something delivered with intention and purpose.”

Audio was crucial to The Killer as well. Rather than be smoothed out in the background with the edge taken off all transitions, Fincher and sound designer Ren Klyce wanted the audio to be driven by point of view. The rules of the film’s soundscape are established in the opening sequence. Given that the protagonist is not predisposed to be chatty, we learn as much from his internal monologue as from his methodological movements.

“We crawl into his ears and sit in the back of his eye sockets instead of how it’s being presented,” Baxter describes to IndieWire. “From the moment when the target turns up, it was David’s idea to try a track that was what he plays in his headphones. And when you have his POV, we turn the track up to four, and when you’re back on him, the track drops down, and you get the perspective of it playing in his ear.”

READ MORE: Editing ‘The Killer’ So That ‘We Crawl Into His Ears and Sit in the Back of His Eye Sockets’ (IndieWire)

They devised rules for how to apply his voiceover but realized they couldn’t have voiceover and music at the same time because there would be too much “sonic noise” for the audience.

“So one’s got to occupy one space and one take the other. The logic said to us what’s blaring in his ears and when he’s in a monologue is when we’re looking at him. That was the rule of what was subjective and what was objective,” says Baxter.

Michael Fassbender as an assassin in “The Killer,” directed by David Fincher. Cr: Netflix
Michael Fassbender as an assassin in “The Killer,” directed by David Fincher. Cr: Netflix

“We tried the notion of ‘vertical’ sound cuts,” Fincher explains. “By which I mean, you’re coming out of a very quiet shot and cutting into a street scene and – boom! — you pick up this incredibly loud siren going by. You’re continually aware of the sound.”

This makes for an unusual but effective experience. For instance, there’s a scene in a Parisian park where the sound of a fountain constantly moves around depending on the featured character’s POV.

Was matching that vertical sound cutting hard?

“I guess even when you’re creating chaos, you’re trying to affect it in your own way,” Baxter tells Andy Stout at RedShark News. “You’re always seeking your own version of the perfect way to do this.”

Michael Fassbender as an assassin in “The Killer,” directed by David Fincher. Cr: Netflix
Michael Fassbender as an assassin in “The Killer,” directed by David Fincher. Cr: Netflix

Jennifer Chung, ACE was one of the assistant editors on the film — part of a 14-strong editing department. She also spoke with RedShark News about the tools they used.

“Obviously we use Premiere, and we heavily use Pix also,” she says. “We do a lot of our communication in post through Pix, especially during production during the dailies grind, where we’re uploading not only the dailies but selects that are coming out so that we can get that to David.”

Adobe After Effects is also used extensively, with the team using Dynamic Links to round trip the content out of Adobe Premiere and back in. Some of the assistants also script, so Python or even Excel, in some cases, were also deployed to help automate some of the critical processes.

The Killer was shot in 8K using RED V-Raptor and according to Chung proved a little tricky initially to grade in HDR.

“We definitely had some kinks we had to figure out early on,” Chung says. “We all needed HDR monitors, but we didn’t have HDR monitors at home, though we had HDR monitors at the office. We also use a lot of Dynamic Links in Premiere, and we were having some color space issues going from Premiere to After Effects back to Premiere, but because we have such a close relationship with Adobe, we were able to figure that out.”

READ MORE: Editing David Fincher’s ‘The Killer’ on Premiere Pro (RedShark News)

  • Content Creation
  • Create
  • Post Production
  • Audio Post-Production / Mastering
  • Audio Editing
  • Digital Intermediate
  • Editing
  • Workflow Solutions

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
How the Team From “The Killer” Sustains Its Style and Structure
How the Team From “The Killer” Sustains Its Style and Structure

Says DP Erik Messerschmidt: “It was all about how you bring the audience to a place they are not used to being, close to this assassin.”

Leave a Comment on The Precision Editing Required for David Fincher’s Assassin in “The Killer”
November 27, 2023
Posted November 25, 2023

Social Commentary But Make it Cinematic: Production for “In a State of Change”

With their documentary short, “In a State of Change,” filmmakers Donal Boyd and Frank Nieuwenhuis sought to help people understand the impact of climate change on Iceland’s glaciers and on Icelanders. Cr: Adorama
With their documentary short, “In a State of Change,” filmmakers Donal Boyd and Frank Nieuwenhuis sought to help people understand the impact of climate change on Iceland’s glaciers and on Icelanders. Cr: Adorama


TL;DR

  • Donal Boyd and Frank Nieuwenhuis shot climate change documentary “In a State of Change” in order to help personalize the impacts of receding glaciers in Iceland.
  • The documentary short film was shot by Nieuwenhuis primarily using the Sony FX6, which was ideal for a production that frequently required packing light.
  • In addition to being a second shooter and drone operator, Boyd served as the main character anchoring the documentary, which he found uncomfortable but ultimately effective.


Many documentary filmmakers can relate to their aspirations not aligning with the story they ultimately tell. Such was the case for Donal Boyd and Frank Nieuwenhuis, who sought to help people understand the impact of climate change, on both Iceland’s glaciers and on Icelanders themselves.

“We had to look for something new to get people to connect to this story of the landscape changing, in essence, to understand the larger issue of climate change,” Boyd says in the first of a four-part video interview about the making of In a State of Change.

Ultimately, he says, “The idea was to, maybe, make people more fall in love with the glaciers through what we would show.” 

  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Donal Boyd
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Donal Boyd
  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Donal Boyd
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Donal Boyd
  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Donal Boyd
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Donal Boyd

Initially, Boyd was inspired by Andri Snær Magnason’s On Time and Water, which explores why people don’t understand climate change or connect with the issues surrounding it. As a photographer advocating for climate change awareness, Boyd says the themes resonated and motivated him to connect with Nieuwenhuis to partner on a documentary about Iceland’s changing glaciers. (Boyd and Nieuwenhuis previously collaborated on Volcano for the People.)

They didn’t set out to have Boyd serve as the main character in the film, but Nieuwenhuis says, “It definitely helped us to navigate through the different things and connect everything. Because it was also very interesting to see that development of yours through the film.”

Boyd admits, “I changed just as the same landscape is changing.” He adds, “I hope that people will relate to the struggles that I went through.”

Using a Lightweight “Beautiful Rig”

In a State of Change was primarily filmed on the Sony FX6, which Nieuwenhuis calls a “beautiful rig” in part two. He says, “It’s lightweight, and it’s also very like run-and-gun type of camera. This is exactly what we needed and wanted for this project.” 

After all, “Being out in the field, climbing up on mountains, you don’t want it to be too heavy. You want to be able to unpack it and quickly film,” Nieuwenhuis explains. The FX6 has “XLR inputs built in, and ND filters built in, so I can strip this whole thing down and I could still film.”

In terms of glass, Nieuwenhuis opted for cinema prime lenses, specifically the digital film kit from Vespid. Keeping with the theme of packing light, he notes that they are both very small and relative featherweights. But that’s not the only reason he chose them. “They’re beautiful. I love to work with them. We have a kit with the 25, the 35, the 50 and the 75,” he says. 

  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Donal Boyd
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Donal Boyd
  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Donal Boyd
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Donal Boyd
  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Donal Boyd
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Donal Boyd

The 35 mm is a favorite of Nieuwenhuis, and he says, “I also like to go to 25, which is really nice. When you have very open aperture lenses, especially on the full frame, it gives a lot of bokeh, even though you go white. I prefer to go wide because you get a lot of context in your scene.”

Their secondary cameras were the Sony Alpha I and the Sony Alpha 7SIII, which Boyd says they paired with Vespid primes for a second angle during interviews.

Also in their kit is an external HD monitor. Nieuwenhuis says, “ I like to have a big monitor” because “it just gives me a lot more confidence.” 

One of the heaviest items in their pack is “a big V-lock battery. That does add a lot of weight. But it allows me to power up everything from one battery,” he explains. But that heft had an advantage: “It also helped me balance this rig, because the camera is so light. Without the V-lock battery in the back it would, like, tilt forward just because… the lens is even heavier than the camera, almost.” 

For audio, Nieuwenhuis says the opted for lavalier mics, including a Sennheiser wireless set that Boyd wore almost constantly because they filmed without a dedicated “audio guy” and that meant no boom pole when he was on camera, unless it was during a sit-down interview.

  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama

The boom mic did make an appearance, however. “When we were out in the field, running and gunning, we did put the boom mic on top of the camera. This allowed us to record anything or anyone that wasn’t miked up with a wireless lav mic. So for example, when we were bumping into people on the hiking trail, and we wanted to have a little, you know, spontaneous conversation with them, we could just capture it on camera,” Nieuwenhuis recalls. 

For indoor interviews, Nieuwenhuis relied on a “beautiful aperture 300 DS, available with a softbox just to make some soft light” to correct some of what he called “terrible” lighting situations.

Because the nature of In a State of Change, Nieuwenhuis says, is “very focused on landscapes, we needed an aerial very wide perspective that would give us a proper view to give us an idea of the whole landscape. And there’s nothing better than seeing it from the air.” To capture that footage, they opted for a DJI Mavic Air 2, primarily piloted by Boyd, who Nieuwenhuis credits as an excellent drone operator.

Capturing Scenes Under Difficult Conditions

For the human elements of the documentary, Boyd and Nieuwenhuis wanted to “create scenes rather than interviews.” Nieuwenhuis explains in part three.

Boyd elaborates, “Instead of giving too much context for anyone that we spoke to, when we had them sit in our chair, or when we got them out in the field, we gave them just enough to give an idea of what our general film was about. But we wanted to capture the authenticity, and the reactions in the conversations that we’re having out in the field, or during the interview itself.”

But in creating those scenes, Boyd explains, they had to factor in “access and the weather” — the nature of filming in Iceland. 

  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama

In terms of access, their Land Rover Defenders (which Boyd calls “a super Jeep) came in handy repeatedly. Additionally, the pair rented an RV to serve as mobile studio and hotel, in order to avoid “going up and down to these glaciers. We would lose too much time. We would miss opportunities.” 

Boyd says, “Having this mobile studio allowed us to not be dependent on the location where we might have booked a hotel. Or if we were staying in Reykjavik, it’s just too far to come back and forth from that.”

The RV also meant, Nieuwenhuis says they “started editing during the process of filming. And it helped us, in a way, to lead us through the story and react on what we captured. Sometimes, you know, we captured something and realized with a switch of direction or something inspired us.”

  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama

Despite the access and weather concerns, Boyd says, “The greatest challenge was actually wrapping up the entire film together in the end, and creating a cohesive story.”

Some of that cohesion was developed in post by a sound designer and a graphic artist. They employed musicians to create a custom soundtrack, and the graphic designer was tasked with developing “the vibe and overall look,” Boyd says.  

The project lasted about a year, longer than they had initially planned. “At some point, we realized we have something beautiful here. Let’s not rush this,” Boyd recalls. 

What They Learned

The first scene of the documentary features a glacier-carved canyon. “We could really imagine that we’re standing in the spot where the glacier used to be,” Nieuwenhuis says during part four of the Q&A.

Equally importantly, this scene, he says, created “a moment where we started seeing more of [Boyd] as a character, rather than a presenter. We start to see your emotions come through.”

Boyd admits, “It felt weird, you know, to incorporate myself as a character into the film.” Also challenging for Boyd was the need “to overcome” his fixation “on aesthetic and on beauty” during filming. 

Both, Boyd says, learned they “have to be narrow and focused, keeping things personal, but also trying to be as objective and taking the advice of all the people that we incorporated into the film together, as one, to get the message across.”

  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
  • From “In A State of Change," directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama
    From “In A State of Change,” directed by Donal Boyd & Frank Nieuwenhuis. Cr: Adorama

For his part, Nieuwenhuis says he discovered that “it’s much more interesting when you put a person in an environment, so it can respond to the environment; it can interact with the environment.” He says, that decision “actually makes the process of… telling a visual story… much easier.” After all, “It’s not a radio show.”

In a State of Change also taught Boyd “the power of collaboration and incorporating already existing ideas and combining them to be able to communicate such a difficult issue.” He explains, “If you have an idea or a concept, you don’t have to just do it by yourself, but you can work with other people to remix it and reinvent it and get the message across in a more powerful way.”

  • Content Creation
  • Create
  • Acquisition and Production
  • Media Content
  • Content Production
  • Cameras and Lenses
  • Capture Accessories, Devices and Software
  • Lighting and Grip
  • Mobile / Vehicle Production
  • Motion Picture / Film Production
  • Motion Picture / Film and Documentary

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Get It To Go: What to Pack for Production on a Glacier
Get It To Go: What to Pack for Production on a Glacier

Aidin Robbins and Eric Matt shot a documentary in the Alps and across glaciers. Learn how they managed both mountaineering and filmmaking.

Leave a Comment on Social Commentary But Make it Cinematic: Production for “In a State of Change”
November 25, 2023
Posted November 25, 2023

How Influencer-Generated Content Has Become Core to Brand Strategies

creator economy influencer social media influencer creator creator economy


TL;DR

  • In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, the creator economy has emerged as a powerful force, reshaping the way brands connect with consumers.
  • An overwhelming majority of brands are using creator-generated content for channels beyond social media, highlighting its versatility and reach, a new survey finds.
  • The terms “creator” and “influencer” tend to be used interchangeably, but marketers are applying different metrics to judge the performance of each.


READ MORE: The Next Wave of Creator Marketing: New Study from LTK and Northwestern University Retail Analytics Council (LTK)

Influencer-generated content is now core to brand strategies, with marketers increasingly savvy about the differences between creators and influencers and how to measure their performance.

A recent study conducted by creator marketing platform LTK underlines the profound impact of creator marketing, an industry now estimated at $21 billion globally.

Next year, worldwide, marketers are expected to spend more than $32 billion on influencer marketing. Influencer spend is now outpacing traditional ad investment, with 80% of brands saying they increased creator budgets in 2023, per the report.

Some 92% of brands plan to increase their spending on creators in 2024, and 36% plan to spend at least half of their entire digital marketing budget on creators.

Because of what LTK calls the “significant trust” creators have built with their communities, the majority of brands it surveyed said consumers are turning to creators the most compared to social media ads and celebrities.

An overwhelming majority of brands (98%) are using creator content for channels beyond just social media, highlighting its versatility and reach.

Indeed, when asked where their marketing dollars are shifting, creator marketing and connected TV shared the top position overall for investment growth, beating out channels like paid search and paid social.

  • Cr: LTK
    Cr: LTK
  • Cr: LTK
    Cr: LTK
  • Cr: LTK
    Cr: LTK

The study also found that dollars are being moved from digital ads to creator marketing because the scale of creator marketing has proven to be more efficient when compared to side-by-side, all-cost measurement.

Marketers, however, are becoming more discerning about the difference between influencers and creators.

“As marketers have got more comfortable with the creator economy, influencers have become the go-to for performance marketing, while creators are considered more for branding purposes,” says Krystal Scanlon, writing at Digiday.

Marketers are feeling the pressure to be super transparent and efficient about their purchases and the reasons behind them. This means they’re getting specific about when it’s better to collaborate with an influencer versus a creator.

Lindsey Bott, senior content manager at Ruckus Marketing, told Scanlon, “Previously, influencer involvement might have organically emerged in ongoing discussions. Now, we’re seeing brands come to us more frequently with well-defined briefs or specific suggestions right from the outset.”

The days of pay-for-reach deals are long gone, it seems. In fact, influencers increasingly have specific metrics, such as engagement rate, CPM, CPE, clicks, click-through rate and conversions, tied to them.

For example, Bott’s team has observed clients gravitating toward influencers due to their established reach and engagement metrics, emphasizing performance-driven results.

Conversely, there’s a growing interest in creators who prioritize crafting genuine, narrative-based content that closely aligns with a brand’s values and campaign themes.

“They’re unbelievable storytellers who can really shape perception,” Keith Bendes, VP of strategy at Linqia, reports at Digiday.

READ MORE: Influencer or creator? Here’s how marketers can know who to hire (Digiday)

Unlike influencers, creators usually don’t have the same set of metrics tied to them.

“Over time, as marketers understand how a specific creator’s content performs when repurposed on their social channels or paid media, they may start to benchmark specific benchmarks for that creator’s assets,” said Lindsey Gamble, associate director at influencer marketing platform Mavrck.

According to Scanlon, this shift underscores how brands are distinguishing between utilizing audience influence and cultivating content that profoundly connects with their intended audience.

“Creators have evolved into valuable assets for brands, capable of driving substantial business impact,” says Rodney Mason, VP and head of marketing at LTK, writes at Adweek. “As we move into 2024, creator marketing is fundamental shifting how brands engage with consumers. Those marketers who embrace the rise of creators will find themselves at the forefront of this transformative wave. The time to invest in creators and their unique ability to influence, engage and build trust with consumers is now.”

READ MORE: What Brands Need to Know About Creator Marketing in 2024 (Adweek)

In a recent webinar, “The Next Wave of Creator Marketing: 2024 Forecast,” LTK’s director of strategy insights brand partnerships, Ally Anderson, shares more detail about how “creator guided shopping” is becoming the foundation for marketing efforts and now influencing consumers through all aspects of their discovery journey. Watch the full presentation in the video below:

  • Content Creation
  • Streaming
  • Capitalize
  • Distribution and Delivery
  • Media Content
  • Creator Economy
  • Connected TV / Streaming Media Devices
  • Social TV Solutions
  • Content Publishers
  • Social Media
  • Social Networking / UGC

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
What Comes Next for the Creator Economy? (Um, Apart from That $480 Billion)
What Comes Next for the Creator Economy? (Um, Apart from That $480 Billion)

Continued growth will be driven by marketing through short-form videos on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Leave a Comment on How Influencer-Generated Content Has Become Core to Brand Strategies
November 26, 2023
Posted November 24, 2023

What Comes Next for the Creator Economy? (Um, Apart from That $480 Billion)

social media influencer creator creator economy


TL;DR

  • A national poll identified 27 million people, or 14% of 16 to 54-year-olds, working as “influencers” in the US economy.
  • The creator economy could be a $480 billion industry by 2027 as it continues to grow a sizable business ecosystem around social media stars.
  • Yet traffic and wealth tends to be concentrated among a very few creators with less than 10% of full-timers earning a decent wage and the vast majority making less than $2,000 a year.
  • The latest innovation driving the creator economy forward is artificial intelligence.


While there is near universal agreement about the growing size and importance of the creator economy, estimates vary widely. For example: Citi estimates there are more than 120 million content creators generating $60 billion of revenue, a figure which it estimates is growing at about 10% per year.

Goldman Sachs research has a very different estimate, saying the total addressable market of the creator economy could roughly double in size over the next five years to $480 billion by 2027 from $250 billion today.

Meanwhile, it estimates there are presently 50 million global creators, growing at 10-20% per year — far less than Citi.

READ MORE: The Creator Economy — Getting Creative and Growing (Citi)

READ MORE: The creator economy could approach half-a-trillion dollars by 2027 (Goldman Sachs)

In a national poll of 5,854 Americans market researcher Keller identified 27 million people, or 14% of 16 to 54 year olds, working as “influencers” in the US economy.

Cr: Keller Advisory Group
Cr: Keller Advisory Group View a larger version of this graphic.

However, there is consensus that growth has not stopped and will be driven by investment in influencer marketing and the rise of ad-revenue-share models, particularly in short-form video on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

As Goldman Sachs puts it, creators earn income primarily through direct branding deals to pitch products as an influencer; via a share of ad revenues with the host platform; and through subscriptions, donations and other forms of direct payment from followers. Brand deals are the main source of revenue at about 70%, according to its data.

eMarketer’s Insider Intelligence forecasts that in 2024, US influencer-marketing spend will hit $5.89 billion, and that its growth will “remain in the double digits through 2025.“

READ MORE: 5 charts showing the creator economy’s recent evolution (Insider Intelligence)

“The funds are not drying up anytime soon and we are seeing more and more people becoming creators,” Shannae Ingleton Smith, president and CEO of Kensington Grey Agency tells Amanda Perelli at Business Insider. “It’s a viable career space and in many cases pays more than the top tech jobs. Where the advertising dollars are, to me, is a great indication of sustainability.”

Since its inception in the mid-2000s the creator economy has also grown to encompass a range of professionals who work for creators. These range from managers to video editors, as well as tech execs who have built platforms and companies to help creators make money and build audiences.

READ MORE: The creator economy is a $250 billion industry and it’s here to stay (Business Insider)

“Social media was a tool for interacting with friends, but now it includes a vast ecology of people making money from posts or advertising,” Cristina Criddle explains at the Financial Times.

She interviews Kate Lingua-Marina, a creator known by her handle @SiliconValleyGirl, who explains that she made my first video in 2014 while applying to universities in the United States. She decided to document her journey — and her views exploded to the point that she now has three YouTube channels and a vlogging channel.

“I used to film everything myself,” Lingua-Marina says. “These days I have videographers who helped me from time to time depending on the type of content that I’m creating. I have several editors to help me with editing. If someone helps me post on platforms. I have a manager who’s responsible for working with brands.”

Top earners have built large teams, like the roughly 250-person operation assembled by MrBeast, who Forbes estimated made $82 million between June 2022 and June 2023.

READ MORE: Find me a zebra and you can have the job (Business Insider)

READ MORE: Top Creators 2023 (Forbes)

But not everyone can be a MrBeast. In fact, no one should be mistaken that becoming an influencer is an easy way to make money.

Only about 4% of global creators are deemed professionals, meaning they pull in more than $100,000 a year, finds Goldman Sachs.

A recent survey of 689 creators by the influencer-marketing platform Mavrck found about 51% made less than $500 a month. In the survey, nearly a quarter of creators said they earned more than $2,000, and about 4% said they earned more than $10,000 per month.

READ MORE: 51% of creators make less than $500 per month, according to a new survey (Business Insider)

Keller’s research concluded that 6% of Americans full-time creators and earn an average of $179,000 per year but that the average income is $93,000 per year. More than half of creators make less than $10,000 annually and a third only make $2,000.

“While the livelihood of the 11.6 million full-time creators (in the States) is a robust $179K/year, the total number of creators is larger than most estimates, likely based on the one third of them who earn less than 2K a year,” the researcher notes.

Cr: Keller Advisory Group
Cr: Keller Advisory Group View a larger version of this graphic.

Cr: Keller Advisory Group
Cr: Keller Advisory Group View a larger version of this graphic.

READ MORE: Creators Uncovered: Insights from a Nationally Representative Study of US Creators (Keller Advisory Group)

The creative economy is also facing mixed financial signals. After a flat 2022 YouTube ad revenues were up around 5% by the third quarter of 2023. Creators received just over half of the ad revenue generated on their channels. On the other hand, investment in the creative economy has dropped sharply with total funding for us startups fell 50% last year compared to 2021.

Revenue and funding going into platforms has decreased quite dramatically.

Criddle says, “One key problem for the creator economy is that creator traffic and wealth tends to be concentrated among the very few, such as MrBeast. Only 4% of creators are defined as professionals earning at least $100,000 a year.”

While the creative economy might be moving away from past explosive growth, there is evidence consumers remain willing to pay for quality content.

“The days of wild growth might be over or at least on hold but that’s not going to stop the millions of creators out there,” Criddle says. “There is enough demand, enough supply and now is the time when the focus should shift from quantity to quality.”

AI Comes To the Creator Economy

The latest innovation driving the creator economy forward is artificial intelligence.

This year, YouTube unveiled new AI tools and features aimed at simplifying content creation. According to Business Insider, the industry is betting on AI not to replace creators, but to increase productivity and bring more opportunities for people to make content.

Rising AI startups in the creator economy like Crate, an AI platform helping creators streamline the creative process, and Midjourney, an AI model that can generate images, are winning over investors.

READ MORE: Top investors name the 14 most promising creator economy startups in 2023, from Beehiiv to Midjourney (Business Insider)

Keller’s survey found half of Creators saying they want to start working with AI and that Virtual reality/augmented reality is #2 on their list of tech they’d like to engage with in the future.

In a recent survey of 2,000 influencers by membership platform Creator Now, 90% said they were using ChatGPT during the content creation process, and 31% said they were using Midjourney. The top reason cited for using AI was to increase the speed of content creation. AI tools can edit TikTok or YouTube videos in a fraction of the time it takes today.

READ MORE: How creators are using AI: A survey of 2,000 influencers delves into the top tools, ethical dilemmas, and more (Business Insider)

“AI is a game changer,” says a creator speaking to the Financial Times. “The first time we used it was to create a script. I had to change some things, but it was right there in front of me in 60 seconds.

“If I create an AI version of myself, if AI create scripts, then my job is to decide which content goes out there and which topic my AI prototype is talking about. Good creators are becoming producers.”

WATCH MORE: The creator economy is changing, but can it thrive? (Financial Times)

  • Content Creation
  • Live Event Production
  • Streaming
  • Capitalize
  • Distribution and Delivery
  • Media Content
  • Creator Economy
  • Short / Form Programming
  • Social Media
  • Social Networking / UGC

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
How Influencer-Generated Content Has Become Core to Brand Strategies
How Influencer-Generated Content Has Become Core to Brand Strategies

The creator economy emerges as a powerful force in the digital marketing landscape, reshaping the way brands connect with consumers.

Leave a Comment on What Comes Next for the Creator Economy? (Um, Apart from That $480 Billion)
November 20, 2023
Posted November 20, 2023

Does the Biden AI Executive Order Raise Red Flags for M&E?



TL;DR

  • The Biden administration issued an executive order directing best practices and new standards to be created for using and developing artificial intelligence. Some elements should make the M&E industry take notice.
  • The directives to create “standards and best practices for detecting AI-generated content and authenticating official content” and “develop guidance for content authentication and watermarking to clearly label AI-generated content” are particularly important to keep an eye on.
  • Some experts are concerned that current technology capabilities are not in alignment with the Biden administration’s vision of watermarking and authenticating content. For its part, the White House seems to hope the executive order will spur innovation in this space.


The Biden administration issued an executive order in late October, directing new best practices and standards around AI, serving as a launchpad for creating new initiatives and a regulatory framework for governing this burgeoning technology sector.

But critics and compatriots alike have expressed concerns that it’s sending some wrong messages about generative AI.

The order, while comparatively brief at around 100 pages, attempts to cover a lot of ground in order to promote “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence.” (You can read the White House’s full artificial intelligence executive order fact sheet here.) Not all of it is immediately applicable to M&E, but some aspects should make the industry sit up and take notice.

The Middle Way

The Biden White House’s directives to create “standards and best practices for detecting AI-generated content and authenticating official content” and “develop guidance for content authentication and watermarking to clearly label AI-generated content” are particularly important for all creators and media companies to keep an eye on.

Meanwhile, Hollywood strikers will either feel that its decision to study and then regulate the effects of AI on the labor market is an expression of solidarity or too little too late to make a real impact on their negotiations.

“President Biden’s executive order tries to chart a middle path — allowing A.I. development to continue largely undisturbed while putting some modest rules in place, and signaling that the federal government intends to keep a close eye on the A.I. industry in the coming years,” The New York Times’ Kevin Roose writes. “In contrast to social media, a technology that was allowed to grow unimpeded for more than a decade before regulators showed any interest in it, it shows that the Biden administration has no intent of letting A.I. fly under the radar.”

MIT Technology Review notes that “[t]he executive order advances the voluntary requirements for AI policy that the White House set back in August, though it lacks specifics on how the rules will be enforced.”

Labels, Watermarking and Current Capabilities

Regarding the labeling and watermarking aspects of the order, Tate Ryan-Mosley and Melissa Heikkilä write that “[t]he hope is that labeling the origins of text, audio, and visual content will make it easier for us to know what’s been created using AI online. These sorts of tools are widely proposed as a solution to AI-enabled problems such as deepfakes and disinformation.” 

However, they caution, “technologies such as watermarks are still very much works in progress. There currently are no fully reliable ways to label text or investigate whether a piece of content was machine generated. AI detection tools are still easy to fool.” But the Biden admin says it will work with the (unaffiliated) C2PA initiative to improve these technologies and subsequent (voluntary but necessary) uptake.

“The White House’s approach remains friendly to Silicon Valley, emphasizing innovation and competition rather than limitation and restriction,” Ryan Moseley and Heikkilä write. “The strategy is in line with the policy priorities for AI regulation set forth by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and it further crystallizes the lighter touch of the American approach to AI regulation.”

READ MORE: Three things to know about the White House’s executive order on AI (MIT Technology Review)

Ryan-Mosley and Heikkilä aren’t the only respondents concerned that current capabilities don’t align with the aspirations of the executive order.

“[O]n the subject of content integrity – including issues related to provenance, authenticity, synthetic media detection and labeling – the order overemphasizes technical solutions,” Renée DiResta and Dave Willner argue for Tech Policy Press.

They explain, “We are both strong proponents of watermarking and other efforts at content authentication, and believe that the Executive Order’s focus on this adds a government imprimatur to what has largely been an industry effort at establishing best practices, emphasizing its importance. But the administration’s approach fails to reckon with the fact that many of the harms of generative AI come from the open source model community, particularly where child sexual abuse materials and non-consensual intimate imagery are concerned. And it does not acknowledge that watermarking of generated content may not be adopted universally, and will not be adopted by bad actors using open source models.”

Additionally, DiResta and Willner warn, “over-reliance on technological solutions for watermarking generative content risks creating systems that miss non-watermarked but nonetheless AI-generated content, creating a false perception that it is legitimate. Additionally, there are increasingly complex attempts to assign provenance to authentic content at the time of its creation. Here too we will find ourselves in an intermediate world where older devices and many platforms and publishers do not participate. The challenges of ascertaining what is real from among this combination of generative-and-watermarked, generative-and-not-watermarked, real-and-certified, and real-and-not certified will potentially be both very confusing and deeply corrosive to public trust.” 

Ultimately, they write, “the most important defense will be an educated citizenry trained in critical thinking that is reflexively skeptical of claims that are too outlandish, or too in line with their own biases and hopes.”

READ MORE: White House AI Executive Order Takes On Complexity of Content Integrity Issues

“For now, leaders and lawmakers are certainly giving the impression that they are taking the opportunities and threats posed by AI seriously,” Tech Policy Press’ Gabby Miller writes. She adds, “It remains possible that the world will look back on these last days of October 2023, as the turning point President Biden suggested it might be.”

  • Broadcast
  • Streaming
  • Intelligent Content
  • Management and Systems
  • AI
  • Al / Machine Learning

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Leave a Comment on Does the Biden AI Executive Order Raise Red Flags for M&E?
November 20, 2023
Posted November 20, 2023

“The Africas:” How Do You Capture “the Soul” of a Place?

From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”


TL;DR

  • Australian production company Grafton Create traveled to Egypt, Ethiopia, and Nambia to shoot “The Africas” using the Sony FX6.
  • Director, DP, and editor Elliot Grafton says the FX6 was “the obvious choice…based on its low-light capabilities” because they wanted to shoot “a lot of dark churches and low light situations.” 
  • The planning and research process took two months of work, and they still had to remove two countries from their original itinerary, due to changes in safety and visa issues.


“The Africas,” the latest travel film by production company Grafton Create, showcases the lesser known sides of Egypt, Ethiopia and Namibia.

“We really wanted to dig deeper and find a story that had a little bit more meaning for us,” explains Georgie Woskett, cofounder of Grafton Create and first AD on the project. The duo also sought “to represent a number of different cultures and religions,” while filming “something really spectacular visually.”

“We want to capture the soul of the place,” Woskett says. “And that is what ultimately gives us meaning.”

Woskett says, “We knew that, given the amount of logistics that were involved in this, we had to be very intentional about what we were filming. And so we had a shot list for each of the countries, which then helped us create an itinerary.” 

Nonetheless, these locations were a risk in and of themselves, Woskett admits.

The research process took about two months because “there’s not a lot of information around these particular places that we went to online,” she explains. After all of the work, Woskett says, the shot list and background research became “this Bible to keep referring to.”

  • From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
    From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
  • From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
    From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
  • From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
    From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
  • From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
    From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
  • From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
    From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”

“Approaching it the way that we did, which was extremely sort of well planned, whilst allowing ourselves and giving ourselves the permission to be flexible in the moment, was quite different for us,” Woskett says. “Typically, we’re sort of run-and-gun, but we sort of tried to balance this out being quite, quite intentional with what we were going to be shooting and knowing exactly, sort of, what we expected from ourselves.” 

Finding the Story, While Pivoting

Despite the meticulous planning, their original schedule featured Algeria and South Sudan, but they had to pivot and go to Ethiopia, due to visa problems and safety concerns, recalls director, DP, editor and Grafton Create principal Elliot Grafton.

“We push ourselves to really find those stories and those locations and people,” Grafton says, “to tell a different side of the story, and to show a different side of that country.”

For example, In Ethiopia, Grafton and Woskett and second shooter Brannon Jackson were able to visit the Tigray region, in the north, which Woskett says was “definitely a favorite.” 

In Tigray, they filmed Abuna Yemata Guh, which she describes as a “sixth century rock hewn church at the top of a limestone cliff that we had to rock climb to. It’s 2000 meters above sea level, and so the views from there are really spectacular.”  

Woskett highlights Abuna Yemata Guh’s role as refuge during the Ethiopian civil war, as well as “the spirituality of the sixth century churches and the rock art and the priests” and says “it was just such an honor to be able to see that and just so memorable.” 

For his part, Grafton says visiting the Hoanib Valley Camp in Namibia was particularly memorable because they were able to film desert lions. One of the film’s goals, he says, was to “capture wildlife in a new, unique way.” In particular, he notes a shot of “the lion paw… scooping through the sand” as an unusual perspective from a rarely seen animal.

  • From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
    From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
  • From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
    From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
  • From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
    From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”

The Equipment (and the Risks)

The project, produced in partnership with Sony, was shot on the FX6, which Grafton says was “the obvious choice…based on its low-light capabilities.” The team wanted to shoot “a lot of dark churches and low light situations,” he explains. 

Prior to the Sony FX6, Grafton says they had been “using the i7S3, which is a smaller camera body, which we had used for a number of years.” For their next investment, he says they  “wanted to level up” and select a cinema-grade camera.

With the blessing (and financial backing) of Sony, Grafton sought to put the FX6 through its paces: “We really wanted to put in a lot of different conditions and situations.” That meant “putting it underwater, on land and also in the air.”

One of Grafton Create’s company values is to take risks, and “The Africas” didn’t shy away from that North Star. 

“It was kind of a risk … not having shot on that gear before and going into this shoot. Putting in so many different situations that were very unfamiliar to us, was quite a big risk. But yeah, we really wanted to show off the true capabilities of the camera and really push ourselves to the limit, just you know, as much as we could safely,” Grafton says.

  • From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
    From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
  • From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
    From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”

In addition to the camera being new, they added a new drone to their kit — receiving it about a week before heading from their home base in New South Wales to Africa. They were able to get in “maybe two test flights” with the FPV cinelifter drone, Grafton says, before they packed it into its own suitcase. The FPV is “not like a normal consumer drone,” he says.

The drone was integral to some of “The Africas’” most stunning shots, but Grafton explains they “had to be really selective on when we used the drone” because they brought only “one set of batteries, so we only had five minutes of flight time” per charge and “it takes 40 to 50 minutes to charge the battery.”  

Fortunately, while the FPV “can carry very heavy cameras,” Grafton says, the “FX6 is so light” they were able to maneuver “with a lot of mobility with it and a lot of speed.”

While using the drone, Grafton opted for a “Sony 14 mm [lens], just because it’s so light. And you know, it’s got a wide field of view, similar to a GoPro. So just showing off that landscape was really important to us.”

  • From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
    From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
  • From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
    From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
  • From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”
    From Grafton Create’s short film “The Africas”

Back on the ground, Grafton says they used Sony 35mm and 50mm prime lenses “90% of the time” and also broke out the 600mm for wildlife shots. He emphasizes the lenses’  low light capabilities, with apertures as low as 1.4 and 1.2. 

“Those lenses are just incredible. Just they’re so sharp and snappy on the autofocus. We knew there was going to be a lot of run-and-gun situations,” Grafton says. “A strong autofocus is really important to us.” 

Shooting What You Feel

The prime lenses meant that Grafton and Brannon had to “really be in the thick of it.” For example, in the church scene in Abuna Yemata Guh, Grafton says, “We had to… go right up close next to the priest praying. … we’re really immersed in the moment because it was so close to him looking at the screen.” Again and again, Grafton says, this proximity “really shows through the work.”

The editing phase is also crucial to achieving Grafton Create’s goal of shooting what they feel, not what they see.

The final film contains “5% of what we’ve shot,” estimates Grafton. “I think we had like 20 terabytes from this trip. And you know, there’s only a six-minute video from it. So there’s a lot of stuff that people don’t see.”

In addition to cutting, they create the emotion by tapping into their own feelings.

Grafton says, “It’s in the music that we choose. we really don’t want to just pick any old song. We want to listen to the song and be like, in tears pretty much or you know, get goosebumps.” 

If they “have tears or goosebumps by the end of the video, we know we’ve done our job,” Grafton says. 

What’s next for Grafton Create? “We want it to be something that people haven’t really seen before. And it will be in very cold conditions,” Woskett shares.

  • Content Creation
  • Create
  • Acquisition and Production
  • Media Content
  • Content Production
  • Cameras and Lenses
  • Motion Picture / Film Production
  • Motion Picture / Film and Documentary
  • Motion Picture/ Film Production

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Leave a Comment on “The Africas:” How Do You Capture “the Soul” of a Place?
November 29, 2023
Posted November 20, 2023

Rewriting the Visual Rules for “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes”

DIRECTOR FRANCIS LAWRENCE ON “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes”


TL;DR

  • Director Francis Lawrence explains how the appearance of a new book by franchise author Suzanne Collins compelled him to do another “Hunger Games” movie.
  • He says the biggest challenge was to have the audience root for young Coriolanus Snow in the knowledge that he will become the fascist dictator of Panem.
  • While the film franchise split the final book of the trilogy into two films, in a move that angered fans, Lawrence was adamant he didn’t want to make that mistake again.
  • The director referenced Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka for the character of chief gamemaker Dr. Volumnia Gaul, played by Viola Davies.
  • Regular director of photography Jo Willems says that even though these are sci-fi movies, he tries to shoot them in a naturalistic way.


“Welcome to Panem,” from “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes”

Let the games begin — again. The Hunger Games are back, this time as a prequel telling the story of young Coriolanus Snow, who will grow up to be the tyrannical dictator ruling the sci-fi dystopia of Panem in the four previous hit films.

Also returning is director Francis Lawrence, of whom Jacob Hall at Slashfilm says, “Through his lens, what could’ve been a boilerplate YA series has leaned into the aggressive, the political, and the deeply moving.”

While Gary Ross directed the first film in the series — adapted from Suzanne Collins’ dystopian novel of the same name — Lawrence came aboard for the sequel, 2013’s Catching Fire, and stayed to helm the climactic two-part finale, 2014’s Mockingjay – Part 1 and 2015’s Mockingjay – Part 2.

“I thought I was done,” Lawrence tells A.frame‘s John Boone, “but not because I didn’t want to do more. I thought I was done because Suzanne, the author, was like, ‘I’ve been on this thing for 10 years. I’m going to write plays. I’m going to do other stuff. I’m done.’ Which I could totally understand. I’d been on the movies for three, four years, so I certainly wanted to do something else for a minute, too.”

  • Peter Dinklage in "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes." Cr: Lionsgate Films/Murray Close
    Peter Dinklage in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” Cr: Lionsgate Films/Murray Close
  • From "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes." Cr: Lionsgate Films/Murray Close
    From “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” Cr: Lionsgate Films/Murray Close
  • Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow and Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird in "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes." Cr: Lionsgate Films/Murray Close
    Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow and Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” Cr: Lionsgate Films/Murray Close

In 2019, Lawrence and franchise producer Nina Jacobson received a call from Collins. “She said, ‘Hey, I know this is a bit of a surprise, but I’m almost done with a new book.'” 

That book is The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, adapted by Lawrence into a script that took him two years to write. 

“I think the only thing that intimidated me is that I feel like people are conditioned to believe that a Hunger Games movie is over when the games are over,” he tells Boone.

“So there’s just this feeling that people have, ‘Oh, you build up to the games. You get to the games. The games are over. Movie done.’ And the truth is, all the questions that are set up at the beginning of the movie are not answered by the end of these games, and there’s still a fair amount of story to tell. 

“I found that very exciting. I liked that there was a different structure, that it wasn’t just ending with the games, that the games are just part of a much larger story — especially for Snow. But I knew that we were going to have and will always probably have a bit of a hump, just because people are conditioned to feel that.”

  • Rachel Zegler and Tom Blyth in "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes." Cr: Lionsgate Films/Murray Close
    Rachel Zegler and Tom Blyth in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” Cr: Lionsgate Films/Murray Close
  • Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler in "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes." Cr: Lionsgate Films/Murray Close
    Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” Cr: Lionsgate Films/Murray Close

There’s a vogue for lengthy cinema experiences, and at 157 minutes this movie is no exception. The Hunger Games has form, though, in splitting the final book of the trilogy into two films. Lawrence was adamant he didn’t want to do that again.

“We got so much s**t for splitting Mockingjay into two movies — from fans, from critics,” he tells Boone. “And weirdly, I understand it now. It’s episodic television or something.

“You can either binge it or you wait a week and a new episode comes out, but to say, ‘You have an hour-and-a-half-long episode of TV and now you have to wait a year for the second half,’ that’s annoying, and I get it. So, that was not going to happen on my watch this time around.”

Creating Coriolanus Snow and Volumnia Gaul

He says the biggest challenge in nailing the narrative was to have the audience root for Snow (Tom Blyth), in the beginning, “empathizing with him, while making sure that the elements of the need for ambition, some of the greed, some of maybe the genetic darkness that’s in him from his father, that all those seeds are planted. So eventually, in his descent into darkness, you find it sort of truthful.”

That arc is reminiscent of characters like Annakin Skywalker’s transition to the dark side over the course of Star Wars episodes one to three, but Hall tries to draw Lawrence into making explicit parallels with Donald Trump.

“It’s a real 2023 mood for a movie to be about how this person you really like is actually a fascist. It feels very timely right now,” he says.

Lawrence replies, tactically, “Yes, yes, for sure. But we get to see him formed into one. He doesn’t start as one.”

Viola Davis as chief gamemaker Volumnia Gaul in "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes." Cr: Lionsgate Films/Murray Close
Viola Davis as chief gamemaker Dr. Volumnia Gaul in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” Cr: Lionsgate Films/Murray Close

For Viola Davies’ character of chief gamemaker Dr. Volumnia Gaul, the director’s reference was Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka.

“One could consider her a villain in this movie, but she does think she’s doing the right thing and what she’s doing is important,” he said to Boone. “She certainly is a very specific voice, philosophically, in the movie. But the Willy Wonka reference was more that her joy is actually in the creativity of the work that she’s doing, which informs the hair, the makeup, the wardrobe. That joy and the odd, creepy creations reminded me a little of the sinister underpinnings of Gene Wilder’s Wonka. That was my reference for her, which she totally got!”

He adds, “I have to admit, I was a little nervous bringing that up to her, but she totally got it and completely went for it.”

READ MORE: How The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes Director Made A Vital Hunger Games Prequel (Slashfilm)

Tom Blyth in "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes." Cr: Lionsgate Films/Murray Close
Tom Blyth in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” Cr: Lionsgate Films/Murray Close

Creating a Naturalistic Look for a Sci-Fi Franchise

Also returning is Belgium cinematographer Jo Willems, with whom Lawrence has worked since starting out shooting music videos (graduating to work for the biggest names in the business including Justin Timberlake, Pink and Lady Gaga). Willems shot the second through fourth movies in The Hunger Games franchise and Red Sparrow, also directed by Lawrence — all starring Jennifer Lawrence.

While Catching Fire was shot on 35mm with anamorphic lenses, “over the years we progressed our style, we went into digital and then ended up shooting large format,” he tells Gordon Burkell at Filmmaker U. “We always try to get more and more intimate with the characters and we have just ended up shooting wider and wider lenses. Even though they are sci-fi movies, I try and work in a naturalistic way.”

For this installment of the series, Lawrence and Willems opted for the Alexa’s 65 mm after Lawrence had worked with it on Apple TV+’s “See,” according to an interview with IndieWire. “I really started to see how, sort of, different the depth of field is and how the lens is for that camera and that sensor in general,” Lawrence explains. “You can actually go much wider without getting that kind of warping and distortion on people’s faces. … You really get that intimacy and maintain the scope at the same time.”

Lawrence tells Filmmaker U, “I also like shooting in very natural light, so a large part of the movie, where you end up in all these natural light landscapes, I think they look stunning.”

The director says he enjoys post-production more than shooting which he finds really stressful. “I wake up every morning with a knot in my stomach because you really only have that day to try to get the scenes that are assigned to that day,” he says in a first-person essay written for MovieMaker Magazine. “So many things could go wrong — could be somebody’s personality, could be somebody’s sick, could be something’s broken, or something’s not working, or we didn’t plan something correctly, or it’s raining and you need sun. I find it so constantly stressful.

“But post, once you have all the material, you come home and the lifestyle is much more civilized again, and you sit with your editor and you go through it all, and then you see the movie come together in a whole new way. And there’s something really gratifying about that.”

READ MORE: Francis Lawrence: Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker (MovieMaker Magazine)

Presumably, if this film is a hit, there will be another story set in the franchise to come. 

“I would totally do another one, but it’s all up to Suzanne,” he says to Boone. “It’s the same as after the Mockingjays. I said, ‘I would come back 100 percent if asked.’ But it’s got to come from the mind of Suzanne, because she truly is the author of these things. But also, she writes from theme and writes from a real idea, and I think that’s what gives these stories their substance and their relevance.”

READ MORE: Why ‘Hunger Games’ Director Francis Lawrence Said Yes to ‘The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes’ (A.frame)





Color Grading Songbirds and Snakes

“We knew the film would have a variety of strong looks,” says Senior Colorist Dave Hussey of The Hunger Games: The Balled of Songbirds and Snakes. Hussey, who works at Company 3’s Santa Monica, California facility, had collaborated frequently with director Francis Lawrence and cinematographer Jo Willems, both individually and together, on projects including the Apple TV+ series See and Jennifer Lawrence spy thriller Red Sparrow.

As they always did, Hussey and Willems started the process of developing looks during preproduction of this prequel. Starring Rachel Zegler as Lucy and Tom Blyth as a young Coriolanus Snow, Songbirds and Snakes is set 64 years prior to the events in The Hunger Games. The discussions between colorist and cinematographer would involve fleshing out a look for the film, which would be re-introducing viewers to a very different District 12 than they’d seen in previous Hunger Games movies.

“The Arena needed a gritty look for the fight scene,” Hussey says of that key location. The primary city, Panem, would be represented in its earlier times, still feeling the results of a recently concluded war. “It needed an industrial feel for the urban parts of District 12 and a richer and more colorful look for the rural scenes. We also knew we would want a very stylized and ominous look for the hanging tree” — the infamous site of many executions which is frequently referred to in previous films but shown for the first time here.

Hussey created one main show LUT (lookup table) for Willems to shoot through, which would display for the cinematographer and all department heads an approximation of a final look on set and subsequently in dailies. “Since the prequel is set 64 years in the past just, after an attempted insurrection, we wanted to give the film a grittier look for many of the scenes. We also developed a LUT that helped get us there,” Hussey says. “In some scenes, like those with the hanging tree, we wanted to push the grittiness even further, so we blended a combination of LUTs together to achieve this.”

Once time for the final grade came around, Company 3 started receiving the stream of VFX shots that would be part of the film. VFX Supervisor Adrian De Wet would come into the color sessions at this point to offer input about how all the shot elements and the color was coming together.

“Grading the arena fight scenes was particularly enjoyable,” Hussey recalls, “because they took place during different times of day and involved a massive number of VFX shots. Adrian, Jo Willems, Francis Lawrence and I collaborated closely to bring all aspects of every shot together. We had recently worked in a similar way on ‘Slumberland’ for Netflix, which also required blending a large amount of VFX work.

“We did an overall balance of the scenes using different color temperatures to accentuate the different times of day and then by adding grain, using Power Windows with tracking, and making use of a number of sharpening tools we worked to subtly help guide where we wanted the audience’s eyes to be looking moment by moment.”

Hussey also used Resolve to handle some specific work isolating each of Coriolanus Snow’s eyes, making them the intense blue that the character of Snow (a younger version of the villain played by Donald Sutherland in the earlier films) called for.

As happens sometimes in post, they were asked to present a graded trailer to the studio before completing the final grade for the film. “We were able to nail down many of the looks during this time,” Hussey recalls. “That was very helpful because at that point we had locked down many of the scenes before we started the actual grade of the film. Jo and Francis are both very decisive when it comes to coloring so things moved very quickly.”

For the grain Hussey added the production decided to go with Live Grain Real-Time Motion Picture Film Texture Mapping — a proprietary tool licensed on a per-project basis, which many swear by due to the large amount of control over it offers users to adjust fine detail. “We went fairly aggressive initially with the grain and then backed it off a bit as we finessed all the scenes,” Hussey notes.

While colorists often grade projects that have a Dolby HDR deliverable first in HDR and derive P3 and subsequent versions from there, Hussey started in P3 (still by far the version most cinemagoers would see) and then, once the filmmakers signed off on that, executed new separate passes for Dolby Cinema and then Dolby Vision for streaming and other home deliverables as well as an IMAX pass also did for select theaters.

“In terms of the look, we always tried to stay relatively true to the P3 theatrical version,” Hussey explains, adding, “Of course, the HDR versions have a little more pop in the blacks and the highlights, but it wasn’t about making a new look. It was entirely about enhancing the P3 version that Jo and Francis signed off on.”





  • Content Creation
  • Create
  • Acquisition and Production
  • Media Content
  • Content Production
  • Cameras and Lenses
  • Capture Accessories, Devices and Software
  • Lighting and Grip
  • Motion Picture/ Film Production

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Charlotte Bruus Christensen Takes a “Raw Yet Cinematic” Approach to “A Murder at the End of the World”
Charlotte Bruus Christensen Takes a “Raw Yet Cinematic” Approach to “A Murder at the End of the World”

“We wanted an analog style,” the cinematographer says of her work with Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij on the FX mystery series.

Leave a Comment on Rewriting the Visual Rules for “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes”
November 20, 2023

Gavin Guidry: How to Get Great Content From/With/By Creators



TL;DR

  • Gavin Guidry, creative director at Spotify, maintains there’s a “massive disconnect” between the mindset of a marketer and that of a creator and outlines what can be done to address this. Watch his full presentation above. 
  • By putting creators in the driver’s seat, brands can create content that is unique and relevant and that cuts through to audiences. 
  • The secret ingredient to all of this is community “because relevance comes through creating consistent impact.” 


Brands can no longer just post content and hope that audiences on social media platforms will actually see it. They either need a massive spend, or they need to cross collaborate or pay to collaborate with a creator to actually get their content seen. 

“Really what we’re seeing is a brand’s ability to impact audiences going down, while creators’ ability to impact audiences is steadily moving upwards,” says Gavin Guidry, creative director at Spotify. “That means the road to relevance must go through real people.”

In a video published on Vimeo titled “The Road to Relevant Video Content,” held as part of Vimeo’s Outside the Frame event, Guidry talks marketers through the ins and outs of a successful influencer collaboration. Guidry heads up Spotify’s podcasts, working with creators and brands to create content. 

He claims there’s a “massive disconnect” between the mindset of a marketer and that of a creator. 

  • From Gavin Gudry’s presentation “The Road to Relevant Video Content”
    From Gavin Guidry’s presentation “The Road to Relevant Video Content”
  • From Gavin Gudry’s presentation “The Road to Relevant Video Content”
    From Gavin Guidry’s presentation “The Road to Relevant Video Content”

What Creators Want to Make

A marketer cares about KPIs, ROI and brand perception, he says, but creators care about authenticity and connection to their community above all else. They don’t always know what marketers want, and marketers don’t always know what creators want. 

“But when creators have a say in making content, you get content that’s authentic and connected to their community, and it can help you check your marketing boxes as well. Working with creators helps your brand actually build credibility.

“The good thing about working with creators from a fan perspective is that monetizing doesn’t feel like buying — it feels like supporting a creator that they love.” 

Some 49% of consumers says they rely on influencer recommendations for their purchasing decisions.

“People trust people more than they do brands, and algorithms are responding to that. Hiring an influencer to create your video content is a winning strategy, but the collaboration can be fraught.”

From Gavin Gudry’s presentation “The Road to Relevant Video Content”
From Gavin Guidry’s presentation “The Road to Relevant Video Content”

Creating Impact

The secret to success is community “because relevance comes through creating consistent impact.” 

Guidry insists, “It’s not about chasing cultural relevance; it’s about earning community relevance.”

He outlines three steps to create impact through community: get vulnerable; collaborate with influencers; use video. 

Vulnerability is not a marketing metric, or a business tactic. It’s more of a soft skill, he explains. It’s about showing that your brand is human. 

“When a brand doesn’t open themselves up, they don’t ask the community what they want, they just give them content without really asking. And that can end up exploiting a community. The goal is to ramp up your vulnerability by asking your audience, what they want.”

Guidry urges brands “to embrace risk” because getting vulnerable requires exposure to meaningful risks. 

From Gavin Gudry’s presentation “The Road to Relevant Video Content”
From Gavin Guidry’s presentation “The Road to Relevant Video Content”

This will lead to better creator collaboration. It means going deeper than demographics to truly understand the creator’s audience.

“The term creator is really broad — they could be comedians, writers, hosts, musicians, even activists — but the thing that binds them all together is that they make content that nourishes audiences. So it’s important to know that creators have their own audience, their own style and their own motivation.”

For creators, their audience is “what they spend their blood, sweat and tears curating with their content. You don’t want to ask them to do anything that their audience will find unauthentic.”

Instead, seek to understand their audience and what you can offer them through this partnership. 

Creator, Collaborator, Partner

Think about style — the way a creator talks or the way that they create for their audience. Don’t present a campaign that fits outside their style, but do seek their input on how their content comes to life through their unique lens. 

Consider a creator’s motivation. Guidry says there’s a bit of a misconception with creators that it’s all about the money. 

From Gavin Gudry’s presentation “The Road to Relevant Video Content”
From Gavin Guidry’s presentation “The Road to Relevant Video Content”

“That couldn’t be further from the truth. Creators are probably more excited than you are to work with big brands. It’s like a feather in their cap. They’re able to say, ‘Hey look audience, I’m now able to work with these brands.'” 

But don’t just seek a transactional deal with creators, Guidry advises. “Seek to build a long term relationship that creators can talk about with their audiences over time. Offer a mutually beneficial partnership that results in creators raising their profile through your partnership.”

Of course, you want to make sure you find a creator with the right niche and an engaged audience. You want to make sure that creator is an authentic user of your brand or product and that they have a strong style and POV. 

“You also want to make sure that they’re professional, and that they have craft that can elevate your brand.

“Lastly, use video. Over 200 million people consider themselves as creators, and this means that your audience is just a resource of creativity waiting to be unlocked. You can use video and creative partnerships to do just that. It’s the best way to engage audiences with CTAs and educate in relevant ways. 

“You get video that’s raw and real and shows your brand is human. And you get to sit back and let your videos woo a built-in audience.”

He sums up: “So if you didn’t hear anything else I said today, when you prioritize community and build authentic creator relationships, you can create relevant video content.”

Watch more from Vimeo’s Outside the Frame event.

Visit our dedicated resource for the creator economy here.

  • Content Creation
  • Streaming
  • Capitalize
  • Media Content
  • Creator Economy
  • Content Publishers
  • Social Media
  • Social Networking / UGC

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Casey Neistat: Create First and the Money Will Follow
Casey Neistat: Create First and the Money Will Follow

Casey Neistat is most famous as a YouTuber, but that wasn’t his goal… his career “wasn’t an option” when he started creating videos. 

Leave a Comment on Gavin Guidry: How to Get Great Content From/With/By Creators
November 30, 2023
Posted November 20, 2023

“Saltburn” Is Debauched and Depraved But It Looks Like a Caravaggio Painting. So Let’s Start There.

Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime


TL;DR

  • Emerald Fennell explains how her psychological black comedy “Saltburn” is a satire on the British class system using the vehicle of a grand stately home setting.
  • Cinematographer Linus Sandgren uses a square aspect ratio and shoots on 35mm to film “disgustingly beautiful moments.”
  • Fennell says, “We did a lot of work then to make it a physical experience — uncomfortable, sexy, difficult. I thought a lot about the feeling of popping a spot — queasy pleasure.”


Emerald Fennell’s latest cinematic spectacle, Saltburn, savagely peels back the veneer of the British upper class of the mid-2000s, crossing Brideshead Revisited with The Talented Mr. Ripley served with a twist of vampire-infused black comedy.

The film revels “in voyeuristic repulsion and the fetishization of beauty,” writes IndieWire’s Bill Desowitz, told through the point of view of cunning Oxford student Oliver (Barry Keoghan), who becomes infatuated with his aristocratic schoolmate, Felix (Jacob Elordi), following an invitation to stay for the summer with his eccentric Catton family at their titular estate.

“I’m setting out to be honest and unsparing, and I’m not frightened of people not liking it,” Fennel explains to Salon’s Jacob Hall. “I mind if people don’t appreciate the craft or they think I haven’t done my homework, or they think I’ve made decisions that aren’t deliberate. That gets my goat, because that’s a different argument. But if you don’t like it, I don’t mind.”

Fennell’s bold visual plans began with shooting in 35mm to capitalize on the rich color and contrast, and using the 1.33 aspect ratio to enhance the story’s voyeurism.

  • Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
  • Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
    Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
  • Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
    Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
  • Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
    Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime

“She wanted to convey the hot summer and foggy night, influenced by the legendary landscape painter Gainsborough, as well as more dramatic lighting inspired by Hitchcock, Nosferatu, and baroque painters Caravaggio and Gentileschi,” we learn from Desowitz’s interview with the film’s cinematographer, Linus Sandgren (La La Land).

The DP landed the job at the suggestion of Saltburn producer Margot Robbie, who had just worked with Sandgren on Babylon and knew first-hand what dark beauty he could achieve shooting in 35mm.

  • Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
    Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
  • Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
    Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
  • Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
    Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
  • Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
    Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime

“I had seen Emerald’s debut film, [Promising Young Woman], where she made some very interesting decisions,” Sandgren said. “For example, letting the lady die in a single take, which was horrible to watch. And then when I got the Saltburn script, I thought it was brilliant. She writes very visually and in a descriptive way and I got some very clear images in my head.”

READ MORE: ‘I Wonder How Many People Are Going to Buy This?’ Inside the Sensual, Stylized ‘Saltburn’ Cinematography (IndieWire)

They both agreed that shooting on film was right for the story, as Sandgren explained following a screening at Camerimage, as reported by Will Tizard at Variety. The medium’s reaction to red light in some key scenes inside the family home was particularly well-suited to the growing sense of horror, Sandgren said. So were close-ups of characters feeling extremes of emotions, with sweat, hair and bodily detail helping to build on the descent into obsession.

To strike just the right tone in these scenes, Company3 colorist Matt Wallach says, “We got into using tools in the Resolve, like the Custom Curves and the Color Warper, to subtly bring out, say, the red lights in a party scene or the steely blue moonlit tones and a night exterior while always keeping the skin tones where they should be. With Linus, skin tone always has priority.”

Sandgren shot with the Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2 camera equipped with Primo prime lenses to get colors and contrast with under-corrected spherical aberration. It all worked out well to propel the journey into darkness, Sandgren said, growing into other scenes of seduction that push boundaries. All of which just enriches “the bloody cocktail of Saltburn,” he says, noting that, after all, “Vampires are sexual beings.”

READ MORE: Emerald Fennell-Directed ‘Saltburn’ Conjured Images of Dark, Bloody Comedy, Says Cinematographer Linus Sandgren at Camerimage (Variety)

When the director first spoke with Sandgren about the project, she described it as a vampire movie “where everyone is a vampire.”

Elaborating on this to Emily Murray at Games Radar, Fennell says she liked the vampire metaphor as a vehicle for attacking the class system and our unhealthy fascination with the rich and famous.

“We have exported the British country house so effectively in literature and film, everyone internationally is familiar with… their workings,” she says. “As we are talking about power, class, and sex, this film could have existed at the Kardashians’ compound or the Hamptons, but the thing about British aristocracy is that people know the rules because of the films we have seen before. We all have an entry level familiarity but the things that are restrained about the genre are overt here — as we look at what we do when nobody is watching us.”

READ MORE: Saltburn director Emerald Fennell on why her follow-up to Promising Young Woman is actually a vampire movie (Games Radar)

  • Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
    Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
  • Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
    Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
  • Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
    Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
  • Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
    Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime

This embodied the vampire ethos at night in all its gothic beauty and ugliness. “Emerald’s attracted to something gross happening, but you see it in a perfectly composed image with the light just hitting perfectly,” Sandgren said in an interview with Tomris Laffly at Filmmaker Magazine. “I think the challenge was finding a language for the film with secrets that you don’t want to reveal and having it seem ambiguous.”

Fennell wrote Saltburn during COVID, when people couldn’t even be in the same room together, “let alone touch each other, let alone lick each other,” she said, commenting on some of the film’s explicit scenes. “This is a film really about not being able to touch. Now, especially, we have an extra complicated relationship with bodily fluids.”

As Laffly prompts, this sounds like Fennell wanted to unleash a beast we all have in ourselves that was so oppressed during lockdown.

“That certainly felt like one of the motives,” she admits. “There’s nothing that is more of a rigid structure than the British country house and the aristocracy, nothing more impenetrable. So yes, to unleash the viscerally human into that arena was so much of it.”

To Fennell, so much of film is “frictionless, smooth, so consistent. And I feel like cinema — without being so grandiose and pompous — is designed to be watched in a dark room of strangers, and it can be expressive, it can be to some degree metaphorical. When I look at the filmmakers that I love [like David Lynch or Stanley Kubrick] these are people who are making films that I feel in my body.”

  • Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
    Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
  • Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
    Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
  • Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
    Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
  • Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
    Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
  • Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime
    Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.” Cr: Amazon Prime

This idea of foregrounding intimacy led to their decision to shoot within the Academy ratio. Again, she and Sandgren referenced classic portrait painters.

“To do that formal framing, if you’re looking at Caravaggio or lighting in a Joshua Reynolds and that kind of blocking, it is so much easier the more square you are. And I like extreme closeups, especially when you’re talking about sex and intimacy and inhuman beauty,” she told Filmmaker. “If you’re 1.33, you can have a full face. It can fill the frame completely.”

READ MORE: “The Crueler My Friends Are, the Funnier I Think They Are”: Emerald Fennell on Saltburn (Filmmaker Magazine)

Scenes in the film are deliberately uncomfortable to watch. They are what Desowitz calls “disgustingly beautiful moments,” but Fennell emphasizes that they aren’t in any way there for shock value: “A lot of this film is an interrogation of desire,” she tells the Inside Total Film podcast.

“With this type of love, there has to be this element of revulsion, and for us to feel what Oliver is feeling and understand that, you need to physically react to stuff. We did a lot of work then to make it a physical experience — uncomfortable, sexy, difficult, queasy. I thought a lot about the feeling of popping a spot — queasy pleasure.”

Much of the more salacious coverage of Saltburn has concentrated on its final scene where Keoghan dances stark naked through the estate to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s hit 2001 song, “Murder on the Dancefloor.” “Everything is diabolical, but it’s exhilarating,” Fennell explained to Jazz Tangcay at Variety. “It’s post-coital, euphoric, solitary and it’s mad.”

As for Sandgren’s camera moves, he pointed out that Oliver was always in frame for most of the film. “But this way, we see him full-figured. I think it was clear we wanted to follow him. Following him through that scene felt more natural to watch everything about him, and watch from the outside. It’s about his physicality and how he feels in that moment.”

It’s a tour de force for Keoghan, who, according to the cinematographer, was fearless throughout, but worked especially hard at rehearsing and shooting the choreographed dance sequence.

In capturing it, Fennell used 11 takes. “They were all very beautiful,” she said. “It’s quite a complicated and technical camera. A lot of the time, he was immensely patient because there was a lot of naked dancing. Take #7 was technically perfect. You could hear everyone’s overjoyed response, but I had to say ‘sorry’ because it was missing whatever it was that made Oliver that slightly human messiness. So, we had to do it a further four times.”

READ MORE: Barry Keoghan’s Naked Dance Scene in ‘Saltburn’ Needed 11 Takes (Variety)

“[I]t was incredibly difficult to do because obviously it’s a oner, and we had to light every room completely from outside without seeing any of the kit,” Fennel tells Salon. “We had to set up all of the sound so we could switch to every room because of the lag, without again, seeing any of the kit.”

Fennell likens the actor to Robert Mitchum, as she explains to Filmmaker Magazine. “I think he’s just exceptional, not just now but for all time — someone like Robert Mitchum is a good comparison. There are actors who have a thing that nobody else has had before, and I think Barry has that.”

Next, Watch This:

  • Content Creation
  • Create
  • Acquisition and Production
  • Media Content
  • Content Production
  • Cameras and Lenses
  • Capture Accessories, Devices and Software
  • Lighting and Grip
  • Motion Picture / Film Production
  • Motion Picture/ Film Production

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Charlotte Bruus Christensen Takes a “Raw Yet Cinematic” Approach to “A Murder at the End of the World”
Charlotte Bruus Christensen Takes a “Raw Yet Cinematic” Approach to “A Murder at the End of the World”

“We wanted an analog style,” the cinematographer says of her work with Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij on the FX mystery series.

Leave a Comment on “Saltburn” Is Debauched and Depraved But It Looks Like a Caravaggio Painting. So Let’s Start There.
November 20, 2023
Posted November 19, 2023

Russell Wald: Why It’s So Hard to Have a Balanced Discussion About Deepfakes



TL;DR

  • Around the world, legislators are grappling with generative AI’s potential for both innovation and destruction. Is it already too late?
  • Russell Wald, director of policy for the Stanford Institute, argues for common sense conversations about what AI means to society and how its issues can be addressed without hyperpolarization.
  • Wald calls for increased regulation of AI in the US, and for lawmakers to educate themselves in the basics about this burgeoning field.


With the Presidential election looming and the fear that more deepfake videos will be unleashed, calls for national regulation of AI is growing. If nothing is done the internet could soon be awash with synthetic media and confidence in verifiable truth will fade forever.

This is the most pressing concern for Russell Wald, director of policy for the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), who advises the US government and other institutions on how to shape AI regulation.

“The reason I’m worried is if there’s a ubiquitous amount of synthetic media out there, what are ultimately going to do is create a moment where no one’s going to have confidence in the veracity of what they see digitally. And when you get into that situation, people will choose to believe what they want to believe, whether it’s an inconvenient truth or not. And that is really concerning.”

In a IEEE Spectrum podcast with senior editor Eliza Strickland, Wald said what is needed is a system in which generative AI platforms (and perhaps social media platforms) verify media.

“You’re not going to be able to necessarily stop the creation of a lot of synthetic media, but at a minimum, you can stop the amplification of it, [by putting] on some level of disclosure that signals that it may not be what it purports to be and that you are at least informed about that.”

Regulators are looking at the issue domestically and in places like China and Europe, which is arguably the most advanced global territory. Even here, though, it could be well over a year before an AI Act is passed into law.

One suggestion is to impose some sort of watermark on genuine media to separate it from fakes, but there are a lot of unanswered questions about who bears responsibility for this, or who is potentially liable for the creation and dissemination of fake videos.

Wald thinks the terms of AI regulation need to be stripped right back to the data input into the models in the first place.

“We need to look at transparency regarding foundation models. There’s just so much data that’s been hovered up. What’s going into them? What’s the architecture of the compute? Because at least if you are seeing harms come out of the back end, by having a degree of transparency, you’re going to be able to go back to what [initial source data].”

He expresses concern about the inherent bias in current and future AI models and likewise argues for policy and lawmaking bodies to include a “diverse set of people” to be able to ensure that when these models are released, “there’s a degree of transparency that we can help review and be part of that conversation.”

Companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft have recently been vocal about the need for regulation. Wald views this positively but also as an ultimately cynical exercise in corporate risk management.

“They would rather work now to be able to create some of those regulations versus avoiding reactive regulation. So it’s an easier pill to swallow if they can try to shape this now at this point. Of course, the devil’s in the details on these things, right?”

Of greater concern is that even if we came up with the optimal regulations tomorrow, “it would be incredibly difficult for government to enforce it.”

There is next to no investment in the US in infrastructure to track and catch AI lawbreakers, he says.

“We need more of a national strategy part of which is ensuring that we have policymakers as informed as possible on this. I spend a lot of time with briefings with policymakers. You can tell the interest is growing, but we need more formalized ways to make sure that they understand all of the nuances here.”

Because of how fast the technology is moving we urgently need a workforce that understands AI and so can quickly adapt and make changes that might be needed in the future.

“We’ve got to recruit talent,” he says. “And that means we need to really look at STEM immigration. We need to expand programs like the Intergovernmental Personnel Act that can allow people who are in academia or other nonprofit research to go in and out of government and inform government so that they’re more clear on [AI].”

What we are seeing today with generative AI is just the tip of the iceberg. AI development is growing so fast it makes the need to regulate all the more urgent, provided discussion is balanced.

“Let’s not go to the extreme of, ‘This is going to kill us all.’ Let’s also not go and allow for a level of hype that says, ‘AI will fix this.’ We need to have a neutral view that says there are some unique benefits this technology will offer humanity and but at the same time there are some very serious dangers so how can we can manage that process?”

Policymakers also need to educate themselves, he suggests. Not to the extent of using TensorFlow of course, but to at very least get to grips with what the technology can and cannot do.

“We can’t expect policymakers to know everything about AI but, at a minimum, they need to know what it can and cannot do and what its impact on society will be.”

  • Broadcast
  • Streaming
  • Intelligent Content
  • Management and Systems
  • Industry Resources
  • AI
  • Al / Machine Learning
  • Business and Technology Consultants

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Will Our Deepfake Fears Be Realized in 2024?
Will Our Deepfake Fears Be Realized in 2024?

We’ve been warned this day would come: Believable synthetic reanimations, also known as deepfakes, have entered the political arena.

Leave a Comment on Russell Wald: Why It’s So Hard to Have a Balanced Discussion About Deepfakes
November 19, 2023
Posted November 19, 2023

Ah, Youth: How Oliver Curtis Captures That Exuberance for “The Buccaneers”

Kristine Frøseth in "The Buccaneers," now streaming on Apple TV+
Kristine Frøseth in “The Buccaneers,” now streaming on Apple TV+


TL;DR

  • Apple TV+ delivers a modern spin to new period drama about a culture clash between heritage England and Manhattan energy.
  • Cinematographer Oliver Curtis translates this into no-cut “oners,” swirling camera moves, a contrasted lighting pattern and the use of large format sensor combined with portrait lenses.
  • “It’s all about forward movement in people’s lives. It’s a playful show, full of light and color. The cinematography had to reflect that.”


With director Susanna White’s “The Buccaneers,” an adaptation of Edith Wharton’s unfinished final novel set in the 1870s, Apple TV+ adds a period drama with a modern spin to its lineup. 

The story turns on the fallout of intercontinental marriages of convenience between five wealthy American heiresses and Englishmen long on family trees but short on cash. The women travel from New York to England, where they vie to pair off with aristocratic, eligible young men.

For cinematographer Oliver Curtis (“Stay Close,” “Vanity Fair,” for which he was nominated for a BAFTA), who worked on the first two episodes, the contrast was a natural setup. 

“The theme of the clash of cultures from these vivacious, energized, young American women coming over to musty old England to meet their potential suitors has got a natural kind of transformative quality. You’ve got the color, light, and energy of their New York life, and then the dour, desaturated world of old England,” he told Motion Pictures. “It’s all about forward movement in people’s lives. It’s a playful show, full of light and color. The cinematography had to reflect that.”

Imogen Waterhouse and Aubri Ibrag in "The Buccaneers," now streaming on Apple TV+.
Imogen Waterhouse and Aubri Ibrag in “The Buccaneers,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
Imogen Waterhouse and Aubri Ibrag in "The Buccaneers," now streaming on Apple TV+.
Imogen Waterhouse and Aubri Ibrag in “The Buccaneers,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
Imogen Waterhouse and Aubri Ibrag in "The Buccaneers," now streaming on Apple TV+.
Imogen Waterhouse and Aubri Ibrag in “The Buccaneers,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

Opening With a Oner

From the opening moments of the show, the expansiveness of this world and its characters are established via a long, meandering one-shot throughout an opulent New York home.

“Susanna and I designed … an opening statement of energy, of movement, of exuberance,” Curtis told No Film School. “So it was a real marker, if you will, for what you are getting yourself into with this show. And also the fact that it’s driven by the movement of our lead character played by Kristine Frøseth.”

Not only did the take need to incorporate different spaces with the cooperation of dozens of actors and supporting artists, but Curtis also had to consider what tools to use with his Steadicam operator, Alex Brambilla.

“Because we start close and wide on the flowers and as we sweep in, you get more compression as it gets busier with people inside. So we probably went onto a slightly longer focal length there. And then when we got up to the landing after Kristine meets Christina [Hendricks] there, I think we widened out a little bit more so that when we do the hidden edit transition, we were on a slightly wider focal length, which would allow us to get separation there.”

Kristine Frøseth, Alisha Boe, Josie Totah, Aubri Ibrag and Imogen Waterhouse in "The Buccaneers," now streaming on Apple TV+.
Kristine Frøseth, Alisha Boe, Josie Totah, Aubri Ibrag and Imogen Waterhouse in “The Buccaneers,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
Kristine Frøseth, Alisha Boe, Josie Totah, Aubri Ibrag and Imogen Waterhouse in "The Buccaneers," now streaming on Apple TV+.
Kristine Frøseth, Alisha Boe, Josie Totah, Aubri Ibrag and Imogen Waterhouse in “The Buccaneers,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
Kristine Frøseth, Alisha Boe, Josie Totah, Aubri Ibrag and Imogen Waterhouse in "The Buccaneers," now streaming on Apple TV+.
Kristine Frøseth, Alisha Boe, Josie Totah, Aubri Ibrag and Imogen Waterhouse in “The Buccaneers,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

They avoided any reflective surfaces with the coordination of the camera ops and cast. Eagle-eyed viewers might catch the one hidden cut in the sequence.

“There has to be a hidden cut because the first half of it is on location and the second half is on a build,” Curtis said. “So where we go into the rooms, we built that because we couldn’t find a building that gave us those two spaces. Plus we needed green screen beyond the windows for the street, which was just outside Glasgow City Chambers doubling for Madison Avenue.”

Camera Techniques Express Characters

The story theme of a clash of cultures gave the DP a clue that there was going to be an evolution of the show’s look. “You’re going to start with the modern American Vision and move to the old world vision. So that was an exciting prospect and thinking about how we were going to evolve that,” he explained to Patrick O’Sullivan.

The other aspect of the show he had to consider was to marry the grand interiors and big ballroom and dinner scenes with close ups of intimacy and expression. This drew him to using a larger format sensor of the Alexa LF combined with portraiture lens of the Arri DNA glass.  

“It’s got all of the tropes of a period drama that you’d expect, but it’s also surprising and different in a lot of ways,” Curtis added.  

Dynamic camera techniques, including tracking and Steadicam shots, reflect the characters’ infectious spirit.

Aubri Ibrag in "The Buccaneers," now streaming on Apple TV+.
Aubri Ibrag in “The Buccaneers,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

“When you’ve got an ensemble cast and the blocking is fairly fluid and not too static, the camera has to adjust and configure itself around their movements,” Curtis told IBC365. “Also shooting ‘B’ camera most of the time gave the editor coverage to build pace and find the action within the scene.

Lighting, Then and Now

“Something I hadn’t really taken on board previously is that the clothing from that period was much more reflective than most modern fabric. The bustles and corsets are textured and reflect the light so you get a lot of animation in the costume and movement.”

In the 1870s, electricity was available in the homes of wealthy New York society, while British aristocracy still had gas, oil lamps and candles. Curtis leapt on this as a storytelling device.

“The New York interiors are flooded with light, they are bright and open and accessible but when our heroes arrive in London the light hardly penetrates indoors. We keep the lighting levels low key there to build that contrast. Gradually as the women infiltrate high society the light starts to flood in.”

READ MORE: Behind the Scenes: The Buccaneers (IBC365)

Glasgow City Chambers was used for interiors of London’s Grosvenor House, scene of a grand debutante’s ball. The building featured a magnificent white staircase, which White thought ideal to stage a parade of white gowned debutantes.

It was a very challenging space to work in. A giant sky light overhead meant the DP had to compete with all the vagaries of the Glasgow weather, and the staircase itself descended around an atrium, making it tricky to position and move a camera.

“We managed to work our way down the building in stages,” he told IBC. “Where there were doorways leading onto council offices I asked [production designer Amy Maguire] to build window plugs (where designers create a window) so we could bring daylight into the belly of the building where otherwise it would be gloomy and dark. This created interesting pools of light and contrast where we could stage different beats of the story. It was an unusual piece of staging for something that could otherwise have been a conventional ballroom scene.”

He used helium balloons to help light spaces in period houses partly to protect the delicate cornicing from rigging. They came in useful during the debutante’s ball scene, too, where the balloons were towed down the staircase as the camera team worked their way into the bowels of the building.

The British cinematographer expounded on his process with O’Sullivan, recalling that at one point in his career he was mostly shooting commercials.

“And as marvellous as that was in itself, traveling, seeing the world earning good money and making some interesting work it, you know, it can get very stultifying,” he said. “You kind of find yourself yearning to be able to hold a shot longer than two seconds and work with actors, I think it is great to have a good mixture [of work] so that you stay fresh and challenged.

Kristine Frøseth in "The Buccaneers," now streaming on Apple TV+.
Kristine Frøseth in “The Buccaneers,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
Kristine Frøseth in "The Buccaneers," now streaming on Apple TV+.
Kristine Frøseth in “The Buccaneers,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
Kristine Frøseth in "The Buccaneers," now streaming on Apple TV+.
Kristine Frøseth in “The Buccaneers,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

He started out his career shooting on film and says his goal remains to shoot in camera as much as possible. “You also have to be cognizant of the post processes and the ability you have in the grade to work with the colorist. Colorists are artists, too, and they can bring an awful lot to a show and surprise you with some of the solutions and make transitions which you thought wouldn’t work. 

“It’s really important to have that in your back pocket. And I suppose my dialogue with the DIT and the VFX onset is one of reassurance that I just, I can say, ‘you know, look, I haven’t got the time, or the resources perhaps to deal with a certain problem, but do you think that will be okay, in terms of exposure, in terms of separation?’ These are experts around you doing their job for a reason, and you’d be foolish not to take on board their input.”

The foundation of his craft remains lighting and shooting it the way that you want it to be done, “if you walked away from it that day and never saw the image again, which is often the case on commercials. Because you can’t follow commercials through post production as much as you can drama. You have to trust that the image is there. So yeah, I try to walk away from set feeling that yes, I have got the essence of that, and it looked the way I wanted to look, and I’m not going to have to do too much in post.” 

  • Content Creation
  • Create
  • Acquisition and Production
  • Media Content
  • Content Production
  • Cameras and Lenses
  • Lighting and Grip
  • Television / Video Production
  • Workflow Software and Solutions
  • Interactive and Cross Platform TV / Web / Mobile
  • Television Programming

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
“The Pursuit of Love:” Stories of These Blithe Spirits
“The Pursuit of Love:” Stories of These Blithe Spirits

Shot by director of photography Zac Nicholson, BSC, “The Pursuit of Love” is a romantic comedy-drama set between the two World Wars.

Leave a Comment on Ah, Youth: How Oliver Curtis Captures That Exuberance for “The Buccaneers”
November 19, 2023
Posted November 18, 2023

How AI Reunited The Beatles for “Now and Then”



TL;DR

  • Advertised as the last Beatles song, “Now and Then” was built from a recording made by John Lennon shortly before his murder in 1980, using the same AI technology that director Peter Jackson used in his documentary “Get Back.”
  • The AI tool originated from forensic investigation work developed by the New Zealand police and developed by VFX studio Weta.
  • This could be the first in a long stream of work that’s salvaged or saved using artificial intelligence.


The Beatles, guided by producer George Martin, were famously pioneers of new technology in making seminal studio albums like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and The White Album; so using an AI tool to complete their final song should be seen as a natural evolution.

As John Lennon’s son Sean Lennon says in a making-of video, “My dad would’ve loved that because he was never shy to experiment with recording technology.”

“Now and Then” was built from a recording made by John Lennon shortly before his murder in 1980, using the same AI technology that director Peter Jackson used in his documentary Get Back to clean up and separate voices in archival recordings.

Co-produced by Paul McCartney and George Harrison’s son Giles Martin, the track features elements from all of the Fab Four — including a Lennon vocal track that was first recorded as a demo tape in the 1970s.

The track was included on a cassette labelled “For Paul” that Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, gave the three surviving Beatles in the 1990s as they were working on a retrospective project.

At the time the band members tried to complete Lennon’s demo but considered it unsuitable for release. It wasn’t until July 2022, Jackson told David Sanderson at the Sunday Times, that McCartney contacted him for his help in producing a new version.

READ MORE: I knew about secret Beatles song years ago, director reveals (The Times)

From Peter Jackson’s “Now and Then” video for The Beatles
From Peter Jackson’s “Now and Then” video for The Beatles

The audio software, called Mal (machine audio learning), allowed Lennon’s vocals to be separated from the demo. The track was then rebuilt with new performances from McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with Harrison’s guitar parts from their shelved recording session in the SC.

As is clear from the making of doc the chief difficulty with using the original cassette recording was that Lennon’s vocal was too indistinct in places with the piano and the sound of a TV playing in the background.

Weta’s AI, developed for Get Back, managed to cleanly isolate the vocals from the background allowing the mix to finally be made.

As Jackson explained to Rob LeDonne at Esquire, the tech originated from forensic investigation work developed by the New Zealand police.

“When it’s noisy and they want to hear a conversation between two crooks or something, they can isolate their voices. I thought that’d be incredible to use, but it’s not software that’s available to the public.

“So, we contacted the cops and we asked, “Do you mind if we brought some tape to the police station and we ran it through your confidential audio software?” So, we did a 10- or 15- minute test and the results were really bad. I mean, they did the best they could. But you realize that for law enforcement, the quality and fidelity of the audio doesn’t need to be good, so it was far, far short of what we could use.

From Peter Jackson’s “Now and Then” video for The Beatles
From Peter Jackson’s “Now and Then” video for The Beatles

Weta took the theory of it and made a tool capable of producing high quality audio. “To hear some of those early songs in a fully dynamic way… You realize what you’ve been hearing is quite a limited range of audio,” Jackson said. “You don’t realize how crude the mixing on some of the early songs were, how muddy they were.”

READ MORE: Peter Jackson Takes Us Inside the Music Video for Beatles’ Final Song (Esquire)

In the making-of video below, McCartney expresses his doubts about making full songs out of Lennon’s demos, out of respect for the late songwriter’s unfinished work.

“Is it something we shouldn’t do?” McCartney says. “Every time I thought like that I thought, wait a minute, let’s say I had a chance to ask John, ‘Hey John, would you like us to finish this last song of yours?’ I’m telling you, I know the answer would have been, ‘Yeah!’”

Martin says human creativity is still at the heart of the song. Even if AI was involved, it wasn’t used to create synthetic Lennon vocals. “It’s key for us to make sure that John’s performance is John’s performance, not a machine learning version of it,” he told David Salazar at Fast Company. “We did manage to improve on the frequency response of the cassette recording…but it’s critical that we are true to the spirit of the recording, otherwise it wouldn’t be John.”

READ MORE: How Beatles producer Giles Martin used AI to reunite the band for ‘Now and Then’ (Fast Company)

Jackson also directed the video for the track which contains a few precious seconds of the first-ever film ever shot of The Beatles on stage in Hamburg in the early 1960s.

“A Beatles music video must have great Beatles footage at its core,” he said as part of a lengthy statement about the project on The Beatles website. “There’s no way actors or CGI Beatles should be used. Every shot of The Beatles needed to be genuine. The 8mm film is owned by Pete Best, the band’s original drummer. Clare Olssen, who produced the video, contacted Best to get a few seconds of his film.”

From Peter Jackson’s “Now and Then” video for The Beatles
From Peter Jackson’s “Now and Then” video for The Beatles
From Peter Jackson’s “Now and Then” video for The Beatles
From Peter Jackson’s “Now and Then” video for The Beatles
From Peter Jackson’s “Now and Then” video for The Beatles
From Peter Jackson’s “Now and Then” video for The Beatles

READ MORE: Peter Jackson Talks About Making The Beatles’ Last Music Video (The Beatles)

Angela Watercutter at Wired suggests that “‘Now and Then’ signals, if anything, not just the last Beatles song but the first in what could be a long stream of work that’s salvaged or saved using artificial intelligence.”

READ MORE: ‘Now and Then,’ the Beatles’ Last Song, Is Here, Thanks to Peter Jackson’s AI (Wired)

Indeed, Jackson has hinted at the possibility, as The Guardian’s Ben Beaumont-Thomas reports, of more Beatles music to come culled from archival footage he went through when editing Get Back, the eight-hour docuseries about The Beatles.

“We can take a performance from Get Back, separate John and George, and then have Paul and Ringo add a chorus or harmonies. You might end up with a decent song but I haven’t had conversations with Paul about that,” he said.

“It’s fanboy stuff but certainly conceivable.”

READ MORE: ‘Earliest known film of the Beatles’ to feature in Peter Jackson-directed music video (The Guardian)

  • Content Creation
  • Intelligent Content
  • Acquisition and Production
  • Management and Systems
  • Media Content
  • Post Production
  • AI
  • Audio Mixers
  • Audio Processing and Effects
  • Audio Production / Recording
  • Al / Machine Learning
  • Short / Form Programming

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
It WAS a Long and Winding Road: Producing Peter Jackson’s Epic Documentary “The Beatles: Get Back”
It WAS a Long and Winding Road: Producing Peter Jackson’s Epic Documentary “The Beatles: Get Back”

With 60+ hours of restored footage, three-part Disney+ docuseries provides an intimate counter-narrative to the final days of the Beatles.

Leave a Comment on How AI Reunited The Beatles for “Now and Then”
November 17, 2023
Posted November 16, 2023

Virtual Production Isn’t Just a Technology, It’s Now a New Way of Thinking

Watch the panel discussion “The Virtual Production Revolution: A Real Time Love Affair” from NAB Show New York 2023.


TL;DR

  • A panel of virtual production experts illuminated how this rapidly advancing field isn’t just reshaping collaboration and creative workflows — it’s changing the content itself.
  • Led by veteran Virtual Production Supervisor Jim Rider, this discussion featured KéexFrame founder & CEO Arturo Brena, VP Toolkit founder & CEO Ian Fursa, and ASHER XR founder & CEO Christina Lee Storm.
  • VP technologies break down silos between departments, allowing for real-time collaboration and faster iteration, fundamentally changing the way content is produced.
  • The role of the Virtual Production Supervisor is more vital than ever, allowing various departments to plan more efficiently and effectively.


At NAB Show New York, a panel of virtual production experts illuminated how this rapidly advancing field is reshaping collaboration and creative workflows for content production.

The session, “The Virtual Production Revolution: A Real Time Love Affair,” was moderated by industry veteran Jim Rider, Virtual Production Supervisor at Pier59 Studios, and featured Arturo Brena, founder & CEO of 3D creative studio KéexFrame; Ian Fursa, founder & CEO of educational series VP Toolkit; and Christina Lee Storm, founder & CEO of ASHER XR, which specializes in the development of real-time, virtual production, AI, and emerging technology for linear and multi-platform storytelling.

These industry pros underscored that virtual production isn’t just a technological advancement; it’s a catalyst for a more integrated and collaborative approach in media creation. They discussed how VP technologies break down silos between departments, allowing for real-time collaboration and faster iteration, fundamentally changing the way content is produced.

L-R: Jim Rider, Virtual Production Supervisor, Pier59Studio; Arturo Brena, Founder & CEO, KéexFrame; Christina Lee Storm, Founder & CEO, ASHER XR; and Ian Fursa, Founder & CEO, VP Toolkit.
L-R: Jim Rider, Virtual Production Supervisor, Pier59Studio; Arturo Brena, Founder & CEO, KéexFrame; Christina Lee Storm, Founder & CEO, ASHER XR; and Ian Fursa, Founder & CEO, VP Toolkit.

The panelists, each bringing their unique perspective and experience, shared insights on how virtual production is enabling creators to work more cohesively, enhancing creativity and efficiency. Read the highlights of the discussion below, and to gain even more insights watch the full session in the video at the top of the page.

Going Beyond In-Camera Effects

Setting the stage for the discussion, Rider observed that virtual production is often understood only in terms of in-camera VFX, “you know, Mandalorian-style virtual production,” but that it is in fact a multifaceted discipline encompassing a much broader spectrum.

“We’ve been trying to really sort of set the record straight because there was a lot of excitement that came out of on-set virtual production in the big shows, but that doesn’t apply to everyone,” Storm agreed. Virtual production can actually be divided among four main categories, or “buckets,” she argues: visualization, volume capture, on-set virtual production or in-camera VFX, and real-time workflows.

Real-time workflows, in particular, are continuing to evolve, she said, becoming increasingly accessible to productions of all sizes. “More and more people can use [real-time workflows] because they don’t have to have a massive stage, per se.”

Brena noted that in-camera VFX comprises roughly 30% of the work at his New York-based studio. “All the rest goes more into linear creation, linear animation using real-time rendering.”

Real-time rendering “is the core of virtual production, touching every aspect,” he said. “We use it a lot to adjust workflows. So [for] traditional linear content, let’s say that we’re creating an opener for a show or we’re creating a commercial or something, we take the jump into using real-time rendering technology in order to optimize workflows.”

The Vital Role of the Virtual Production Supervisor

Real-time technology is revolutionizing creative workflows, the panel unanimously agreed, fostering unprecedented collaboration across various departments.

“There is a very defined pipeline for creating linear content that is very segmented in between the different departments,” Brena said, “and now, with this new technology, it allows you to kind of merge and get all these departments together and working like in a single platform within a single unit.” This unity, he said, “massively improves how fast you can iterate.”

Amid these changing dynamics, the role of Virtual Production Supervisor becomes increasingly vital to ensuring that all departments work cohesively towards a unified creative vision. “It is so important to have that person who is the translator, who is the person that understands all sides,” Storm said, going on to warn, “And if you don’t have that, I’ve seen failures where you don’t have that role.”

Communication and preparation are key, and changes to how departments communicate between one another is a major issue, Fursa said. “You can’t have a director or cinematographer talking directly to… artists, because they speak two very different languages,” he cautions, recalling a challenging production day that stretched to 16 hours “just because of bad communication.”

For mid-tier productions, Brena added, there is the added complexity of communication across studios. Another big challenge, he said, was aligning expectations. There’s a lot of misinformation out there, he noted, and it’s the VP Supervisor’s job to educate clients and teams about what’s possible and what’s not.

Storm emphasized the iterative process and managing expectations to avoid disappointment on set. “The power of no is a strong thing,” she said. “And it’s not because I don’t want to deliver. I’m just… trying to make sure you know going in what you can get.”

The Future of Virtual Production

Looking ahead to the future of virtual production, “data-driven content is going to change everything,” Brena said.

He envisions game engine technology allowing for delivery of pre-rendered content that can be adapted in real time according to viewers’ interests or to support monetization. “Data-driven content is definitely the one that I see [getting] the fastest adoption, because it’s usually the one of how are we going to make money,” he said, adding that media companies will soon discover that by versioning out data-driven content “you will probably multiply revenue.”

Piggybacking on the trend for data-driven content, Storm predicts an upswing in location-based and user-generated content. “Sort of like what [happened] during the pandemic, we’re going to be able to see distinct voices come out in play and be able to share stories,” she said. “More than anything, it’s exciting. Because when there are tools that are easier for people to play with, then creativity starts to surge.”

Fursa touted new advancements in image based lighting, noting that color calibration woes for DPs may soon be a thing of the past. “For now we still have to light, and LED walls generally are not color accurate,” he explains. “They’re missing, like, a white chip. So that means that they don’t have the full spectrum” of traditional lighting for film production. “But right now, there’s a huge wave of new technology that’s coming fast.”

Learn more on our dedicated virtual production resource page.
  • Content Creation
  • Create
  • Acquisition and Production
  • NAB Show New York
  • Virtual Production

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Virtual Production: A Primer
Virtual Production: A Primer

Virtual production techniques and technologies are rapidly shaping the future of filmmaking. Here’s what you need to know.

Leave a Comment on Virtual Production Isn’t Just a Technology, It’s Now a New Way of Thinking
November 13, 2023
Posted November 13, 2023

“Special Ops: Lioness” Director/Cinematographer Paul Cameron Aims for Action and Emotion

Zoe Saldana as Joe in Season 1 of “Special Ops: Lioness.” Cr: Lynsey Addario/Paramount+
Zoe Saldana as Joe in Season 1 of “Special Ops: Lioness.” Cr: Lynsey Addario/Paramount+


TL;DR

  • “Special Ops: Lioness” director and DP Paul Cameron talks about working with the show’s star-studded cast and stepping into the director’s chair.
  • Cameron speaks about finding freedom in restriction and how a cinematography background feeds his approach as a director.
  • “Sometimes you need to be a bit bold and break the ‘Five Cs of Cinematography’ [camera angles, continuity, cutting, close-ups, and composition] and deconstruct them,” he says.
  • Show creator Sheridan Taylor is very, very specific about scripts: “If there’s time to do additional lines, or additional shots, or coverage, or anything of that manner, that’s fine, but you’ve got to shoot the script, and you’ve got to treat it like the Bible.”


Cinematographer Paul Cameron, ASC is most known for his collaboration with Tony Scott (Man on Fire, Déjà Vu) and he has taken lessons from the late director’s approach into his own directing work.

In Paramount+ series Special Ops: Lioness, for instance, Cameron takes an unconventional approach to coverage.

In Cameron’s hands, even a standard dialogue scene between two actors has extra dynamism and energy that come simply from looking for unorthodox angles or alternating focal lengths in a manner that might seem counterintuitive.

“The idea of matching singles or overs in a conventional cutting pattern has never really become part of my vocabulary,” Cameron told IndieWire‘s Jim Hemphill. “It’s more about what looks good on each side — a 65mm lens on Nicole Kidman’s side might be better with a 50mm on the other side with Zoe Saldana, or one side might be more emotional at a steeper angle on an 85mm,” he said.

“Sometimes you need to be a bit bold and break the ‘Five Cs of Cinematography’ [camera angles, continuity, cutting, close-ups, and composition] and deconstruct them.”

READ MORE: Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Special Ops: Lioness’ Breaks All the Cinematography Rules — and It Works (IndieWire)

Zoe Saldana as Joe and Nicole Kidman as Kaitlyn Meade in Season 1 of “Special Ops: Lioness.” Cr: Lynsey Addario/Paramount+
Zoe Saldana as Joe and Nicole Kidman as Kaitlyn Meade in Season 1 of “Special Ops: Lioness.” Cr: Lynsey Addario/Paramount+

Speaking to Matt Hurwitz at the Motion Picture Association’s The Credits, he added, “With Tony, I learned to just be fearless with cameras and put them in places I think are emotionally appropriate and not necessarily coverage-oriented. Looking for a shot, say, with a steep angle, a little too close, to make it just the right level of uncomfortable if the scene calls for that. It’s a matter of what makes it feel right, as opposed to matching focal lengths on lenses and distances, which many shows do.”

READ MORE: “Special Ops: Lioness” Cinematographer & Director Paul Cameron on Taylor Sheridan’s International Thriller — Part 1 (The Credits)

Taylor Sheridan created and wrote the military thriller that also stars Morgan Freeman, Laysla De Oliveira, Michael Kelly and Jennifer Ehle.

The genesis of the story was a real unit that the CIA set up in Afghanistan for handling female prisoners. Taylor’s idea: “What if we take young Special Ops women and put them in situations with high terrorist targets?” Namely, befriending the daughter of a target, or a sister — female to female.

“This way, they could either track and/or take action against high level terrorists. That, to me, was a pretty extreme and interesting idea. It may be slightly different than what Taylor does with a lot of his other shows, but it’s so female-oriented,” Cameron told Owen Danoff at Screen Rant.

He served as the DP on the first two episodes and directed Episodes 5 and 6, and in collaboration with Sheridan and pilot director John Hillcoat established the kinetic visual language for the series.

“Sheridan is very, very specific about scripts,” he says. “If there’s time to do additional lines, or additional shots, or coverage, or anything of that manner, that’s fine, but you’ve got to shoot the script, and you’ve got to treat it like the Bible.”

The challenge is that high-caliber of talents like Kidman, Freeman and Saldana are used to improvising their lines. So how did Cameron handle that?

“It’s just always that situation, like, ‘Listen, we’re going to shoot the lines the way they’re written and then, if there’s an idea, we can either address it together or let’s get Taylor on the phone, and we’ll see if it’s something we want to address or extend a little time to shoot as well,’ he told Danoff. “Again, it seems very constrained, but it’s kind of freeing in the sense that you really have that voice of the writer and that showrunner, and that’s what you’re doing.”

READ MORE: Special Ops: Lioness Director Paul Cameron On Making New Show With & Without Taylor Sheridan (Screen Rant)

Lessons from “Westworld”

Cameron was also heavily involved with Westworld, helping create the initial look of the show and directing episodes even in the series’ final season.

Working with Jonathan Nolan on Westworld, Cameron saw a director who “had linear beliefs of story and stayed with it, and doing that within the work of television,” he says in part two of his interview with Hurwitz. “The reason I started directing there was because I could see somebody setting the bar as high as I’ve ever seen.”

He also learned how to handle a massive amount of scenes in a limited time window. “We might lose a day for some reason and need to make it up, and even with all my experience, I was, like, ‘Oh, my God — how are we gonna do all this stuff?’ And, inevitably, we did it. And that gave me great confidence when I went to direct on Westworld.”

  • Zoe Saldana as Joe in Season 1 of “Special Ops: Lioness.” Cr: Lynsey Addario/Paramount+
    Zoe Saldana as Joe in Season 1 of “Special Ops: Lioness.” Cr: Lynsey Addario/Paramount+
  • Zoe Saldana as Joe in Season 1 of “Special Ops: Lioness.” Cr: Lynsey Addario/Paramount+
    Zoe Saldana as Joe in Season 1 of “Special Ops: Lioness.” Cr: Lynsey Addario/Paramount+

For Special Ops: Lioness, he had to hand his director of photography hat to cinematographers like Niels Albert, John Conroy and Nichole Hirsch Whitaker, something that can be difficult for someone who’s been in their shoes for so many decades.

Most important, he says, is to make sure to include them in prep as much as possible, evaluating scenes and locations, “And to really be open to big decisions,” he says. “What is this scene about? What are the storytelling aspects, and how are we going to manifest it in this location?”

READ MORE: “Special Ops: Lioness” Cinematographer & Director Paul Cameron on Taylor Sheridan’s International Thriller — Part Two (The Credits)

Camera Package

While Cameron and Hillcoat originally considered using a large format camera, like the Sony Venice or the Arriflex Alex LF, the two settled on the popular Alexa Mini LF for most of the production.

Hillcoat didn’t want to see any lens built after 1980, so Cameron gathered an eclectic set for the shoot, including Canon K35s and Zeiss uncoated Super Speed lenses (with both rear end and no coating). “They all react so differently,” he told Hurlitz. “The K35s have a great softness on large format, falling off on the edges really nicely. The uncoated lenses have different qualities of halation [spreading of light beyond the source] and blooming and flaring. So if there’s something bright, the image just blooms a little, or the top halates a little bit.”

Locations

Baltimore stood in for countless locations in nearby Washington, DC. The production also shot in Morocco and Mallorca, Spain. The ISIS compound seen in the first episode was shot at a location in Marrakesh, as was the first meet between Cruz and her target, Aaliyah (Stephanie Nur), Amrohi’s daughter, filmed in the city’s new upscale Rodeo Drive-like shopping area, Q Street, subbing in for Kuwait City. The show’s wedding sequences were filmed at a beautiful house on the ocean in Mallorca. Additional sets were also built in Mallorca, including the White House Cabinet Room, seen in several episodes. Beach scenes representing The Hamptons were shot at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, 120 miles from Baltimore.

“The challenge on this show was a lot of it takes place in DC, and we were situated in Baltimore, which is not the easiest place to film,” Cameron told Tom Chang at Bleeding Cool.

“We had to make a lot of Baltimore locations work for DC and get the establishing and aerial shots. It came together, but it’s always a challenge when you’re not in the exact place. I enjoyed going over to Morocco, I had some things directed there, and I had several scenes shot for John on episodes one and two there. It ended up being the better part of seven months. That was a challenge unto itself.”

READ MORE: Special Ops: Lioness Director/DOP Paul Cameron on Pulling Double-Duty (Bleeding Cool)

Next, Watch This:

  • Content Creation
  • Create
  • Acquisition and Production
  • Media Content
  • Cameras and Lenses
  • Capture Accessories, Devices and Software
  • Lighting and Grip
  • Television / Video Production
  • Workflow Software and Solutions
  • Television Programming

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
How the Team From “The Killer” Sustains Its Style and Structure
How the Team From “The Killer” Sustains Its Style and Structure

Says DP Erik Messerschmidt: “It was all about how you bring the audience to a place they are not used to being, close to this assassin.”

Leave a Comment on “Special Ops: Lioness” Director/Cinematographer Paul Cameron Aims for Action and Emotion
November 28, 2023
Posted November 13, 2023

Charlotte Bruus Christensen Takes a “Raw Yet Cinematic” Approach to “A Murder at the End of the World”

Harris Dickinson and Emma Corrin in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX
Emma Corrin in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX


TL;DR

  • Although set in a glossy, hi-tech world, the creators of FX mystery series “A Murder at the End of the World” embraced imperfection and avoided trying to fix everything in post.
  • Cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen, ASC talks to NAB Amplify about working with series creators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij.
  • She shot with custom-made detuned lenses and devised LUTs for each of the three principal locations in New Jersey, Iceland and Utah.


At first glance, a murder mystery set at a remote luxury retreat for some of the world’s most influential people recalls shows like The White Lotus  and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, but new seven-part FX series A Murder at the End of the World has a different spin.

“With its time-jumping structure, uniquely eerie tone and warnings about artificial intelligence and climate change, it is also unmistakably the work of the idiosyncratic creators behind Netflix series The OA, Sound of My Voice and The East,” Esther Zuckerman writes in The New York Times.

Those creators are Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij — a creative team who’ve been together since their first short film in 2007.

Their new show — marking the first time Marling, a writer and actor, has stepped behind the camera as director — is an Agatha Christie-inflected whodunit, featuring a Gen-Z amateur detective played by Emma Corrin (Diana Spencer in The Crown).

“I knew that Brit was going to be a natural director; I just didn’t understand how much I would enjoy the experience of watching Brit direct,” Batmanglij tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Certain actors, when they get into the directing chair, just have a sensitivity. I saw Emma[Corrin] and Harris [Dickinson] bloom in certain ways when Brit was working with them, and that inspired me to want to go take acting classes.”

Marling explains, “When you’ve spent a lot of years acting, you’re really aware of what actors need to create their best work.”

  • Emma Corrin and Harris Dickinson in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX
    Emma Corrin and Harris Dickinson in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX
  • Emma Corrin in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX
    Emma Corrin in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX
  • Emma Corrin and Harris Dickinson in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX
    Emma Corrin and Harris Dickinson in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX
  • Harris Dickinson and Emma Corrin in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX
    Harris Dickinson and Emma Corrin in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX
  • Emma Corrin in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX
    Emma Corrin in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX

Marling also co-stars as the wife of Clive Owen’s tech billionaire, who invites a motley crew of guests including an environmental activist, a roboticist and an astronaut to his Icelandic retreat, where one or more of them wind up dead.

“It was really eerie, actually, to see the number of things that, when we had set out to write it four years ago, were science fiction,” Marling told Zuckerman. “When we talked about any of this stuff with people, we had to explain what is a deepfake, what is an AI assistant, what’s a large language model — how does that work? And then by the time we were editing it, to see everything come to pass.”

Marling tells Vulture, “Directing feels like you’re taking the world-building part to its ultimate conclusion.”

Watch the first episode here.

READ MORE: ‘The OA’ Creators Are Back With a Murder Mystery (The New York Times)

To film their story, Marling and Batmanglij sought out acclaimed cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen, ASC, who shot horror hit A Quiet Place; All the Old Knives, directed by Janus Metz Pedersen; Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut, Molly’s Game; and Denzel Washington’s film Fences.

“At heart this is a coming-of-age story about a child of the internet who knows more how to live her life in cyberland than in the real world,” Christensen tells NAB Amplify. “The script had this larger than life quality as if the world of the internet can’t be contained or quite grasped.”

She continues, “As a teenager I remember thinking the stars were so beautiful but there was an unfathomable distance between them and me. That is how I think we all felt about the cyberworld in this story. You can’t put it into a cage.”

The Danish DP has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with director Thomas Vinterberg, which began when her own short films caught his attention. This led to Christensen’s first feature film, Submarino, which earned her a Danish Film Academy award for best cinematography. She also shot The Hunt and Far from the Madding Crowd for Vinterberg.

“From what I know, Zal loved The Girl on the Train (shot by Christensen for director Tate Taylor) but it was one of those processes where our agents got in touch. I was in New York having just shot Sharper (dir. Benjamin Caron) so we had our first meeting there and it was like first love. No one who meets Brit can fail to fall in love with her.”

Having shot a number of features back-to-back, Christensen wasn’t particularly looking for a TV project. Instead, it was the co-director’s passion and the story itself that convinced her to take the job.

The central character’s crime solving cyber skills might recall The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Swedish author Stieg Larsson. Christensen says their chief cinematic reference were the films of great Polish auteur Krzysztof Kieślowski, and in particular the Three Colors trilogy (1993-1994 Red, White and Blue).

“We learned a lot from Kieślowski movies and wanted to emulate that tone, something very raw yet cinematic and truthful,” she says. “It’s the way that he took simple ideas and then photographed that idea.

“In these days when you can move the camera so much, even virtually, you can have it fly through a keyhole, under a bed, through a wall; we wanted something that felt raw and which retained those happy accidents, those glitches or scratches that are evidence of something real. We wanted an analog style.”

She elaborates, “Our question to ourselves was how do we make it feel minimalist? For us, perfection was imperfection. We didn’t want to be afraid of imperfections but to embrace all the things that can go wrong and not try to fix everything in post. You really have to work hard to protect that because the instinct from your colleagues in post-production is to fix things.”

  • Emma Corrin in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX
    Emma Corrin in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX
  • Harris Dickinson and Emma Corrin in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX
    Harris Dickinson and Emma Corrin in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX
  • Emma Corrin in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX
    Emma Corrin in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX
  • Emma Corrin in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX
    Emma Corrin in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Cr: Christopher Saunders/FX

To photograph the series she selected the ARRI Alexa equipped with a set of spherical lenses from Panavision that Christensen had previously used on the three-part FX mini-series Black Narcissus — that Christensen also directed.

“The image needed to be messed up a little and these lenses added that less-than-perfect quality,” she said, explaining that Panavision’s VP of optical engineering, Dan Sasaki, “detuned the lenses to achieve a softness and vignetting to break up the digital sharpness and cleanness and push the lenses to capture a less perfect image.”

She devised LUTs for each of the three principal locations in New Jersey, Iceland and Utah. “The color contrast was important to creating an energy between scenes as we move from white ‘desert’ to ‘red desert,’” she says. “Among our first creative conversations was about how to delineate between the real world and the cyberworld.”

She approached the show “like a seven-hour movie, as one story and one journey in terms of lighting,” operating the A camera with occasional second unit work for pick-ups.

While Batmanglij and Marling swapped directorial duties on the episodes, Christensen lensed all seven over the 100-day production period.

“I love prep and being in control of what we’re doing but here I learned how to prep while shooting,” she explains. “If Zal was directing for three days than Brit would be prepping her next block of two to three days and vice versa but I was busy shooting all the time.

“So when either director came to me with a new idea that they’d thought about I had to be quick to re-evaluate. So, I learned to go and chat with the director who wasn’t directing that day in my lunch break to tap into their thoughts and to prep for the next block while shooting.”

The billionaire’s Icelandic retreat recalls the opulence of the Roy family in Succession or the forest mansion in the sci-fi feature Ex Machina. It was built on soundstages in New Jersey and presented the biggest production challenge to the DP. The budget wouldn’t allow for the build of the entire set so they built half, dressed it for half the show, and then flipped it around, dressing the other half of the hotel weeks later.

“It’s a circular hotel but we only had space to build half of it at a time so we’d shoot the one half then, with the other half of the set dressed, we’d shoot the same scenes but in the other mirrored half. We also had to connect those scenes to Iceland. We had snow on the stage to link to snow in Iceland.”

Working within a LED Volume might have solved the need to dress and redress the scale of sets but would not have delivered the analog aesthetic they desired.

While the co-creators and directors naturally sing from the same sheet, Christensen says that they were different in the way they executed things. Making her directorial debut, “Brit is a very organized with thorough prep and previz. She needed that security while Zal allowed for a more spontaneous approach. It’s not quite improvisation but he wasn’t scared of seeing what happens on the day and reacting to that.”

Although she says that the shoot during winter and under COVID conditions in Iceland was particularly tough, Christensen wouldn’t hesitate to work with the duo again.

“Their passion for the story and the camaraderie they bring to set is something to be valued. It was a full on experience but I have to underline that Brit and Zal were an amazing team — which, trust me, does not always happen.”

  • Content Creation
  • Create
  • Acquisition and Production
  • Media Content
  • Cameras and Lenses
  • Television / Video Production
  • Television Programming

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
How the Team From “The Killer” Sustains Its Style and Structure
How the Team From “The Killer” Sustains Its Style and Structure

Says DP Erik Messerschmidt: “It was all about how you bring the audience to a place they are not used to being, close to this assassin.”

Leave a Comment on Charlotte Bruus Christensen Takes a “Raw Yet Cinematic” Approach to “A Murder at the End of the World”
November 12, 2023
Posted November 12, 2023

How Juliana Broste Takes Her Video Studio to Go



TL;DR

  • Filmmaker and host Juliana “Traveling Jules” Broste offers tips for creating an effective and practical studio while traveling.
  • Even if you’re just logging on to Zoom calls, remember that first impressions matter a lot. A well-lit, crystal clear image helps you stand out. It’s also professional in a way that’s especially important if you work in media.
  • Broste shares her gear list, including some items she typically leaves at home.


Filmmaker and host Juliana “Traveling Jules” Broste shared tips for creating “Your Studio On-the-Go” at the 2023 NAB Show New York. Watch her full presentation above.

What to Bring

“I have different size kits for different applications,” Broste says. She also notes that what she brings will depend on her mode of travel; she’ll bring more gear if she’s going by car than she will when flying, for example.

When creating her studio, Broste says, “I use, for example …my Canon EOS R. I have a tripod. I set up a teleprompter… in front of the lens. And underneath the lens you’ll see a little output, a 12 inch monitor, which is connected to my camera.” You’ll also need the “cable to attach [your devices], whether it’s USB-C or HDMI.”

Also, make sure “you have a clean HDMI out so that the picture in the Zoom call or the picture that you’re recording is not going to have words and numbers and F stop and ISO and all that weird focus box around your face.” 

Some cameras, Broste says, have software “where you plug it in and it just works,” but if that’s not the case, she recommends “cam link by Elgato, something like that, like a dongle can easily make your camera now compatible with your computer.”  

Whether or not you’re going with a single-camera set up, Broste recommends the HA10 Mini Pro, which she says “is an amazing switcher.” She adds, “It’s like a one stop shop. You plug it in and everything works.” Broste goes so far as to say, “If you’re on the move, that is the indispensable item.” 

Remember Your First Impression

That’s a list of what Broste will use, even for Zoom calls, because “this type of setup just to give you that edge and especially if you have extra gear or you’re upgrading this is a good place to put it on to use,” Broste explains. 

After all, “imagine that first impression when you get on the Zoom call. And you are just crystal clear. And you are lit well, and exactly the job that you do in video production is represented in that one shot. It’s important, right? We want to represent ourselves first impressions matter.” 

Alternatively, you may use your laptop and a webcam, and Broste says, “I definitely have a stand to make it a little higher so that the camera’s at eye level.”

Also, if you’re using a laptop, “a second screen can be helpful. It makes you feel like you’re at home with that extra monitor.”

One use for that second screen? A teleprompter app. Broste uses Teleprompter Plus, or she also has the Prompter People 10-inch and a Lilliput monitor.

  • TravelingJules in action
    TravelingJules in action
  • TravelingJules in action
    TravelingJules in action

Other Best Practices

And don’t forget your sound. “I definitely recommend investing in audio,” Broste says. 

After all, “if you sound crappy, you can’t hear anything. What’s the point?”

Keep in mind, “not all camera microphones go directly into the computer.” But, she says, one TRS cable “has three rings so that it has headphone capability, the other one has only two rings” and can help your set up.

If you’re using a camera, consider that “cold shoe mounts are going to give you a really good flexibility to have both a microphone and a light.”

Also useful, is a Wi Fi remote. Broste considers hers to be “an indispensable tool that I use with my Canon cameras.” You can also  use your phone to connect to your camera, even changing exposure or to preview your shot.

“Make sure you have continuous power. I learned that it’s actually two things. It’s a AC adapter and a coupler. The coupler looks like a battery goes in the camera, but it has a cord and that powers it,” she says.

Broste adds that she relies on “the Anker. It’s quite a large but very portable power bank,” which she likes enough that she says she “stopped bringing any other charges except this one because it always saves me when I’m in a pickle.”

She recommends some lightweight stands, which can be either aluminum or carbon fiber, noting that some are more travel-friendly than others and some also have more features to recommend them.

What to (Maybe) Skip

“I, personally, try not to travel with lights,” she says. 

Instead, Broste will “position my face towards the window” when recording. But that doesn’t mean you can’t bring lighting with you, and it definitely doesn’t mean you should ignore it. 

She does, however, “really like this Manfrotto collapsible reversible background, which [is] kind of like a reflector,” Broste says.

“Also, you might need lights, fans,” she says, but “I try not to travel with these again, because there’s just so much extra stuff.”

Travel Best Practices

Broste also shared advice for traveling with your kit. “The on-the-go lifestyle, it starts right here when you’re on the road,” she says.

First, Broste recommends to invest in Apple Air Tags or similar tracking devices to keep a virtual eye on your bags.

Next, consider your connectivity if you’re traveling outside your home country. She recommend “that you have an international plan for your phone” or consider getting “local SIM cards because it can get expensive to stay connected.” If you do this and plan ahead, “you get off the plane and you already are connected.”

Also, keep in mind that “you have to be the mule and carry all this stuff. And then you get to benefit from the high quality production.” Whatever you pack, if you’re a solo traveler, you’ll have to carry — but then you also get to use it. 

While she says, “I rarely travel with this roller cart. But that’s also very helpful” because “you don’t have to have all that weight on your back.” However, Broste emphasizes, “You have to make space for that.” 

For her own travel, she says, “Most of the stuff I do is this, it’s [a] backpack. It’s pretty, pretty lean and mean, my backpack might weigh 30 pounds. But I fit it all into one backpack. And also, if you’re feeling like traveling with your gear is weighing you down, think about how that’s gonna feel after one hour, three hours, nine hours later, it’s going to get heavier, right? So it’s always best to only bring what you need.” 

  • Content Creation
  • Streaming
  • Create
  • Acquisition and Production
  • Media Content
  • NAB Show New York
  • Cameras and Lenses
  • Capture Accessories, Devices and Software
  • Mobile / Vehicle Production
  • Social Media
  • Social Networking / UGC

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Traveling Jules Tells All: How to Perfect Personal Storytelling
Traveling Jules Tells All: How to Perfect Personal Storytelling

“Telling your own story, that’s the best part,” content creator Juliana Broste says. “You are in control of what elements are included, what elements are not, and how you want them to feel.”

Leave a Comment on How Juliana Broste Takes Her Video Studio to Go
November 12, 2023
Posted November 12, 2023

Evan Shapiro: “What’s Next” for Media in the User-Centric Era — Part 1

Watch media universe cartographer Evan Shapiro’s keynote address, “What’s Next” at the 2023 NAB Show New York.


TL;DR

  • Media universe cartographer Evan Shapiro’s keynote address at NAB Show New York centered on the pivotal shift to a new user-centric era of media, unveiling new consumer research and urging industry adaptation.
  • Demonstrating the volatility of the media ecosystem, a Publishers Clearing House survey of 27,000 people in the US found that only 7% of users planned to stick with their current suite of subscriptions over the next year.
  • Shapiro discusses the “Hierarchy of Feeds” as a crucial adaptation strategy for media companies to meet the diverse and daily needs of consumers.
  • Highlighting the unexpected rise of local news, Shapiro underscores its significant role and potential for growth in the media landscape.
  • Shapiro spotlights the rapid growth of Free Ad-Supported Television (FAST), which is projected to reach a global market value of $20 billion by 2028.


Media universe cartographer Evan Shapiro commanded the Main Stage at NAB Show New York in October with a keynote address that urged industry professionals to embrace the inevitable: a new era where user choice dictates the flow of content and technology giants carve the path forward. With his customary wit, Shapiro unveiled fresh consumer research and a set of strategic imperatives designed to navigate the shifting currents of media consumption.

Evan Shapiro at NAB Show New York
Evan Shapiro at NAB Show New York

Going beyond analysis, Shapiro’s presentation is a call to action, depicting a future that’s unfolding in real time. From the “Hierarchy of Feeds” to the new “Rules of Gravity” in a media world centered around the consumer, he provides a practical guide for industry adaptation.

Explore key highlights in NAB Amplify’s two-part report, and gain full access to Shapiro’s insights by watching the keynote address in the video at the top of the page.

The User-Centric Era of Media Is Already Here

The Media & Entertainment landscape is undergoing a profound transformation with consumers now at the helm, while tech giants diversify to deliver a “Hierarchy of Feeds” including “must-haves.” Shapiro, in his keynote, delineates this transition with strategic imperatives for navigating these changes as he urges industry professionals to acknowledge and adapt to the present realities of media consumption.

“I think there’s this misperception that we’re coming to what’s next, that what’s next is around the corner… maybe a few years off, and that’s absolutely untrue,” he says at head of his talk. “What’s next is already here.”

Evan Shapiro’s map of the 2023 Global Media Ecosystem. Click here to view/download a full-size version.
Evan Shapiro’s map of the 2023 Global Media Ecosystem. Click here to view/download a full-size version.
Evan Shapiro’s map of the 2023 Global Media Ecosystem scaled by revenue and community size. Click here to view/download a full-size version.
Evan Shapiro’s map of the 2023 Global Media Ecosystem scaled by revenue and community size. Click here to view/download a full-size version.

The gravitational pull of what Shapiro calls “big tech Death Stars” is reshaping the media universe. His two most recent media maps, sized by market share and communities, illustrate this point vividly. Companies must now operate in a domain where the rules are written by the likes of Amazon, Apple and Google — entities that command a significant share of global mobile users and advertising spend. At the same time, these big tech companies have ceded enormous power to users, who program personalized media bundles on a daily basis using just their thumbs.

Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP

Addressing changing media consumption habits, Shapiro revealed a Publishers Clearing House survey of 27,000 people in the US, which found that only 7% of users planned to stick with their current suite of subscriptions. “Now, math is not my best topic,” he acknowledges. “But what I understand is that means that 97% of consumers are rethinking some or parts or all of their subscriptions that they have in their home on a month to month basis. Ready to switch out, ready to cancel.”

Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP

Shapiro emphasizes “Hierarchy of Feeds” as critical for adaptation to the user-centric era of media. “This is the set of itches [consumers are] looking to scratch when they wake up every morning and pick up that first piece of glass.” Media companies, he says, must ask themselves, “Do I touch all these needs? If not, there are plenty of companies who do, and if not, consumers are going to be spending time with other forms of media while they’re not paying attention to you.”

The New York Times serves as a prime example of a legacy media company that successfully transitioned its business model from a print-centric approach to becoming a multimedia conglomerate. They achieved this by diversifying into “lifestyle bundles” that cater to a variety of consumer “must-haves,” ranging from games and sports to news, entertainment, food, video and television.

  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP

Samsung has also adapted to cater to users. The company isn’t “just a manufacturer of televisions,” Shapiro notes, but also an operating system and channel business. “Google isn’t just a platform with video and audio, but also the maker of the fastest growing connected television operating system on the face of the earth. Amazon isn’t just Prime and free shipping and Twitch, but also the manufacturer of Fire,” he continues.

“You have to think about being everywhere your consumers are because you need to build your business around them, not make them fit into your business.”

Local News Isn’t Just Surviving, It’s Thriving

In an era where the digital transformation of media is often headlined by global platforms and streaming giants, Shapiro spotlights a surprising, yet pivotal player: local news. His analysis reveals a sector that’s not just surviving but thriving amid the media revolution, commanding a significant portion of screen time and audience attention.

As the number one use case for broadcast, “local is not just a segment, it’s a quarter of all TV time,” he points out. “Local urgent programming information that I can use in my daily life is going to be one of if not the most important part of the video economy in the United States and around the rest of the world for the next 10 years.”

  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP

The rise of local news isn’t just about numbers; it’s about relevance and the ability to meet the immediate needs of the community. Shapiro notes the fragmented but significant ways people access local content, from FAST news channels to station apps, and the urgent need among younger demographics for local information. “[For] two-thirds of consumers under the age of 45… local news is really important,” he says. “We all need our weather, our local school boards; these things matter more and more on a regular basis.”

Shapiro’s call to action for local media is clear: adapt and innovate. “If you work in local television, think about ‘what’s my website strategy? What’s my app strategy? What’s my FAST strategy, what’s my podcast strategy?’” he advises.

The shift in advertising dollars follows the audience, and local news is no exception. “The money is going to go where the money works,” he says, suggesting that local news can capitalize on this trend by understanding and leveraging the new metrics of media investment, such as cost per activation and video completion.

The Future of FAST

Free Ad-Supported Television (FAST) is staking its claim in the media landscape, with a growth trajectory that commands attention. Shapiro underscores its significance, noting, “FAST is the fastest-growing segment of the video economy.” This trend transcends borders, with the UK, Austria, Brazil, and Germany among the countries riding the FAST wave.

Platforms such as Samsung TV Plus, Roku, and Pluto TV have seen their monthly active users skyrocket, yet Shapiro urges industry professionals to view this data within the broader market perspective. He projects that by 2028 the FAST industry could be worth between $14 to $20 billion dollars worldwide. But while these are impressive numbers, they still pale in comparison to behemoths like YouTube, which is on track to earn a whopping $34 billion this year.

  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP

The data reveals a volatile subscription landscape, with premium ASVODs gaining and losing subscribers at a comparable pace. Shapiro interprets this as a potential pivot point for revenue strategies. Even Netflix is branching into advertising, he says, signaling an industry-wide shift towards a hybrid revenue model that combines subscriptions with ads.

While FAST is a crucial piece of the puzzle, Shapiro says, it’s not the sole answer to a media company’s business model challenges. “Yes, FAST is great,” he says. “Yes, FAST is important. Yes, you should be looking at FAST as part of the continuum you’re making out there. But if you’re resting all of your future laurels on this one format, and thinking it’s going to save your business in and of itself and replace all the revenue you’re losing from all these other traditional platforms, not so much.”

Head on over to Evan Shapiro Reveals “What’s Next” for Media in the User-Centric Era — Part 2 for more highlights from Shapiro’s keynote address at NAB Show New York, including his “7 Rules of Gravity” with clear, actionable steps for building a sustainable media business and thriving in the new era.

  • Broadcast
  • Streaming
  • Capitalize
  • Distribution and Delivery
  • Media Content
  • Industry Resources
  • NAB Show New York
  • AVOD / SVOD / FAST
  • AdTech / MarTech
  • Business and Technology Consultants
  • Aggregators / Syndicators
  • Content Publishers
  • Interactive and Cross Platform TV / Web / Mobile
  • News / Weather / Traffic
  • Television Programming

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Evan Shapiro: “What’s Next” for Media in the User-Centric Era — Part 2
Evan Shapiro: “What’s Next” for Media in the User-Centric Era — Part 2

Evan Shapiro presents his “7 Rules of Gravity” with actionable steps for building a sustainable media business and thriving in this new era.

Leave a Comment on Evan Shapiro: “What’s Next” for Media in the User-Centric Era — Part 1
November 12, 2023
Posted November 12, 2023

Evan Shapiro: “What’s Next” for Media in the User-Centric Era — Part 2

Watch media universe cartographer Evan Shapiro’s keynote address, “What’s Next” at the 2023 NAB Show New York.


TL;DR

  • Evan Shapiro’s keynote address at NAB Show New York continues to dissect the user-centric era of media, focusing on the digital ad revolution and the essential “Rules of Gravity” for the M&E industry to successfully navigate the new landscape.
  • The streaming boom has led to a saturated market, and Shapiro highlights the challenges of subscription churn and the need for innovative business models to retain viewer engagement and ad revenue.
  • Shapiro’s analysis of industry data reveals a seismic shift in ad revenue, with digital and CTV ad spending projected to reach nearly $58 billion in 2023, challenging traditional TV’s market dominance.
  • The advertising paradigm is changing, with a significant portion of ad spend concentrated among a few tech giants and a move towards performance-based digital marketing, emphasizing the importance of ROMI and ROAS in media buying.
  • Shapiro concludes with his “7 Rules of Gravity,” advocating for integration, a symbiotic relationship between subscriptions and advertising, and the strategic importance of daily engagement, commerce, and diversity in leadership to thrive in the user-centric era.


READ MORE: Evan Shapiro Reveals “What’s Next” for Media in the User-Centric Era — Part 1 (NAB Amplify)

Backed by new research and fresh market analysis, media universe cartographer Evan Shapiro’s keynote address at NAB Show New York charts a course for navigating the new user-centric era of media, where seismic shifts are rapidly reshaping the industry and the rate of change is constant.

Part 1 of NAB Amplify’s two-part report examines the profound transformation of the Media & Entertainment landscape, from evolving consumption habits to fulfilling consumers’ “Hierarchy of Feeds” as a strategy for thriving in the new era. Part 2 continues the exploration, delving into the digital ad revolution and the pivotal “Rules of Gravity” that can help companies redefine their business strategies.

Explore the key highlights detailed below, and gain full access to Shapiro’s insights by watching the keynote address in the video at the top of the page.

Streaming Ascendant: Growth and Challenges

The streaming sector is experiencing an unprecedented boom, reshaping the M&E landscape with its rapid growth and the challenges that accompany it. As streaming services proliferate, they face the dual challenge of saturating the market while striving to maintain and grow their subscriber bases.

The pandemic, Shapiro notes, served as a catalyst for an unprecedented surge in connected television (CTV) sales and subscriptions, leading to a scenario where “more people have more intelligent televisions than they’ve ever had in more rooms.” This proliferation of smart TVs has not only changed how consumers engage with content but has also raised the stakes for content providers to develop a comprehensive CTV strategy.

Contrary to the belief that younger audiences are averse to paying for content, Shapiro argues that they are discerning but willing to invest in premium experiences. The decision to pay hinges on content relevancy, the presence of exclusive originals, refresh rates, and the breadth of the content library. These factors are pivotal in attracting and retaining the younger demographic, who place a higher value on content quality and exclusivity than on cost.

Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP

Shapiro emphasizes the consumer’s newfound power in the user-centric era, with the ability to fluidly navigate between various content offerings, including ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) and subscription-based video on demand (ASVOD), as well as video game platforms. This shift in consumption patterns demands a cohesive content delivery approach from providers.

One of the most pressing issues for streaming services is subscription churn. Shapiro sheds light on the industry’s churn rate, which has seen a significant increase. He explains that every four months, a quarter of all premium ASVOD subscriptions are canceled, a trend that reflects the consumers’ growing propensity for “serial churning” — a cycle of subscribing, binge-watching, and canceling.

  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP

“If people are churning out on this massive a basis on a regular month-to-month continuum, keeping the ad dollars in ecosystem is going to be difficult in and of itself. It’s not just a subscription problem; it is also an advertising problem.”

The solution, says Shapiro, is to change how streaming companies charge users for content. “They need to figure out ways that are different than just cancel or not cancel,” he counsels. “It doesn’t have to be a binary choice. What if, I don’t know, Pluto and Paramount+ were the same app? And that when you were done with Paramount, you stop paying but you’re still living inside the Paramount ecosystem, and they can still remarket to you? And instead of having to re-onboard the whole time over again, you just click back on for the paid [content]. What if you only pay when you watch, so you always are subscribed, but you’re only paying based on usage?”

Disregarding the need to change their business models will lead to failure, Shapiro admonishes. “Even Netflix is going to have a hard time over the next five years making their business work if they can’t grow their ad business,” he says. “And if they fall into this trap, their ad business will never work.”

Adapt or Perish: The New Metrics of Media Advertising

The advertising landscape within the media industry is undergoing a pivotal transformation, with digital platforms and Connected TV (CTV) rapidly ascending as the new titans of ad revenue. Shapiro’s analysis of the latest industry data highlights a critical juncture for media entities: evolve swiftly with new advertising trends or face decline.

“If you’re in the ad business It’s going to be an interesting time,” he says, explaining how the US just exited an 11-month decline in advertising but ad sales, while rising, still haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Digital video and connected TV (CTV) platforms commanded an already impressive $41.1 billion in 2021, soaring to nearly $58 billion in 2023. This steep upward trend in digital ad revenue is reshaping the traditional advertising paradigm, Shapiro says. In 2021, traditional TV held a dominant 62% share of the advertising market, but has now contracted to just 51%. In contrast, the market share for digital video and CTV has ballooned from 38% in 2021 to an impressive 49%, signaling a near equalization with traditional TV’s market presence.

  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP

Ad spend is indeed on the rise, says Shapiro, pointing to a recent Google earnings call that reported a 12.5% increase in revenue for YouTube, “but it is not being distributed proportionally across the ecosystem the way it was pre-lockdown,” he cautions, “and it never will be again. It’s going to the big platforms. And it’s going to the places where the ad buyers know that their dollars work.”

Media buyers, he says, are moving out of more traditional upfront deals “into much more performance-based digital marketing” like CTV and digital. Emphasizing that “the money is going to go where the money works,” he points out that a staggering 60% of all ad spend in the United States is funneled to just three companies.

  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
  • Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
    Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP

One crucial point, Shapiro adds, is that consumers see creator-led social video as a quality equivalent to professionally-produced content. “More importantly, for your business, advertisers now see it the same way,” he says, easily moving ad budgets back and forth between these two ecosystems on a regular basis based on pricing performance and need case.

“As a provider of ad impressions [you] need to be able to demonstrate that their money isn’t being wasted when they spend it with you,” Shapiro advises, noting that more than half of advertisers, brands and agencies surveyed said return on media investment is the number one metric for determining media buys.

The key to thriving in this new advertising economy, Shapiro says, is understanding and leveraging the metrics that matter. Return on media investment (ROMI) and return on ad spend (ROAS) are becoming the primary metrics for media buying, he asserts. “This number is going to rise [at] every upfront forever, it’s never going to turn back around.”

Shapiro’s “7 Rules of Gravity for the User-Centric Era”

Shapiro concludes his keynote with the “7 Rules of Gravity” for the user-centric era, guiding principles for media entities navigating the new landscape where consumers dictate the orbit.

Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP

Rule 1: Integration Over Isolation — Shapiro champions a unified media experience, where users control the convergence of video, audio, social, and games. “The user is the center of all of it,” he insists, advocating for a seamless integration of media services.

Rule 2: Subscription and Advertising Symbiosis — The second rule dismantles the notion that subscriptions and advertising are at odds. Shapiro argues for a complementary relationship where both models can coexist and bolster the other, providing a stable revenue mix.

Rule 3: Global Audience, Local Content — Shapiro highlights the importance of content that resonates locally while reaching globally, especially for the under-40 demographic that constitutes a majority worldwide.

Rule 4: Compete and Cooperate with Tech Giants — Media companies must navigate the delicate balance of both working with and competing against the tech behemoths. Shapiro advises learning from diversified companies like Amazon and Google, which offer bundled services for consumers and advertisers alike.

Rule 5: Daily Engagement is Must-Have — To be indispensable, Shapiro says, media must engage users daily. “Just because they use you today doesn’t mean you’re a must-have,” he cautions, pushing for consistent and compelling daily engagement.

Rule 6: Commerce Pumps the Heart of Media — Shapiro reminds us that commerce is the lifeblood of media, and integrating commerce into media strategies is not just an option but a necessity. “Commerce pumps the heart of media, it always has,” he states.

Rule 7: Representation at the Helm — Shapiro calls for diversity in media leadership, ensuring content reflects and resonates with a broad audience. “The media has too few people at the top from the communities it’s supposed to serve most,” he points out, stressing that a diverse array of voices in leadership positions is not just a moral imperative but a strategic one.

Shapiro’s parting message is one of urgency and action. He implores media companies to align with these principles swiftly, not only to survive but to lead in the user-centric era. The future favors those who place the user at the core of their strategy, who innovate in content, engagement, and commerce, and who act decisively. The era of user-centric media is not on the horizon — it’s here, and the time to adapt is now.

  • Broadcast
  • Streaming
  • Capitalize
  • Distribution and Delivery
  • Media Content
  • Industry Resources
  • NAB Show New York
  • AVOD / SVOD / FAST
  • AdTech / MarTech
  • Mobile TV / Video Management Platforms / Applications
  • Business and Technology Consultants
  • Research / Data Science, Analytics, Data Visualizations
  • Content Publishers
  • Interactive and Cross Platform TV / Web / Mobile

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Evan Shapiro: “What’s Next” for Media in the User-Centric Era — Part 1
Evan Shapiro: “What’s Next” for Media in the User-Centric Era — Part 1

Media universe cartographer Evan Shapiro examines the pivotal shift to a user-centric era of media, supported by new consumer research.

Leave a Comment on Evan Shapiro: “What’s Next” for Media in the User-Centric Era — Part 2
November 30, 2023
Posted November 12, 2023

“The Holdovers:” Alexander Payne and Kevin Tent on the Director-Editor Collaboration (and They Should Know)

Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa in director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release. Cr: Seacia Pavao
Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa in director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release. Cr: Seacia Pavao


TL;DR

  • Director-screenwriter-producer Alexander Payne and editor Kevin Tent, ACE reunite for their eighth feature film, “The Holdovers.”
  • A period film with Payne’s characteristic tragi-comic elements starring regular actor Paul Giamatti, the comedy-drama is generating awards buzz.
  • The film marks one of the few occasions where Payne has not worked from his own script, although Tent says this made no difference to his craft approach.
  • The film’s 1970 setting is evoked with needle drops of classic tracks by The Allman Brothers Band, The Temptations and The Swingle Singers, among others.


Longtime friends and collaborators, director-screenwriter-producer Alexander Payne and editor Kevin Tent, ACE reunite for their eighth feature film, comedy-drama The Holdovers, which has been generating awards buzz.

Set in 1970, The Holdovers tells the tale of Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), a curmudgeonly instructor at a New England prep school who remains on campus during Christmas break to babysit a handful of students with nowhere to go. He soon forms an unlikely bond with a brainy but damaged troublemaker, and also with the school’s head cook, a woman who just lost a son in the Vietnam War.

Since their first project together, Citizen Ruth in 1996, the duo has made Election, About Schmidt, Sideways, The Descendants (for which Tent was nominated for an Academy Award), Nebraska and Downsizing. Payne was Oscar nominated for adapting the screenplays for Election, Sideways and The Descendants (winning twice) and nominated as best director for Sideways, The Descendants and Nebraska.

  • Director of photography Eigil Bryld, actor Dominic Sessa and director Alexander Payne on the set of their film “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release. Cr: Seacia Pavao
  • Director Alexander Payne and actor Dan Aid on the set of their film “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release Credit: Seacia Pavao
    Director Alexander Payne and actor Dan Aid on the set of their film “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release. Credit: Seacia Pavao
  • Director Alexander Payne and actors Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph on the set of their film “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release Credit: Seacia Pavao
    Director Alexander Payne and actors Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph on the set of their film “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release. Cr: Seacia Pavao

A Character-Driven Period Drama

In keeping with these stories, The Holdovers is character-driven so don’t expect car chases, gunfights or explosions. “It is about people and the pain they carry in their lives and how opening oneself up to others around you can help relieve that pain and sometimes maybe even help you to grow,” describes The Rough Cut host Matt Feury, who talked with both Payne and Tent for the Avid-sponsored podcast.

Payne conceived the basic framework for the movie about a dozen years ago after watching a restoration of the 1935 French comedy Merlusse. About five years ago, he received a TV pilot out of the blue, which prompted him to call the writer, David Hemingson.

“I said, ‘Hey, you’ve written a great pilot. I don’t want to do it, but would you consider writing a story for me?’ That’s how it happened.”

The Holdovers is among the few occasions where Payne has not worked from his own script, although Tent says this made no difference to his craft approach.

“On The Descendants we really toned back the comedy because it felt a little forced, but here the tone kind of came prepackaged into the cutting room. Nothing ever seemed forced.”

  • Dominic Sessa stars as Angus Tully, Paul Giamatti as Paul Hunham and Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Mary Lamb in director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release Credit: Seacia Pavao / © 2023 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
    Dominic Sessa, Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph in director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release. Cr: Seacia Pavao
  • Dominic Sessa and Paul Giamatti in director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release Credit: Seacia Pavao
    Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa in director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release. Cr: Seacia Pavao
  • Dominic Sessa and Paul Giamatti in director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release, Cr: Seacia Pavaoin director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release, Cr: Seacia Pavao
    Dominic Sessa and Paul Giamatti in director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release. Cr: Seacia Pavaoin
  • Paul Giamatti in director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release, Cr: Seacia Pavaoin
    Paul Giamatti in director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release. Cr: Seacia Pavaoin
  • Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Dominic Sessa and Paul Giamatti in director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release. Cr: Seacia Pavaoin
  • Dominic Sessa and Da’Vine Joy Randolph in director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release, Cr: Seacia Pavaoin
    Dominic Sessa and Da’Vine Joy Randolph in director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release. Cr: Seacia Pavaoin

Editing (Just Enough)

The Holdovers largely focuses on two or three main characters, which means that for an editor there aren’t a lot of places to hide when the director has shot long takes of dialogue and reaction.

“Sometimes it is tricky,” Tent agrees, “because Alexander gets amazing performances, but I think it is because he lets them take their time and find the lines properly.

“We try not to cut too much. It is a challenge to keep things moving, picking up the pace, but keeping the performances solid. We had some challenging scenes because we had a couple of fairly long talking scenes, and we’re trying to condense them as the film was evolving.”

He adds, “We tightened in a lot of the scenes to get to where the boys were leaving sooner. And we’re always doing that internally within scenes, dropping lines, that kind of stuff.

“But I think the screenplays really is so amazing. Just the reveal of Paul, as you dig deeper into Paul, you find out so late in the movie that he basically ran away from home, and then you find out that his dad beat them. Normally, people try to set all those things up right in the beginning, and I really appreciated the way things were slowly revealed here.”

Additionally, Tent tells A.Frame, “We’re pretty careful about not getting anything too sentimental or too sappy.”

How do they achieve that? Tent says, “It’s really a discipline in how we’re cutting the performances, I would say. So, if it doesn’t seem like it’s ringing true, then we would probably cut it out.”

Tent put it another way to Academy Conversations: “We did what we always did, … really let performances drive our decisions in the cutting room.”

Evocative Needle Drops

The film’s 1970 setting is evoked with needle drops of classic tracks by The Allman Brothers Band, The Temptations and The Swingle Singers, among others.

“Mindy Elliot, our associate editor and assistant editor, started putting music in and then we work with music editor Richard Ford, who helped us with both score and needle drops,” Tent says.

“With needle drops you can’t get too committed to anything because it costs so much money and it’s just such a back and forth with [licensing]. But in the beginning on this movie, I couldn’t really hear the music in it. Mindy suggested putting in one of the Swingle Singers’ Christmas songs and that became something dramatic that we use a lot, which was great.”

Signature Dissolves

Tent also talked about the use of dissolves, a signature Payne-Tent storytelling technique.

“We use a lot of them in The Holdovers, but we’ve always used them. It’s been part of our film language all the way back to Citizen Ruth. There’s a couple of really interesting ones in The Holdovers. I think that actually people thought were mistakes at first, and we’re like, ‘No, we did that on purpose.’”

Tent explains to A.Frame, “[W]e’re doing the same things that we’ve always done. But people think the dissolves now are because we’re trying to make it a ’70s film, but not really. We always used them.”

But unlike Sideways, he notes, “there was not a lot of predesigned dissolves.” Instead, “they were all made up in post. But they’re very effective, and I think they smooth out cuts and stuff like that.”

READ MORE: ‘The Holdovers’ Editor Kevin Tent Talks Being in the Cutting Room With Alexander Payne (A.Frame)

  • Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Paul Giamatti in director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release Credit: Seacia Pavao
    Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Paul Giamatti in director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release. Cr: Seacia Pavao
  • Da’Vine Joy Randolph in “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release Credit: Seacia Pavao
    Da’Vine Joy Randolph in “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release. Cr: Seacia Pavao
  • Da’Vine Joy Randolph and director Alexander Payne on the set of their film “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release, Cr: Seacia Pavaoin
    Da’Vine Joy Randolph and director Alexander Payne on the set of their film “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release. Cr: Seacia Pavaoin
  • Dominic Sessa in director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release, Cr: Seacia Pavaoin
    Dominic Sessa in director Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a Focus Features release. Cr: Seacia Pavaoin

Seventies (Re)Immersion

With Jami Philbrick at Moviefone, Payne elaborates on the 1970s setting: “I don’t remember exactly the moment, but connecting the dots, I thought it would be neat for the movie, to just give it something special. Nebraska’s in black and white, which just gives it something a little special formally. I just thought, ‘Well, wouldn’t it give this movie something special if we make it look and sound like a movie made in 1970.’

“But what it did, especially as my first period film, was give us the idea that we’re pretending that we’re working in 1970 making a low-budget contemporary film at that point. I think that helped our sense of aesthetic, that the sets and the costumes look as lived in, grimy and old as they would’ve been had we been making just a low budget contemporary movie back then.”

He adds, “I always put a lot of thought into the movies in terms of what car the protagonist drives. It’s always an important thing to think about. It tells you as much about the character as their apartment does. The good ones, I think, were Paul Giamatti’s red Saab in Sideways. Then the best one is Matthew Broderick’s Ford Festiva, a little teeny tiny pathetic Ford Festiva in Election.”

READ MORE: Director Alexander Payne and Editor Kevin Tent Talk ‘The Holdovers’ (Moviefone)

Seventies movies were formative for the 62-year old filmmaker, as he recounts to Jake Coyle reporting for AP News. Payne screened several classics for crew and cast including The Graduate, The Last Detail, Paper Moon, Harold and Maude and Klute.

“We weren’t trying to consciously emulate the look and feel of any single one of those films but we all wanted to splash around in the films of our contemporaries, had we been making a movie then.

“My birthday parties, we’d go see Chinatown or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. But that’s the period when I was a teenager and a sense of taste was being imprinted on me. And what I was told was a commercial American feature film. Now they’re considered art films or whatever, the last golden age. Well, you never know when you’re living in a golden age.”

READ MORE: Alexander Payne on the inspirations of ‘The Holdovers’ and the movies that shaped him (AP News)

Next, Watch This:

  • Content Creation
  • Create
  • Post Production
  • Audio Editing
  • Editing

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Editor Joanna Naugle Says “Yes, Chef!” to Chaos (and Collaboration) for “The Bear”
Editor Joanna Naugle Says “Yes, Chef!” to Chaos (and Collaboration) for “The Bear”

If FX’s The Bear reminds you of a Martin Scorsese film, you won’t be surprised editor Joanna Naugle is a devotee and used his movies as references for the show.

Leave a Comment on “The Holdovers:” Alexander Payne and Kevin Tent on the Director-Editor Collaboration (and They Should Know)
November 12, 2023
Posted November 12, 2023

How Creators Are Upgrading Their Workflows With AI

Watch “Go Pro with AI: New Pipelines Change the Game for Content Creators” from the 2023 NAB Show New York.


TL;DR

  • AI tools are available for language dubbing, photo editing, asset management and script generation, delivering professional quality outputs.
  • Elena Piech, creative producer at ZeroSpace, believes AI is not going to completely get rid of everything that creators do but it will enhance their work by making the process less time consuming.
  • Piech says YouTubers and influencers are already using AI to do their own video voiceovers, even in multiple languages.


AI tools are available for a host of production tasks including almost instant language dubbing, photo editing and asset management, and even script generation.

“My whole thesis is that AI is not taking your job,” says Elena Piech, creative producer at ZeroSpace, a metaverse lab and virtual production studio based in Brooklyn.

“Instead, it’s looking at how we can enhance your workday, make your workday more efficient, and give you the opportunity to do more of the creative decision making that you’d like.”

Piech was speaking at NAB Show New York in an informative PHOTO+VIDEO LAB session entitled “Go Pro with AI: New Pipelines Change the Game for Content Creators.” You can watch her full presentation in the video at the top of the page.

Elena Piech, XR/Web3 Producer
Elena Piech, XR/Web3 Producer

“We need to acknowledge that the film and photo landscape is changing, and that we can do things to optimize the way that we work,” she said.

R&D, she says, is at the core of what ZeroSpace does. “We look at a lot of different AI tools and see how we can apply them both to our internal projects, and our client projects.”

One example is using AI, such as the tools in Adobe photo editor Lightroom, to speed up the workflow around asset management.

“Let’s say you shoot a wedding, you have 5,000 images, and you need to narrow those 5,000 into your favorite 500,” she explains. “That process can take a while just to go through and mark up. You can use AI to help with some of that decision fatigue and speed up the process. You can upload your full set of photos and then you can change the parameters you want.”

You could, for instance, instruct the AI to ignore all blurry photos, or be more lenient and ask it to select those with minor blur. If there are duplicate images, say five pictures that look the same, you could request the software to select just the best one.

Professional creators can also upload images and have them immediately edited and tweaked according to their own personal style and taste.

“Things like edit, changing exposure, your contrast, highlights, your shadows, your whites and blacks. It’s up to you to make and build that preset,” she says. “Now you can use an AI tool to get that preset that’s based on you and your style.”

When it comes to automatic dubs, Piech talked about software from Speech Labs.

“Let’s say that I voice a video for my English-speaking audience, I can upload a few sample sentences onto their software and then it can translate that into different languages that sounds authentic and sounds like my voice,” she says.

“We work a lot with YouTubers and influencers and a lot of them [are] now not even doing their own voiceovers. They just have an algorithm that has their voice and it’s spewing it out.”

Another workflow shortcut is to use AI to generate mood boards rapidly, rather than spend hours searching and selecting from sites like Pinterest.

Creators are also using ChatGPT and other text-based generators to spin up email or sales copy for their videos.

She likes using Adobe and its AI image generator Firefly because of the company’s verified approach to copyright.

“They have a lot of copyright protection baked in,” Piech says. “So, for example, if I were to type in ‘Mickey Mouse in the desert,’ Adobe Firefly is not going to give me Mickey Mouse in the final image because they know that that’s a copyright problem for them. So even if it’s just for ideation for potential clients, you’re saving yourself from running the risk of potentially getting sued in the long term.”

Watch more sessions from NAB Show New York here.
  • Content Creation
  • Intelligent Content
  • Acquisition and Production
  • Post Production
  • NAB Show New York

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Scott Belsky: How AI Will Impact Media’s “Core and Periphery”
Scott Belsky: How AI Will Impact Media’s “Core and Periphery”

Whether you’re excited by or wary of the potential for AI, you’re trying to parse how it will change work. Adobe’s Scott Belsky takes that on.

Leave a Comment on How Creators Are Upgrading Their Workflows With AI
November 8, 2023

Techo-Optimism Is Great… Oh, Until It Isn’t

From Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times”
From Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times”


TL;DR

  • Tech billionaire and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen claims “technology is the glory of human ambition and achievement, the spearhead of progress, and the realization of our potential,” and goes on to vilify anyone who dares to step in the way of “progress.”
  • Critics have responded by calling him a “techno-shamanic futurist” and adopting the language of fascism to scare politicians away from regulating AI
  • Money, proclaims Andreessen, is the only motivator capable of producing the giant technological leaps that advance humanity.


READ MORE: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto (Marc Andreessen)

Tech billionaire Marc Andreessen’s latest dispatch, a “Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” advocates that we should all view technology as a force for pure good.

No-one is arguing about the concept of “techno-optimism,” the idea that technology is the key driver of human wealth and happiness. But the zeal with which the Netscape Navigator developer and cofounder of VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, demands we view tech without regulation has caused some concern.

Here’s a sample:

“We will explain to people captured by these zombie ideas that their fears are unwarranted and the future is bright.

We believe we must help them find their way out of their self-imposed labyrinth of pain.

We invite everyone to join us in Techno-Optimism.

The water is warm.

Become our allies in the pursuit of technology, abundance, and life.”

Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516), “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” 1490 - 1510, Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain
Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516), “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” 1490 – 1510, Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain

Steven Levy at Wired calls it an “over-the-top declaration of humanity’s destiny as a tech-empowered super species—Ayn Rand resurrected as a Substack author.”

And you can see why. Here’s Andreessen in full messianic flow:

“Technology must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man,” he writes. “We believe that we are, have been, and will always be the masters of technology, not mastered by technology.

“Victim mentality is a curse in every domain of life, including in our relationship with technology — both unnecessary and self-defeating. We are not victims, we are conquerors.” (Italics are Andreessen’s.)

To which Levy jokes, “If this essay had a soundtrack it would be Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries.’”

(Andreessen cites Friedrich Nietzsche as one of his “Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism.”)

Levy continues his criticism, calling the essay an attempt “to justify not only an unquestioning pursuit of technology but the late-stage capitalism that provides out-of-whack rewards for the system’s winners — like Andreessen.”

READ MORE: What the Techno-Billionaire Missed About Techno-Optimism (Wired)

Theo Priestley, blogging at Medium, dismisses the tech billionaire’s declaration, saying, “he got lucky with Netscape and then thought he was Internet Jesus.”

Priestley contrasts Andreessen’s world view with that of the fictional astronaut Mark Watney, in Andy Weir’s book The Martian (played by Matt Damon in Ridley Scott’s film).

“The differences between the two are stark; one wants humanity to become some sort of technology-infused super-species purged of emotional connection and happy to live among androids,” he says.

“The other strives to show humanity at its best, a species able to overcome impossible odds using the ingenuity, knowledge, adaptability and tools available to them at the time.”

This is the techno-optimism that Priestley believes will inspire generations to come.

The question is why has Andreessen written this manifesto, other than to sate his ego? It’s not hard to be discern. There is self-interest at heart.

“Everything contained in Marc’s manifesto could be underlined in red pen under certain words that form the investment thesis behind a16z,” warns Priestley.

“If you don’t believe in hypergrowth or particular tech trends that they want you push forward with, then you’re not in the gang. Marc and his disciples have become masters of manipulation in the venture community.”

Calling him a “a techno-shamanic futurist,” Priestley says that instead of changing people’s minds the manifesto is all entirely designed to make a16z successful.

“Mark Watney, on the other hand, demonstrates just what being a part of the human race really means: Problem solving, personal, national and international collaboration to come up with solutions that allow for the next step forward.

“Science and engineering — the skills many are advocating we shouldn’t bother with because the robots will do it for us. Resilience, making mistakes then solving the next problem, the human spirit of being so stubborn we will never give up.”

Priestley extends his critique of Andreessen to the whole class of tech VCs. Too many, he says, are “fixated on short-term gains they can spend in their lifetime rather than helping build a future they will never see. They want a 10x return in 10 years and so founders with longer term vision that could reshape humanity are sacrificed for another TikTok app or SaaS product knocked up by code interpreter from ChatGPT.”

READ MORE: Why We Need Mark Watney, Not Marc Andreessen (Theo Priestley)

Paris Marx, the tech critic and host of Tech Won’t Save Us, observed to The Engadget Podcast’s Devindra Hardawar that not just Andreessen but a number of Silicon Valley uber-rich are adopting the language of a “secular religion” to justify their outsized gains.

“These tech billionaires are aggrieved by the fact that people are criticizing tech more and more,” Marx says.

After the millions pumped into the metaverse, the evangelism around Web3, and the crypto-bubble and crash — including major fraud by FTX — tech innovation appeared to be crumbling… until AI rode to the rescue “as this magic thing to give the whole industry a boost.”

The aim, Marx continues, “is to keep investment flowing into not just Open AI and Microsoft and Google, but these new startups that are trying to enter this AI landscape.”

Just the kind of startup that a16z invests in. Andreessen needs Wall Street to be techno-optimist too. He also needs Washington to pull back on regulation.

As Andreessen states: “Our enemy is speech control and thought control — the increasing use, in plain sight, of George Orwell’s ‘1984’ as an instruction manual.”

You can see how a lack of regulation benefits someone like Andreessen. “He’s saying AI is a key part of this future,” Marx argues, “So don’t regulate AI, because we want these companies to continue growing. But he’s also saying, in general, don’t regulate the tech industry, don’t try to rein us in, because we are going to be essential to whatever better future is on offer.

“And I think that’s the scary part here [about this] faith in technology. I think that there are some really kind of scary and kind of fascist adjacent ideas that are increasingly being communicated in these types of manifestos and what the tech industry is doing.”

READ MORE: Breaking down the “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” with Paris Marx (Engadget Podcast)

(Perhaps it is worth contrasting Andreessen with Elon Musk, who is the most high-profile tech billionaire on the planet and one of those leading calls for regulation.)

Indeed, Andreessen goes further and claims that tinkering with AI is tantamount to murder.

“Any deceleration of AI will cost lives. Deaths that were preventable by the AI that was prevented from existing is a form of murder,” he writes.

Money, proclaims Andreessen, is the only motivator capable of producing the giant technological leaps that advance humanity.

Then there are those defending Andreessen. Computer scientist Noah Smith says that overall “this sort of uncompromising blast of techno-accelerationism is exactly the kind of extropian enthusiasm we need to shake us out of the doldrums.”

He also sides with Andreessen by noting the “depressingly large number of people [who] seem to see technology and society as fundamentally in competition.

“This worldview sees technologists as fundamentally a type of pirate, sailing the high seas in search of plunder while the navy of social responsibility chases them around.”

To Smith, this way of seeing things is wrongheaded and highly counterproductive. “The reason is that technology, is a fundamentally humanistic enterprise — it increases the collective options available to human societies. This means that the fundamental purpose of creating new technologies is to empower society.”

READ MORE: Thoughts on techno-optimism: What it means to me, and why I support it. (Noah Smith)

You may not agree with Smith but this is at least a sober point of view.

Here is Andreessen on the same topic. You can make your own mind up.

“We have enemies.

Our enemies are not bad people — but rather bad ideas.

Our present society has been subjected to a mass demoralization campaign for six decades – against technology and against life – under varying names like ‘existential risk’, ‘sustainability’, ‘ESG,’ ‘Sustainable Development Goals,’ ‘social responsibility,’ ‘stakeholder capitalism,’ ‘trust and safety,’ ‘tech ethics,’ ‘risk management’ and ‘de-growth.’”

Andreessen also condemns the “know-it-all credentialed expert worldview, indulging in abstract theories, luxury beliefs, social engineering, disconnected from the real world, delusional, unelected, and unaccountable — playing God with everyone else’s lives, with total insulation from the consequences.”

Did he just describe himself?

  • Content Creation
  • Connect
  • Management and Systems
  • Industry Resources
  • Al / Machine Learning
  • Business and Technology Consultants
  • Technology Innovation

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
AI Will Be the Most Impactful Technology in 2024, Say Global CTOs (and Pretty Much Everyone Else)
AI Will Be the Most Impactful Technology in 2024, Say Global CTOs (and Pretty Much Everyone Else)

In 2024, AI applications and algorithms that can optimize data, perform complex tasks, and make decisions with human-like accuracy will be used in diverse ways, the study finds.

Leave a Comment on Techo-Optimism Is Great… Oh, Until It Isn’t
November 7, 2023
Posted November 7, 2023

Are Virtual Anchors Heading to Your Local News Broadcast?

Watch “AI Virtual Humans in Broadcast News” from NAB Show New York.


TL;DR

  • Marc Scarpa, CEO and founder of Defiance Media, shares his company’s approach to creating a custom virtual news Anchor, Raxana, and how they built a bespoke virtual studio for around-the-clock broadcast news.
  • Rather than focus on “deepfakes” and “fake news,” Scarpa talked up the benefits of leveraging AI, along with human expertise, to accurately produce stories while reducing production times and costs.
  • Scarpa says live reporting, from sports or news events, and investigative and foreign journalists have nothing to fear from AI (yet).


Virtual humans are emerging as a game-changing phenomenon, especially in the news and the journalism category. In a fireside chat at NAB Show New York, entitled “AI Virtual Humans in Broadcast News,” Marc Scarpa, the CEO and Founder of Defiance Media, shared his company’s approach to creating a custom virtual news anchor, Raxana. He also said AI news anchors were primed and ready for local news network adoption. Watch the full discussion in the video at the top of the page.

“Local news is really in trouble and suffering in terms of just operational costs. I think that you are definitely going to see virtual humans being used on a local news level here in the States and certainly for just straight reporting,” he said. “AI can’t compare with live field reporting just now, but you can’t have a virtual news anchor and toss to a field reporter. So that’s totally possible. These are things that it’s just a matter of time.”

Marc Scarpa, CEO & Founder, Defiance Media
Marc Scarpa, CEO & Founder, Defiance Media

In a video clip Scarpa shared, Raxana explained who she is and how Defiance produces its news: “I’m an AI powered virtual twin news anchor for Defiance Daily. They are the company who powers my lifelike presence, which is based upon an actual human. Yes, there is a human version of me out there, go find her!” she urged.

“The way we select news stories we run is pretty traditional. Our human editorial director selects press releases from accredited sources and global breaking news outlets. From there, we use ChatGPT to shape our scripts, which helps our editorial director write our stories, making complex topics easier to understand. We utilize cloud-based editing software, so our team can be anywhere in the world creating captivating graphics and visuals that complement our storytelling,” she continued.

“In our news package, we also utilize our growing library of interviews with innovators and entrepreneurs. And as Getty editorial partners, we are able to source from their massive library which is available in real time. Sometimes, if I’m feeling fancy, I’ll even use Midjourney’s AI art software to give you as a taste of my artistic side.

Defiance Media’s custom virtual news anchor Raxana
Defiance Media’s custom virtual news anchor Raxana

“Imagine a future where the news is delivered by AI powered virtual twin anchors in over 30 languages in real time, all around the world, redefining the way we consume the news.”

Following the promo, Scarpa detailed how his company wanted to fully embrace AI and video news reporting. The business model is much the same as regular news. One difference is distribution efficiency. The AI model allows Defiance to take the same package and translate it in up to about 45 different languages immediately.

“So in essence, we can have 45 different sponsors, based upon language around the same news package.”

We learn that the real Raxana is a model originally from Kazakhstan who now lives in Miami.

“We took her to a Bitcoin Conference in Miami and it was hilarious, because people would come up to her and be like, ‘We watch your news program every day?’ They just thought it was a woman in a virtual studio as opposed to a virtual human in a virtual studio.”

However, the model for Raxana had her likeness “bought out” by Defiance for her digital likeness to be used. “We were very clear on what the use case was. I can’t take her license, for example, and use it in a feature film if I wanted to, unless I use her in a future film as Raxana, the broadcast journalist,” Scarpa said.

In Hollywood and the media industry in general there’s a lot of fear around AI taking jobs. Defiance’s workflow though is currently very much a balance between automation and human.

“AI is your friend because, ultimately, it’s saving a ton of time,” he says. “We’re really utilizing AI across the board. It’s not just the virtual human element. And yes, there is a human who’s our editorial director, and she ultimately curates what stories we decide to run.”

However, Scarpa does imagine a near future where conversational AI with virtual humans is commonplace. In broadcast news, he see’s AI’s role as more behind the scenes, performing the edits, the program wrappers, and the scripts.

“It’s all pretty formatted anyway. Why waste hours of a talent’s valuable time when they can spend hours more working on stories and preparing for interviews?” he asks. “It doesn’t mean that camera crews going away, it just means that you’re freeing up that studio time to be able to do something else that would be more productive and more, intelligent, if you will.”

As far as Scarpa is concerned, Defiance Media would not exist were it not for the speed and smarts of AI.

“We’re a global broadcast media outlet reaching 150 million households but we’re ultimately an independent media company. To operate a 24 hour broadcast studio, with actual humans and spending millions of dollars on systems integration and building out that studio, and then trying to find a host that can speak 45 languages — it’s just not possible. So AI really opens up your world in a whole new way,” he explained.

“We’re not doing investigative journalism. I have a huge amount of respect for investigative journalists, especially the ones that right now are on the front lines in the wars are happening in this world. Those people live and die to get us some version of the truth. And I think that the craft of investigative news journalism is highly underrated and very under appreciated,” he added.

“We’re not doing that. We’re just focusing on innovation.”

Next, Watch This:

  • Broadcast
  • Streaming
  • Intelligent Content
  • Distribution and Delivery
  • Management and Systems
  • Media Content
  • NAB Show New York
  • Al / Machine Learning
  • Interactive and Cross Platform TV / Web / Mobile

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Leave a Comment on Are Virtual Anchors Heading to Your Local News Broadcast?
November 7, 2023
Posted November 7, 2023

What ABC News Means About Its Media (Technology) Trifecta

Watch “Technology Decision-Making in an Evolving News & Media Landscape” from NAB Show New York.


TL;DR

  • ABC News executive director of media & technology Fabian Westerwelle heads an NAB Show New York discussion on “Technology Decision-Making in an Evolving News & Media Landscape.”
  • Westerwelle also discusses the launch of FAST channel ABC News Live.
  • LTN’s CTO Brad Wall highlights the growing adoption of IP-based technologies with the evolving content opportunities for news outlets.


For broadcast networks like ABC the ongoing technology challenge requires technology, consumer product and editorial groups working together supported by deeply embedded IP and cloud vendors.

“We have to shift our thinking to designing that process from the top down, beginning with asking ‘who are our customers?’” outlined Fabian Westerwelle, Executive Director, Media & Technology, ABC News, at NAB Show New York in a session entitled “Technology Decision-Making in an Evolving News & Media Landscape.” Watch the full discussion in the video at the top of the page.

“You have to ask, how do they like to consume news? And how do we create that experience for them across all those different touchpoints?” the executive posited.

“So that means you have to establish what I like to think of as a trifecta. This is the concept where you have to really put the people that are dealing with the customer product right next to the folks that are doing production and editorial work, and the technology and the operations.

“Because if you don’t have all those three pieces together, working hand in hand, you’re not going to realize the proper experience. You then build your content strategy from there and make the right technology decisions.”

Fabian Westerwelle, Executive Director, Media & Technology, ABC News.
Fabian Westerwelle, Executive Director, Media & Technology, ABC News.

Westerwelle heads up the internal product team for ABC News. “We look at our workflows across the entire media ecosystem that we have to support and set the technology strategy around those pieces from a workflow perspective,” he explained. “We also have a large part of our group that’s running our streaming operations.

He also talked about the broadcaster’s entrée into FAST channels with its by now well-established brand ABC News Live, which launched in 2018.

FAST channels are a prime example of this technology strategy, he said. “A key piece is having that direct interaction and connection with content producers, bringing them along from the beginning of the whole process.

“But if we have that trifecta, then you can bring them along right from the beginning, have them help design it right, so that they are able to shift the way they produce content along the way. And that way, we can usually overcome some of the change management issues.”

Of ABC News Live, he said, “We’re really happy with it. It’s continuing to grow. I think FAST is an area where customers are really excited and interested and it serves a really interesting niche. It’s convenience at its finest, I think, especially in the news space. People are already used to watching the VOD on those devices and then the Smart TVs had all of that capability built in so putting a live channel in front of them there was a natural consumer touchpoint that we were able to take advantage of.”

Westerwelle also talked about the major transition over the past decade which was moving away from satellite for distribution and onto IP.

“Today, even on the distribution side, all of the news content that we distribute is all IP,” he said. “So the real focus for us is more about how to transition to a software based production environment, where we can truly realize the idea of utilize content for all these customer experiences. That requires transitioning a lot of legacy systems to more of a software layer.”

Brad Wall, Chie Technology Officer, LTN
Brad Wall, Chie Technology Officer, LTN

Helping ABC News achieve this are key tech partners like LTN, whose CTO, Brad Wall, was also part of the session.

“Now customers are coming to us and asking us for the ability to do things in orchestration and business intelligence at the software layer,” Wall said. “Because if they’re already in our network the conversation moves onto ‘now can you create multiple versions of this potential show or this live sporting event and deliver this specific version to this specific taker like a Roku? We’re hearing the same thing from media companies.”

Westerwelle added that the partnership with LTN had created a media pipeline and set of workflows that are much more connected.

“The challenge, I think we’re all in right now is figuring out how to make that happen in a way where we’re all talking the same language,” he said. “The cloud providers are helping us step into that. As one example, AWS has taken a lot of strides in the last few years to really meet the needs of the broadcast and the television and content creation community. And LTN do the same thing. The most critical piece for us is that vendors are working with us on that together.”

  • Broadcast
  • Intelligent Content
  • Distribution and Delivery
  • Management and Systems
  • NAB Show New York
  • AVOD / SVOD / FAST

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Evan Shapiro Navigates the “Dark Room:” How Data and Engagement are Shaping the Future of FAST
Evan Shapiro Navigates the “Dark Room:” How Data and Engagement are Shaping the Future of FAST

Evan Shapiro and Justin Evans examine how data analytics and engagement are critical in the maturation of Free Ad-Supported Television (FAST)

Leave a Comment on What ABC News Means About Its Media (Technology) Trifecta
November 8, 2023
Posted November 7, 2023

Consider Creators As You Would Any Other Media Entrepreneur, Say Gary Vee and Taylor Lorenz


Learn more about the creator economy in our dedicated site section.

“People don’t realize that these content creators are actually… real entrepreneurs,” Taylor Lorenz tells Gary Vaynerchuk on The GaryVee Audio Experience. Listen to their full conversation below.

While this job “has the worst reputation,” Lorenz says, “It’s actually incredibly, incredibly hard. You [have] to be a great storyteller. It’s an enormous amount of work.”

Vaynerchuk agrees, noting “There is like deep analytics to what time you post, what is the best feature that you can use right now.” The end result, he says, is “strategic organic content.”

Being a successful creator requires “truly a high level of entrepreneurship, but because the numbers are lucrative, and often, not always, the people are young. There’s this subconscious disrespect for the craft,” Vaynerchuk says.

Lorenz agrees, adding that when technologies are “adopted by young people” many “people are inherently dismissive” and that applies doubly for “young girls.” 

“Extremely Online,” Lorenz’s new book, dives into the history of social media and explores trends that made and broke platforms and apps as the creator economy developed.

Learning From Vine’s Mistakes

Lorenz sees Vine as one of the great almosts. 

“I think Vine could have really rivaled TikTok. Like Vine was the premium to TikTok,” she says. However, the founder “made a series of decisions that I think sort of set them up to be in this difficult spot.” 

First, “he insisted on separating that social experience and the media consumption experience,” she says. “They also alienated their whole first class of content creators.” 

Why? Lorenz explains, “They wanted it to be about one to one IRL friends close friends. I think that was a mistake.”

Snap (FKA Snapchat) is another, albeit less dramatic, cautionary tale of not embracing influencers. Yet it lives on for Gen Z as a preferred messaging app, Vaynerchuk notes. 

Rather than watching the trends and noticing how their app was being used, they did not learn from successful companies, which were able to pivot from their origins. Lorenz advises, “Be flexible, because these founders, they never understood… or predicted how their products would end up being used.” 

“It’s called being consumer centric,” adds Vaynerchuk. 

The Next Big Thing(s)

Lorenz isn’t willing to try to predict the next TikTok (despite repeated presses from Vaynerchuk), but she does note that there is an observable “desire for sort of simultaneous ephemeral experiences.” 

Meaning? Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces might not have been long-lived, popular phenomena, but there is a void to be filled. Perhaps Be Real will evolve, or maybe TikTok Live “fulfills that need.”

Lorenz says, “I don’t know if we’ll see like a separate app, or like feature sets building into that. But that definitely seems to be like a desire from users.”

Also,  Lorenz predicts “there’s a lot more room for small niche apps, and people want to spend more time with like, sort of restricted communities. That’s why you see more people moving into, like, Discord and these group chat platforms.”

After all, she says, “There just continues to be opportunity on the internet.”

What to Watch

Companies are starting to understand “creators need to get paid,” Lorenz says, so she’s keeping an eye on their evolving business models as platforms are “rolling out these different revenue options.”

“YouTube shorts has really … taken off in certain ways, and so I think certain people are monetizing just through that. So I’m just looking more at the revenue streams and seeing like, OK, how are people building these businesses of the future?”

But, Lorenz says, “ I think increasingly, people are not relying on the platforms, right. They’re doing the merch lines and the product lines and things that are not necessarily tied to advertising.” 

Then there’s the medium-term impact of the Hollywood strikes. Next year, when we start to see the dearth of new content, Lorenz predicts, “I think it’s a huge opportunity for people that make content on the internet.”

So is creator a more viable career track than it was 15 years ago? “It’s more competitive today, I would say, than 2007 or ‘08, but we also have a lot more tools. You don’t need as big of an audience,” Lorenz says. 

Ultimately, she thinks, “You have to ask yourself, ‘Can I build a media business around this thing that I love?”

  • Content Creation
  • Streaming
  • Capitalize
  • Media Content
  • Content Publishers
  • Interactive and Cross Platform TV / Web / Mobile
  • Social Media
  • Social Networking / UGC

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Taylor Lorenz: How the Creator Economy Became… an Economy
Taylor Lorenz: How the Creator Economy Became… an Economy

“Extremely Online” is WaPo columnist Taylor Lorenz’s creator-centric chronicle of social media and the birth of the creator economy.

Leave a Comment on Consider Creators As You Would Any Other Media Entrepreneur, Say Gary Vee and Taylor Lorenz
November 6, 2023

Show Us What You Got: Our 2024 Call for NAB Show Speakers Is Open



TL;DR

  • Organizers of the 2024 NAB Show are now accepting proposals and abstracts for conference sessions, panels, exhibition floor theaters, speakers and more.
  • The deadline for submissions is Monday, December 4, 2023.
  • NAB Show is also accepting abstracts from manufacturers, service providers, vendors, exhibitors and sponsors for paid thought leadership opportunities both on the floor and in conference programs at the show.
  • Additionally, NAB Show is also accepting papers for inclusion in the 2024 Broadcast Engineering and IT (BEIT) Conference at NAB Show.


Proposals and abstracts for conference sessions, panels, exhibition floor theaters, speakers and more are now being accepted for the 2024 NAB Show:

The deadline for submissions is Monday, December 4, 2023, and notification of acceptance will go out on Friday December 22, 2023. Please note that only selected submissions will be notified. Start your application here.

This is your chance to bring your expertise and thought leadership to the world’s largest broadcast, media and entertainment tradeshow.

If you have a success story, exciting case study or an amazing project to share, the NAB Show wants to hear from you! For 2024, NAB Show organizers are on a quest to populate the conference and floor theater stages with the best of the best.

When submitting, you’ll be asked which of the following trends and topics best align with your proposal:

Trends and Topics

  • Advertising and Monetization
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Audio Entertainment and Podcasting
  • Cinematography and Lighting
  • Cloud Tech/Workflows
  • Content Preservation/“Good for” Content
  • Creator Economy/User Generated Content
  • Cybersecurity and Content Protection
  • Data and Analytics
  • DEI Initiatives
  • Direct to Consumer Selling
  • eSports and Gaming
  • Immersive Media, Metaverse and XR
  • Live Events, Sports and News
  • Local Radio Business and Management
  • Local Television Business and Management
  • Policy/Advocacy
  • Post Production: Editing, Sound, VFX, Color
  • Storytelling: Film/TV/Branded Content
  • Streaming (FAST, SVOD, AVOD, OTT)
  • Sustainability
  • The Future of Delivery and Distribution via 6G and Beyond
  • Virtual Production/Remote Production
  • Web3, Blockchain and NFTs

Proposal Requirements and Deadlines

Session formats under consideration are limited to Fireside Chats, Interactive Q&As, Tech Demos, Panels, Case Studies and Success Stories, and Original Research.

NAB Show is committed to ensuring diverse representation exists within its programs. NAB Show’s content team and partners are building the 2024 NAB Show programs to reflect diverse points of view and experiences. To help reach this goal, the NAB Show’s approach to speaker selection and invitations will support recruiting a diverse lineup of thought leaders and subject matter experts. You are encouraged to keep this top of mind when crafting your submission.

Proposals promoting company products or services will not be considered; however, proposals explaining the underlying technologies used in broadcast products or services will be considered. If you represent and are submitting for a speaker, be sure to confirm their availability prior to submitting for them. Incomplete proposals will not be considered. No exceptions.

Proposals must be submitted by December 4, 2023. Submitters may receive feedback once the review process is complete on, or before, December 22, 2023. ​Please note that only selected submissions will be notified.

Sponsored Speaking Opportunities

NAB Show is also accepting abstracts from manufacturers, service providers, vendors, exhibitors and sponsors for paid thought leadership opportunities both on the floor and in conference programs at the show. Space is limited and pricing varies by opportunity. Get in touch with a sales representative from NAB Show to discuss opportunities and pricing.

Broadcast Engineering and IT Conference

NAB Show is also accepting papers for inclusion in the 2024 Broadcast Engineering and IT (BEIT) Conference at NAB Show. If you have an informative technology application, an exciting case study or results of an amazing project to share, we want to hear from you! To submit for the BEIT Conference, use this application.

Don’t miss this opportunity to showcase your expertise and thought leadership to the world’s largest broadcast, media and entertainment tradeshow — start your application today!

  • Content Creation
  • Live Event Production
  • Broadcast
  • Streaming
  • Connect
  • NAB Show
  • NAB Show New York

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Leave a Comment on Show Us What You Got: Our 2024 Call for NAB Show Speakers Is Open
November 6, 2023
Posted November 5, 2023

When It Comes to M&E Technology, Let’s Separate “Hot” and “Hype”

metaverse multiverse web3


TL;DR

  • There’s a wave of pragmatism and caution underlying investment in technology across the industry as buyers reign in their equipment spend.
  • A report compiled by Caretta Research finds buyers increasingly selective about new developments, focusing instead on creating efficiencies within their technology stack.
  • Generative AI is identified as the most transformative technology by buyers, but most are still not yet clear on how they will use it.
  • Disappointingly, sustainability is not yet having a significant impact on buying decisions, the report finds, although it is becoming a consideration for certain parts of the supply chain.
  • Buyers still maintain the strategic importance of large global trade shows such as NAB Show and IBC for meeting with vendors.


Cr: Caretta Research/Bubble Agency
Cr: Caretta Research/Bubble Agency. View a larger version of this graphic here.

READ MORE: Buying media technology in the age of efficiency (Caretta Research/Bubble Agency)

There’s a wave of pragmatism and caution underlying investment in technology across the industry as buyers reign in their equipment spend.

A report examining Media Technology Buying Decisions, compiled by Caretta Research, finds buyers increasingly selective about new developments and more focused on creating efficiencies within their technology stack.

They are not easily swayed by buzzwords and, although open to persuasion, buyers will not consider futuristic technology without a strong business case and product fit.

“Flashy new technology does not sway buyers,” the report states. “Despite the hype that trade press and industry events create around buzzword trends, buyers are not easily convinced.”

This approach rules out technology that is considered futuristic like the metaverse, Web3 applications and even AR/XR.

Buyers perceive such technology to have “a modest impact in the industry broadly,” and most are not currently considering it in their strategies, the report found.

“Buyers talk to other buyers in order to evaluate whether trendy technology is something to look out for. Few are willing to hedge their bets on unproven solutions.”

Nor do buyers want vendors to overly-influence their own technology strategy and roadmap. “There is skepticism of relying too heavily on vendors to deliver large parts of their supply chain and most are moving away from end-to-end services,” says Caretta. Instead, buyers would prefer to implement modular solutions which integrate with their existing stack.

Cr: Caretta Research/Bubble Agency
Cr: Caretta Research/Bubble Agency

Cloud is another casualty of this pragmatism. Cloud been an enduring trend since before the pandemic and many consider it to be standard technology in a modern stack. But the report confirmed other recent surveys, including from the IABM, that there is pushback against the idea that everything can and should be run from the cloud.

There are concerns over the cost of cloud, particularly where parts of the supply chain have not been optimized for deployment, the report finds.

Other concerns lie in the readiness of cloud solutions, that certain parts of the supply chain simply work better on-premise. This is particularly true of concerns relating to latency in live playout.

Some buyers still have security concerns about the cloud, “which means that their stack will remain on-prem for the time to come,” the report predicts.

“Vendors will have to prove that cloud native solutions are capable and reliable, if not better than on-premise deployments to sway buyers who may have these and other concerns.”

Buyers are looking for hybrid solutions. Generally, if it makes sense to do something in the cloud versus on-premise, then that is the approach buyers will take.

The Economy of SaaS

Here, SaaS-based platforms are considered to be a “transformative trend” allowing buyers to have flexibility in their architecture, but also ongoing support and incremental improvements to service.

There is a concern, however, over the lack of support given by some vendors to their customers. “Like with traditional licensing models, a one-off sales approach is no longer sufficient. Buyers have an expectation that support will be continuous and that products will continue to roll out new features over time.”

There is also a perception that the industry has stopped innovating. Particularly with the shift towards SaaS, buyers are able to change suppliers more easily than ever before. Per the report, this means that there’s a lower tolerance for lack of innovation on the buyer side, and less certainty around buying cycles on the vendor side.

“This is a dangerous place for industry vendors to be,” judges Caretta.

Cr: Caretta Research/Bubble Agency
Cr: Caretta Research/Bubble Agency. View a larger version of this graphic here.

Broadly speaking, difficult economic conditions have impacted both buyers and vendors leaving most prioritizing existing revenue and streamlining their operations to do more with less.

Per the survey, 75% of vendors and buyers are seeing the need to tighten belts and 30% have had a hiring freeze, which compounds the widespread feeling of being under-resourced.

Caretta’s conclusion: “Buyers are seeking efficiency when deploying new technology in their stacks and are taking a pragmatic approach to new services, only investing in those which deliver value to audiences.”

Generative AI Interest

Generative AI is identified as the most transformative technology by both the survey and buyer focus group, but most are still not yet clear on how they will use it.

There are some early use cases in news editing and metadata for example, however the true potential of generative AI is still under consideration.

“There is a healthy amount of skepticism towards GenAI, but most see it as an opportunity despite reservations,” Caretta concludes.

Disappointingly it seems that sustainability is not yet having a significant impact on buying decisions, the report finds, although it is becoming a consideration for parts of the supply chain where vendor products and services are similar in terms of feature and price.

Trade Show Value

Of particular interest to trade show organizations like IBC and NAB is that in-person meetings are still considered valuable, with the trade show itself among the very best places to do business.

“Buyers consider industry events as one of their most important sources of information, and vendors consider it their most important channel for promoting their products to buyers.”

Yet half of buyers and vendors in the survey group have scaled back on investment in events since the pandemic and only 5% of vendors have increased their investment.

“Manufacturers may be left with a conundrum of how to get in front of new customers if investment in events by buyers continues to decline. Fewer buyer attendees will make it harder to get sales people in front of prospective customers.”

  • Content Creation
  • Live Event Production
  • Broadcast
  • Streaming
  • Capitalize
  • Acquisition and Production
  • Management and Systems
  • Industry Resources
  • Post Production
  • Business and Technology Consultants
  • Research / Data Science, Analytics, Data Visualizations

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
AI Will Be the Most Impactful Technology in 2024, Say Global CTOs (and Pretty Much Everyone Else)
AI Will Be the Most Impactful Technology in 2024, Say Global CTOs (and Pretty Much Everyone Else)

In 2024, AI applications and algorithms that can optimize data, perform complex tasks, and make decisions with human-like accuracy will be used in diverse ways, the study finds.

Leave a Comment on When It Comes to M&E Technology, Let’s Separate “Hot” and “Hype”
November 5, 2023

“Fair Play:” How to Throw Your Audience Off Balance

Fair Play. (L to R) Alden Ehrenreich as Luke and Phoebe Dynevor as Emily in “Fair Play.” Cr. Courtesy of Netflix


TL;DR

  • “I am someone who writes my fears, and I was afraid that my career would cost me my relationship. So I wanted to write a movie about that,” says writer director Chloe Domont about her hit Netflix thriller, Fair Play.
  • The film addresses everyday questions around modern masculinity, mining a specific type of male dread that manifests itself in an obsession with being “alpha,” fueled by a thriving podcast and YouTube industry. 
  • Domont hopes that her film raises questions about how the link between female empowerment and male fragility might be dismantled.


Chloe Domont’s thriller Fair Play provoked a Sundance bidding war that Netflix won for $20m and put the writer and director in the spotlight.

It’s the sort of triumph she is still wary of, in terms of how it impacts her own relationships, and was built on strength through adversity in what calls the “toxic link” between female empowerment and male fragility.

“What I really want to explore with this film is why is it that a woman being big, makes a man feel small?” she told Maggie McGrath in a video conversation. “Like why are those two things so closely linked? And I think it’s a systemic societal problem. I think that it’s the way society raises boys to believe that masculinity is an identity and that they have to fit in the box, that success is a zero sum game. And it’s not.”

According to Moviemaker, the film mines a specific type of male dread that manifests itself in an obsession with being “alpha,” fueled by a thriving podcast and YouTube industry. 

Fair Play tells the story of two young employees at a cutthroat hedge fund, desperate for promotions. They’re secretly engaged, because company policy prohibits interoffice relationships. But things get nasty when Emily (Bridgerton’s Phoebe Dynevor) begins to far outperform Luke (Alden Ehrenreich, Solo: A Star Wars Story). 

Fair Play. (L to R) Alden Ehrenreich as Luke and Phoebe Dynevor as Emily in “Fair Play.” Cr. Courtesy of Netflix

Domont had earned a BFA Degree in Film & Television from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and by 2017, was earning steady TV directing jobs on high-profile projects like HBO’s Ballers, CBS’s Clarice and Showtime’s Billions. 

The idea for Fair Play was “burning inside of me” she told McGrath as a result of her own experiences. “I had this feeling as my career was starting to take off, where my successes didn’t feel like a win, [but] like a loss because of the kinds of men I was dating. These were men who adored me for my strengths, or my ambition, but at the same time, they still couldn’t help but feel threatened by the very same things that they adored me for because of the way that they were raised.

“It just made me realize how much hold these ingrained power dynamics still have over us. So I wanted to put that on screen and be as ruthless with it as … the nature of the subject matter itself.”

Domont’s favorite scene sums this feeling up and was the first thing that came to mind when she started writing the script. This is the scene when Emily gets a promotion but her first reaction isn’t excitement; it’s fear. 

Fair Play. Phoebe Dynevor as Emily in “Fair Play.” Cr. Sergej Radovic / Courtesy of Netflix

“That walk home and the dread and the silence of when she gets in there to tell him about it. The way we shot it, too, is I wanted her to feel very small in the frame. So there’s a couple shots that are over his shoulder and he’s very dominant in the frame. She’s very small in the frame and looking away and afraid to even look at him. And I just felt like that encompassed what I was trying to explore.”

She elaborates on this with McGrath, saying that while there may be some progress in American corporate culture as a result of #metoo, she also feels there’s a slow erosion of women’s careers. 

“It might not be blunt force trauma, but it’s a death of 1,000 paper cuts. This kind of bad behavior was ignored, and then normalized. And then the scary part is usually after that, it’s escalated. So that’s why it’s so important that those little tiny breadcrumbs you are constantly leaving. It’s like a snowball that it constantly builds.”

Domont hopes that her film raises questions about how the link between female empowerment and male fragility might be dismantled.

“How can we demystify the role that men are raised into thinking they’re supposed to fill? How can women embrace their successes without fearing that it’ll hurt them on some level? And how can we love and trust one another, in a world that’s so dependent on the very power dynamics that get in the way of that of that love, and trust and respect?”

READ MORE: Fair Play Writer-Director Chloe Domont on the Making of Her Office-Romance Disaster Movie (Moviemaker)

“Fair Play,” behind the scenes: Phoebe Dynevor as Emily. Cr. Sergej Radovic / Courtesy of Netflix

Much of the tension in the on screen relationship is attributed to Domont’s work with editor Franklin Peterson, whose credits include episodes of Homecoming, Calls and Gaslit.

“Even talking to Menno [Mans], my DP, we were constantly reminding each other, ‘Pressure cooker, pressure cooker,’” Domont told Peter Tonguette of Cinemontage. “We wanted to build up this ballooning tension — this balloon that just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and you know it’s going to burst at some point, you just don’t know what or when. The idea was building up this tension of this couple who can’t escape each other, really.”

Peterson explained that his first thought was to start off the film like a straight drama: “You sell the characters as if they are a couple you are going to just really root for, and then you pull the rug out slowly from underneath them. [But] Chloe said, ‘No, I don’t want to do that. I want, from the very first shot, to keep you unsettled.’”

He also explained that test screenings were “wildly” helpful. “It’s an R-rated movie for people who want to see an R-rated movie about a toxic relationship, or are willing to go on this ride with us. Once you enter that realm, you’re now asking, ‘How do we make this the best version of that movie for that group of people?’”

Fair Play. (L to R) Alden Ehrenreich as Luke and Phoebe Dynevor as Emily in “Fair Play.” Cr. Courtesy of Netflix

READ MORE: Franklin Peterson and Chloe Domont Talk Editing on Netflix Thriller ‘Fair Play’ (Cinemontage)

One of the most difficult scenes Peterson cut was the final scene with Campbell and Emily. It carries with it a delicate balance between what the characters say vs. what they mean. That balance has to also contend with an overall tension keeping the audience unsure what will happen.

As he explained to Filmmaker, “The coverage isn’t complex but to modulate the performances, guide the pace, and accommodate new lines meant we went through dozens upon dozens of versions. We would test the movie with a version of the scene we thought worked, only to realize that while solving one issue, we created another. It’s an example of how the hardest editing work will never show on the screen.”

One thing that never changed was the story’s ending. Domont knew what she wanted to say, and was never tempted to let her characters off with a pat resolution.

Fair Play. (L to R) Alden Ehrenreich as Luke and Phoebe Dynevor as Emily in “Fair Play.” Cr. Sergej Radovic / Courtesy of Netflix

“I don’t write one word until I know what the ending is,” she told Moviemaker. “That ending is where the story and the genre come together, in one final punch.”

“It’s working within the thriller genre, which uses violence as a means to solve conflict,” says Domont. “So that was important.” 

To watch Fair Play, you would think it was shot entirely in Manhattan, where the story takes place, taking over the city’s many real hedge-fund offices and overpriced apartments, restaurants and bars. 

In fact, the production was based in Belgrade, Serbia — where Fair Play executive producers Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman had recently made much of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.

READ MORE: “I Use Split Screens as a Tool for Ensuring Any Performance Can Be Used”: Editor Franklin Peterson on Fair Play (Filmmaker)

Domont told Moviemaker, “Ram was advocating for us building there, because he was like, ‘This is the way to build a set the way you want. This is a way to put the most amount of money on the screen. And the crews are excellent.’ So that was what we did. We built all the sets in Serbia. And then we shot all the exteriors in New York, because the movie does not work if you don’t shoot the exteriors in New York.”

She took full advantage of being able to have sets designed to her specifications. 

“I intended for it to be kind of a claustrophobic film, in the sense that the characters are trapped between their home life and the workspace, and they go from one enclosed space to another and they can never escape each other,” she explains. “And because we’re in these same spaces for so long, I wanted to build them. And it was very important for me to build them. I had a very specific idea for how those spaces should be and feel, to feel claustrophobic in different ways.”

“Fair Play,” behind the scenes L to R: Alden Ehrenreich as Luke, Phoebe Dynevor as Emily Brandon Bassir as Dax. Cr. Sergej Radovic / Courtesy of Netflix
  • Content Creation
  • Create
  • Acquisition and Production
  • Media Content
  • Post Production
  • Cameras and Lenses
  • Motion Picture / Film Production
  • Motion Picture/ Film Production
  • Editing

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
How the Team From “The Killer” Sustains Its Style and Structure
How the Team From “The Killer” Sustains Its Style and Structure

Says DP Erik Messerschmidt: “It was all about how you bring the audience to a place they are not used to being, close to this assassin.”

Leave a Comment on “Fair Play:” How to Throw Your Audience Off Balance
November 8, 2023
Posted November 5, 2023

“My Ken’s Job Is Camera:” Adrian Per’s Perspectives on Storytelling

Adrian Per in action
Adrian Per in action


TL;DR

  • Filmmaker and content creator Adrian Per shares his best practices for creating great short-form video content.
  • Per advises that good principles for filmmaking, like pacing, the rule of thirds, and color psychology all still apply for TikTok videos.
  • He also says that he loves gear, but it isn’t strictly necessary to make good content. The most important element is a good story. (The second most important element is being able to hear that story, so investing in a microphone is a good idea.)


“A lot of people waste time on their hooks. You have about 60 to 90 seconds, maybe two minutes, if you’re making a TikTok,” Adrian Per told the audience at B&H BILD Expo. (Watch his full talk, below.)

Specifically, he warns, “A lot of people waste time explaining who they are. Or if they’re selling a product. They’re telling you about the product immediately. … that’s not how you sell that. And that’s not how you sell yourself.” 

Instead, “you want to get into the premise of your video immediately,” Per advises. For his format, that means telling the camera: “Today, we’re going to learn about sound design.” To save time but add detail, he will add a written description. For example, “This is how you do sound design for free. This is how you do sound design on a budget. This is how you do sound design for under $200.” 

“Bam!” Per says. “If you’re interested, you’re gonna stay for a few more seconds.”

Regarding the “intro” and “follow and like” trends, Per says, “I promise you, nobody cares who you are at the beginning of the video. But maybe towards the end, they will.”

STRUCTURE AND PACING

Even in short-form video, “you still want to keep the basic principles of storytelling,” Per explains. 

No matter your kind of content, Per says, “There are little tidbits and moments within your story or within your day that you can create tension. That’s what keeps us entertained. That’s what keeps us watching. We want to see you solve something.” 

“It’s just really condensed,” Per says. “So it’s still a three-part story. It’s still a beginning, middle and end.”

“Don’t rush. You know, you still want to deliver a story,” he says. “You still want it to breathe.” 

After all, “if people like your content, they’ll follow, and they’ll see more parts” if you run out of time to capture all your thoughts in one TikTok or Reel.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Adrian Per (@omgadrian)

AUDIO AND MUSIC

Remember, Per says, “You’re delivering a story, so you want people to hear the story.” 

“Audio is really important,” he says. “You can watch a shitty quality video with good audio, and you’ll be in tune. But you can’t watch an 8k or a 4k video with shitty audio, there’s wind blowing in the background, you’re not going to watch it. And that’s just a fact.”

But “As long as it’s clear, you can use anything. I personally use these wireless lav microphones,” Per says. He adds, “I use my phone as my recorder a lot.”

Also, Per says, “Picking out your music is really, really important. I pick out my music first. Like I’ll go through my songs on my Spotify playlist and say, ‘Alright, I’m going to do it to this pacing.’”

He suggests, “Fitting your dialogue or your voiceover, in the pockets, and within the tempo of your music is important.” He explains, “It’s like a psychological secret that you can use as a tool to get people more tuned into your content.” 

Also, Per says, “I want to hear what’s going on. If you’re at the beach, and I don’t hear the waves it feels weird, right? If I’m at a park and I don’t hear birds, it feels empty. These are things that weren’t really noticed. But they’re felt.”

To achieve that, he says, “I meticulously go through all of my sound design. You know, I have a whole folder of things that I’ve recorded on my phone, whether it’s waves, whether it’s me driving in my car, the sound of me chopping vegetables, I throw it in there, and I match it with my footage. And that’s just the free way to do it. I know there’s like subscriptions out there for stock sounds but they’re really expensive. I’ve downloaded sounds from YouTube.” 

Adrian Per. Image courtesy of the creator

SHOTS AND LENSES

“A lot of these things, they’re felt,” Per explains. “They’re not really noticed or seen. But when a story is done, right, you’ll notice them because it feels… different.”

When creating short-form content, Per says, “I still keep in mind the rule of thirds, I still keep in mind, like the science behind my lens choice.”

Understanding “lenses, focal length, that’ll help a lot. OK, if you can afford it, if you have the access to multiple focal lengths, they can help,” he says. 

“When I’m trying to deliver something that’s personal, or deliver something that I want you to really pay attention to. I’ll use a 35 to 50 millimeter because it blurs out the background,” Per says.

Conversely, “with a wide lens, it distorts things. It’s anxiety inducing. It can feel scary,” he says.

Also, “a formula I like to keep in mind: I’ll go from wide, extreme close up to medium to extreme close up to close up too wide. I like to give it variation in that something that will help your story and will keep your audience attention retained,” Per shares. After all, “I don’t want it to feel boring, right?”

Nonetheless, Per says, “I film over 50% of my content on my iPhone. There’s a lot of pickup scenes in my videos that you would never know that I shot on an iPhone. I just put on the cinematic mode and plug it in there. I color graded to match my cinema camera. And nobody will ever know.”

After all, he says, today, “everybody has a good quality camera on them. Whether it’s an Android, green bubbles, or an iPhone. I’m just kidding, Android quality is actually it, their cameras are actually better. I just don’t want to inconvenience my friends in the group chats.” 

Ultimately, “You don’t need flashy editing, no tricks. You don’t need to [have] After Effects. Stories are told with just regular cuts in movies. If you know how to do it, that’s great. That’s awesome if it serves your story, even better.” 

COLOR GRADING

Color grading is another nice-to-have for creators, as far as Per is concerned.

“Depending on the emotion, I will color grade to help that story, but it’s also not necessary, if you don’t know how to color grade,” Per says.

“If you’re talking about something somber or sad, desaturating your color or making it cooler will help tell that story,” he explains. On the other hand, “If it’s a hot, bright summer day …  or if you’re making something happy, exciting, maybe you want to add some more saturation, maybe you want it to pop.”

In total, “Color grading [takes] probably 30 to 45 minutes” for Per, who notes, “I’ve made my presets for that for myself already.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Karl Ndieli (@karl_shakur)

THE WHOLE PROCESS

“On average, it’ll probably take six hours,” Per says, “for one piece of content, dammit. Sounds like a long time.” 

“When it comes to my Sunday short films, it takes me about 15 to 30 minutes to write it. I don’t know. Yeah, I mean, it’s 90 seconds, right? So I try not to think too hard. And I’m confident in how I speak and how I deliver. So when it comes to writing, I kind of just talk things out with the music.

“And that takes about 15 to 30 or so, filming it. I take anywhere from 90 minutes to four hours, sometimes, filming a 90 second video, which sounds pretty insane. But I don’t go anywhere past four hours or so. I feel like that’s just overshooting and if I am taking over four hours just because I didn’t plan it as well as I should have. For the most part, it’s under two hours and with editing. It takes me about an hour, sometimes 30 to 45 Just because I look at my script.” 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Adrian Per (@omgadrian)

But Per says, “I try to deliver quality and value without sacrificing my day.” 

Also, he advises, “the more times you do something over and over, the better you will get. So when you spend a bunch of time on one piece of content, and not put it out or try to perfect it I think, you know that time spent on perfecting that one thing by putting hours into it. I think it hurts you in the long run.”

Learn more about the creator economy on our dedicated resource page.
  • Content Creation
  • Streaming
  • Create
  • Acquisition and Production
  • Distribution and Delivery
  • Media Content
  • Audio Production / Recording
  • Cameras and Lenses
  • Microphones
  • Interactive and Cross Platform TV / Web / Mobile
  • Short / Form Programming
  • Social Media
  • Social Networking / UGC

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Casey Neistat: Create First and the Money Will Follow
Casey Neistat: Create First and the Money Will Follow

Casey Neistat is most famous as a YouTuber, but that wasn’t his goal… his career “wasn’t an option” when he started creating videos. 

Leave a Comment on “My Ken’s Job Is Camera:” Adrian Per’s Perspectives on Storytelling
November 9, 2023
Posted November 5, 2023

With Documentaries, Deepfakes Can Be Used for… Good?

From the documentary “Another Body,” co-directed by Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn
From the documentary “Another Body,” co-directed by Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn


TL;DR

  • Deep fake technology is starting to be used in documentaries and for advocacy work.
  • Several filmmakers and human rights advocates told the International Documentary Association that they believe the generative AI can be used responsibly to help shield subjects’ identities and to creatively (and responsibly) tell true stories.
  • They also say that disclosure and watermarking are both crucial to building audience trust in synthetic media and avoiding the trap of “context collapse,” when content is excerpted from its point of origin.


Most of the time when you hear about deep fakes in the news, the reason is negative or at least controversial.

“Synthetic media is at the center of many of the most pressing conversations about the social and political uses of emerging tech,” International Documentary Association moderator Joshua Glick said in his introduction to a panel discussing the ethics of using deep fakes and generative for non-fiction media. Watch the full discussion, below.

GUIDELINES FOR GOOD

“These tools can be very useful, but only following certain guidelines around dignity, transparency, and consent of the individuals,” human rights lawyer and Witness documentarian Raquel Vazquez Llorente explained. “So any process that uses AI for identity protection, shall always have careful human curation and oversight along with a deep understanding of the community and the audience it serves.”

Although it may be counterintuitive at first, Vazquez Llorente says deep fake tools can be deployed in “ways that could humanize the subject,” in addition to lowering the lift for filmmakers who want to protect them.

“There was also something… very powerful about this capacity to reclaim this technology. And we strongly believe that technology itself is not the problem. It’s the application. It’s the cultural conditions around the way that it’s able to be used,” explains filmmaker Sophie Comption. 

From the documentary “Another Body,” co-directed by Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn
From the documentary “Another Body,” co-directed by Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn

Also, Violeta Ayala told the audience, “I ask you to not wait until a government will legislate these things because we can even trust those governments and how far they’re gonna go. So we need to start thinking and talking and put these ideas and these questions and these possible guidelines that maybe then we can push forward and understand that we’re not coming here to say no, no, no, no, I don’t like these.”

Additionally, Vazquez Llorente says, they advocate for “disclosing of the editing and the manipulation.” Meaning “any AI output, we firmly believe it should be clearly labeled and watermark considered, for instance, including metadata, or invisible fingerprints that allow us to track the provenance of media.” 

For example, “voice cloning is one of those that is very difficult for an audience to tell if there’s been any kind of a manipulation. So how are we disclosing that modification to the audience?”

They must, Vazquez Llorente says, fight the problem of “context collapse,” which is common across the internet.

“We also have a responsibility to educate the audience… so that they will be more media literate going forward, and will understand its sort of uses when they encounter it,” says Reuben Hamlyn.

Francesca Panetta, creative director for MIT’s Center for Advanced Virtuality, and colleague Halsey Burgund collaborated on a documentary that engineered a deepfake Richard Nixon announcing the failure of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission. The project, “In Event of Moon Disaster,” won an Emmy last year.
Francesca Panetta, creative director for MIT’s Center for Advanced Virtuality, and colleague Halsey Burgund collaborated on a documentary that engineered a deepfake Richard Nixon announcing the failure of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission.

CHALLENGES

“The use of AI to create or edit media should never undermine the credibility, the safety or the content that human rights organizations and journalists and the commutation groups are capturing,” says Vazquez Llorente.

Unfortunately, she admits, “the advent of synthetic media has made it easier to dismiss real footage.”

Hamlyn agrees: “We’re at a time where synthetic media technologies are dissolving trust in imagery. And as documentary filmmakers, you know, trust in the imagery is the foundation of our medium.”

That’s why disclosure is so crucial, but that can create challenges in and of itself. “You also run up against this issue where the disclosure [is] sort of complex and it can disrupt the sort of the emotional process of the film,” he suggests. 

  • courtesy of Witness
  • courtesy of Witness

Then there’s the problem of inadvertently further “dehumanizing” subjects and using AI-generated “results that often enhance social, racial and gender biases and also produce visceral errors, right that sometimes they pick the form buddies. So it’s important also to keep in mind, I will preserve the dignity of the people we are trying to represent and that we are editing with AI. And the final question is, does the reformatting the resulting footage as I was mentioning, inadvertently, or directly reinforce these biases that already exist because of the data sets that have been fed into the generative AI models?” 

Creators also must consider “whether the masking technique could be reversed and reveal the … real identity of an individual or their image,” she advises. 

courtesy of Witness, click here to view a larger version

HOW TO USE IT

Identity Protection: We’ve all seen documentaries when witnesses share information from the shadows with their voices digitally altered. Generative AI could make the both tropes passé very soon by instead creating a new face for interviewees that would show their expressions while hiding their true identity, or utilize voice cloning to retain inflection while shielding their vocal signature.

Creative Advocacy and CTAs: PSAs might not need to feature real people or even actors.

Visualizing Testimonies: When done right, viewers may be able to use these tools to better understand and empathize with the plight of victims.
Repurposing Footage:  “You may capture in footage for certain purposes today, but then in few years time, maybe revisit or reclaim for other different purposes,” Vazquez Llorente suggests, explaining that you may need to anonymize participants for the new context, even if they agreed to be shown in the first.

Learn more about the use of artificial intelligence for media and entertainment on our dedicated resource page.

Next, Watch This

  • Content Creation
  • Intelligent Content
  • Management and Systems
  • Media Content
  • Al / Machine Learning
  • Motion Picture / Film and Documentary

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Will Our Deepfake Fears Be Realized in 2024?
Will Our Deepfake Fears Be Realized in 2024?

We’ve been warned this day would come: Believable synthetic reanimations, also known as deepfakes, have entered the political arena.

Leave a Comment on With Documentaries, Deepfakes Can Be Used for… Good?
November 6, 2023
Posted November 5, 2023

Evan Shapiro Navigates the “Dark Room:” How Data and Engagement are Shaping the Future of FAST

Watch “The Televisioning of FAST“ from NAB Show New York.


TL;DR

  • Evan Shapiro and Justin Evans discuss the critical role of data analytics and audience engagement in the maturation of Free Ad-Supported Television (FAST).
  • Samsung TV Plus, Samsung’s own FAST platform, boasts an average viewer engagement of 110 minutes per day, outperforming the 34-minute average of linear networks.
  • The lack of unified, comprehensive data, termed the “dark room phenomenon” by Evans, is a significant challenge hindering the growth of the FAST industry.
  • As FAST matures, the focus is shifting toward more sophisticated monetization and audience targeting strategies, including a move from demographic-based to “psychographic”-based selling.
  • Shapiro and Evans agree that the FAST ecosystem has significant room for growth, especially in terms of content discoverability and global expansion opportunities.


Free Ad-Supported Television (FAST) is rapidly reshaping the media landscape, but how well do we really understand its potential? Media universe cartographer Evan Shapiro and Justin Evans, global head of analytics & insights at Samsung Ads, examines how data analytics and audience engagement are critical factors steering FAST toward maturity in a fireside chat that goes well beyond the hype.

From debunking myths to highlighting untapped opportunities, the conversation provides a masterclass in understanding the complexities of FAST. Watch “The Televisioning of FAST“ in the video at the top of the page.

The Evolution of FAST: More Than Just Reruns

In just a few short years, FAST has gone from a fledgling concept to a burgeoning industry. Evans paints a vivid picture of this growth, recalling his early days at Samsung Ads. “My team was four-and-a-half people around a card table,” he says. Four years later, the analytics group alone has expanded to 50 people globally across five continents. “So that’s an indicator of how the business has grown.”

Justin Evans, Global Head of Analytics & Insights, Samsung Ads.
Justin Evans, Global Head of Analytics & Insights, Samsung Ads

More than a platform for merely recycling library titles, FAST is evolving to include fresh content. One of the biggest myths the advertising community has about FAST, says Evans, “is that because we’re used to seeing these single-IP networks, we think of all of the FAST ecosystem as being simply, to use the 80s term, like reruns… and that’s not true.”

Samsung isn’t just a spectator in the FAST arena; it’s a key player with its own platform, Samsung TV Plus. Available as a preloaded app on all Samsung Smart TVs, Samsung TV Plus offers a linear television experience with upwards of 250 channels. The platform covers a wide range of categories, including single-title channels such as the Baywatch channel and the Great British Baking Show channel, as well as entertainment and lifestyle channels like Tastemade. With a reach extending to 24.6 million homes — about 38% of all US TV homes — Samsung TV Plus is a force to be reckoned with, as Shapiro observes, even outpacing giants like Comcast and Charter.

Evan Shapiro at NAB Show New York
Evan Shapiro at NAB Show New York

Evans explains how Samsung’s strategy mirrors the moves of big tech companies that started with services and then diversified into hardware. “Samsung is effectively doing that the other way around,” he says. “We have, obviously, an enormous manufacturing, company business. And about nine years ago, they had the clever idea to start a services business. And what that means is we have a group of folks who make the operating system for the smart TVs. We have a team of folks who are licensed in bringing content into the ecosystem. And we have people who put ads on that content to monetize the attention.”

He revealed some eye-opening statistics during the fireside chat. On average, viewers engage with Samsung TV Plus for 110 minutes per day, a figure that dwarfs the 34-minute average of linear networks. This high level of engagement isn’t confined to a few top channels; it’s widespread across the platform’s diverse offerings.

The Data Gap: The “Dark Room Phenomenon”

In the ever-evolving landscape of FAST, one of the most pressing challenges is the lack of comprehensive, unified data. Shapiro points out the absence of a “single source of truth” in the industry, stating that data is often scattered and not easily accessible. This lack of clarity has led to what Evans calls the “dark room phenomenon.”

Evans elaborates, “The lack of data plays a really big part about why some of this is more obscure than it needs to be. And in fact, I would go even further and say the lack of data is a blocker to the business. It’s a bottleneck to the growth of the streaming business.” This “dark room” is a space that agencies and advertisers are hesitant to enter without adequate information, hindering the industry’s growth.

But the data gap doesn’t just affect advertisers; it’s a challenge for publishers as well. Evans discusses the publisher’s journey to convert viewers from “samplers” to “returners” and then to “loyalists.”

“We have solutions to identify people in each category and how to move them up the ladder,” he notes, emphasizing the importance of re-engagement strategies. “Re-engaging a ‘sampler’ at the right time with the right ad can effectively change the bounce rate from 62% to 14%,” he adds.

Third-party measurement companies also come into play. “They play an important role as an impartial referee in the industry,” Evans says, acknowledging the role of companies like Nielsen in providing some level of data standardization.

To help clients navigate this murky data landscape, Samsung Ads has developed a product called Audience Advisor. “It helps clients understand the streaming environment better,” Evans explains.

Both Shapiro and Evans agree that FAST offers better discoverability of new content compared to SVOD services. “FAST allows users to crash into new content,” Shapiro says, attributing this to the grid-like structure of FAST platforms.

The idea of creating a consortium of data from various platforms like Samsung, LG, and others is floated as a potential solution for the lack of a unified data source. “It could serve as a single source of truth,” Shapiro suggests.

“We did measurement and how often people come back and watch the app,” said Evans. “And then when they watch, how long do they watch for? And for me, this is a good indicator of engagement.”

The Road Ahead: Monetization and Audience Targeting in FAST

As the FAST ecosystem matures, the focus is shifting toward more sophisticated monetization and audience targeting strategies. Evans is particularly excited about the potential of content-oriented data. “Now that all of this content is digital, and we can read it from a data perspective, that also means it should be discoverable and almost innumerable ways,” he says. This opens up new avenues for monetization, allowing advertisers to tag and label experiences that can be sold.

But it’s not just about selling; it’s about selling smartly. Shapiro points out the shift from demographic-based selling to “psychographic”-based selling, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of the audience. “Solving the consumer’s conundrum about what to watch next is going to be a key factor,” Shapiro notes, emphasizing that platforms like Samsung are well-positioned to solve this problem due to their central role in living rooms.

The ability to monetize content through audience buying is another exciting frontier. “Now that there’s so much more scale in a FAST environment, each one of those networks can be contributing to reaching that 5-10 to 15% of the audience,” Evans explains. This not only increases the value proposition for advertisers but also opens up new monetization opportunities for networks.

One of the most striking revelations from Evans was about re-engaging samplers. “We’ve introduced solutions to re-engage samplers at the right time with the right ad, effectively changing the bounce rate from 62% to 14%,” he says. This is a game-changer in terms of increasing loyalty and, by extension, ad revenue.

Both Evans and Shapiro agree that there’s a lot of room for growth in the business, especially with more channels being curated into the system. Shapiro even hints at global expansion opportunities, mentioning that Germany is one of the fastest-growing FAST markets.

As the FAST ecosystem continues to evolve, the role of data in shaping its future cannot be overstated. But data alone isn’t the endgame; it’s the lens through which the industry can gain a clearer understanding of itself. “Right now, I’m focused on trying to contextualize the FAST experience for that advertising buyer universe,” Evans says. “That’s where I feel like there’s sort of this education gap. And I think the challenge there is: ‘What’s the perception — or just kind of the fuzziness — in the media and ad community around FAST?’”

FAST continues to mature rapidly, and it’s clear that data analytics will not only illuminate the “dark room” but also pave the way for innovative strategies in monetization and audience engagement — the untapped opportunities that lie ahead.

  • Broadcast
  • Streaming
  • Capitalize
  • Distribution and Delivery
  • Media Content
  • NAB Show New York
  • AVOD / SVOD / FAST
  • Interactive and Cross Platform TV / Web / Mobile

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Evan Shapiro Amplified: Welcome to the User-Centric Era of Media & Entertainment
Evan Shapiro Amplified: Welcome to the User-Centric Era of Media & Entertainment

Media universe cartographer Evan Shapiro warns that the industry has entered new era, which companies will disregard at their own peril.

Leave a Comment on Evan Shapiro Navigates the “Dark Room:” How Data and Engagement are Shaping the Future of FAST
November 6, 2023
Posted November 5, 2023

Scott Belsky: How AI Will Impact Media’s “Core and Periphery”

AI machine learning artificial intelligence


Whether you’re excited by the potential of generative AI or terrified of its implications, you’re likely trying to parse how it will change your work.  

Scott Belsky, who currently serves as Adobe’s chief strategy officer and EVP of design & emerging products, recently shared some of his predictions for how AI will reshape business (emphasis on the “Belsky”).

He sums up his “general thesis” as: “We need to value human ingenuity and free up the capacity of creative minds for higher order tasks.” 

Beware of Too Much Optimization

“As AI gets really good at optimization, some industries and business models will need to change,” Belsky writes. 

First, Belsky posits, businesses that use AI to optimize their bottom lines may inadvertently degrade the value of their products.

Dating apps and music streaming services are vulnerable to short-sighted decisions, he suggests. The former might try to keep customers on their app longer by offering less promising matches, while the latter might try to keep artist payouts low by offering the longest songs that match a user’s parameters. Both are recipes for “optimization” that would likely harm customer satisfaction.

New Pricing Models Are Coming

Next, Belsky joins the chorus of those predicting that AI will kill the billable hours model. “New pricing models are overdue to replace time-based and finger-in-the-wind pricing in the age of AI where time is magically compressed,” he writes. 

Consider this, Belsky argues, “the ultimate SOURCE of the differentiating value delivered to a client: It is less ‘time’ and it is more ‘experience.’”

The individual factors (that will continue to matter) are “one’s years of experience, honed skills from formal education and practice, one’s taste and intuition, one’s creativity, one’s network of relationships, and even one’s proprietary data and algorithms honed through volume of past experiences,” according to Belsky.

So how will industries, like law, design, consulting, etc., charge clients? Perhaps they will move to a model more akin to that of medicine, in which there “is a new source-of-truth for the ‘value’ of tasks across professional trades via a third-party billing service that determines price.” Or (less ominously, for my money) “we enter an era of results-based compensation that is far more objective and measured?” 

Data-Driven Purchasing 

As humans become more comfortable with AI assistants, Belsky predicts, “you may start trusting the guidance of your agent more than any other signal.” 

This would, theoretically, have a seismic impact. If this happens, “the best product at the best value may in fact win,” Belsky writes. “This is a win for buyers, but may be quite disruptive to sellers who fail to innovate and endlessly optimize” but have traditionally relied on brand loyalty.

To remain relevant, marketers will have to deploy a tandem-style approach.

Belsky argues, “If Macromarketing runs on a calendar, Agile Marketing runs on a stopwatch.” Brands must adapt to “tell their stories at the speed of social.” But it will not replace “Macromarketing,” which “requires a lot of coordination but helps a brand establish its identity and sets the tone for the rest of a company’s marketing.” 

The “Core and Periphery” Model of Entertainment

As AI becomes more embedded in our workflows, Belsky writes, “the core (Hollywood — and all the players involved with original story creation) only gets stronger and more efficient, and the periphery (user-generated content, unsanctioned sequels, and long-tail spin-offs) grows by 100x.”

He also expects that “we will crave story, meaning, and originality more than ever before” as we are exposed to more AI-generated content. In part, that means “we can TAKE MORE CREATIVE RISK.” For example, maybe “Hollywood will spend less time replaying safe playbooks (sequels and familiar storylines) and more time developing NEW franchises and imaginative storylines?”

Also, Belsky writes, “Perhaps AI will help user-generated content not only improve in terms of quality, but also get exposure from a higher-signal network of curators? So far, social platforms have surfaced content based on what the “critical mass” thinks (number of likes) rather than what the “credible mass” thinks (WHO actually liked the content, and how credible they are as tastemakers).” 

READ MORE: Strange Ways AI Disrupts Business Models, What’s Next For Creativity & Marketing, Some Provocative Data (Implications)

Learn more in our dedicated section, Artificial Intelligence Amplified
  • Content Creation
  • Intelligent Content
  • Management and Systems
  • Al / Machine Learning

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Peter Csathy: It’s Time to “Generate” Your AI Game Plan
Peter Csathy: It’s Time to “Generate” Your AI Game Plan

Futurist Peter Csathy warns that the Big Tech companies will make the most money with AI, while retaining most of the power and control.

Leave a Comment on Scott Belsky: How AI Will Impact Media’s “Core and Periphery”
November 8, 2023
Posted November 5, 2023

Taylor Lorenz: How the Creator Economy Became… an Economy

creator economy social media influencer


TL;DR

  • In “Extremely Online,” Taylor Lorenz chronicles the rise of the creator economy, while trying to put female founders, creators, and trailblazers in their rightful historical context.
  • Lorenz argues that platforms and creators have always been at odds. But the creator economy’s size means that influencers (users) have the ability to put their thumb on the scale and push companies in the direction they want — or ignore creators at the peril of their bottom line.
  • Social media companies and creators aren’t the only beneficiaries of the creator economy’s profits. Many equipment manufacturers have sought to capitalize on the trend by creating and/or marketing products for influencers (and wannabes).


Learn more about the creator economy in our dedicated site section.

Social media (and the ensuing creator economy) “demolished traditional barriers and empowered millions who were previously marginalized,” Taylor Lorenz writes in “Extremely Online.” She goes so far as to argue “[i]t is often dismissed by traditionalists as a vacant fad when it in fact it is the greatest and most disruptive change in modern capitalism.”

“Extremely Online” is Washington Post columnist Lorenz’s creator-centric chronicle of social media and the birth of the creator economy. An important subplot of the book: She seeks to correct the male-driven narrative of the internet and put women founders, creators, and trailblazers in their rightful historical context.

Put another way, “Lorenz casts a sympathetic eye on the people using these platforms to create culture and build their livelihoods, highlighting cases where platforms’ indifference or outright incompetence threatens to derail the nascent creator economy,” Zoe Schiffer writes for The Verge.

Vox’s Rebecca Jennings notes that one of the most interesting aspects of her book is Lorenz’s documentation of “the ways that each platform’s power users shaped them for the better and for the worse.”

Taylor Lorenz’s book “Extremely Online,” published by Simon & Schuster
Taylor Lorenz’s book “Extremely Online,” published by Simon & Schuster

Lorenz tells Jennings, “I hope people can reexamine this recent history of the internet and look at women, who pioneered all this amazing stuff and never got credit and never saw the upside.”

Chris Stokel-Walker writes, Lorenz “convincingly weaves a narrative starting from mommy bloggers beginning to realise their worth in the early 2000s to the preened creator celebrities of today, who have better brand recognition among the younger generations than some Hollywood stars.”

Her bona fides? Well, Wired’s Steven Levy credits her with having “practically invented the influencer beat” (and he’s far from the only one to make that acknowledgement).

Katie Couric and Taylor Lorenz on the evolution of influencers and journalism

The Creator Economy’s Mommy Blogger Origins

Lorenz theorizes that bloggers were the first social media influencers. She tells Jennings, “My book opens with the Silicon Valley version of blog culture, which was a lot of tech and political blogs, and then what women did with it, which was to create the mommy blogger ecosystem by building personal brands, commodifying themselves, and becoming the first influencers.” 

She argues that “Silicon Valley has been incredibly hostile to these power users. [Tech founders] almost resented the power they had on the internet. Once the pandemic hit, they all started talking about the ‘creator economy’ like it was some new thing. They’d maligned it for decades, because it primarily was pioneered by women.”

READ MORE: How the fight between tech founders and influencers shaped the internet (Vox)

“There’s so many incredible women on the internet that really pushed things forward and were so forward thinking and ahead of their time and I just wonder what would have happened if they got the millions of dollars in venture funding,” she tells Fast Company’s Jessica Bursztynsky.

After all, she says, “The creator economy was built by women. If you look at the market sectors that were first to adopt this new, now half a trillion dollar industry, it was fashion and beauty and mommy bloggers—people that were shut out of traditional media and traditional tech, and they were using these tools in ways often that the founders didn’t even anticipate or like or want or respect.”

READ MORE: Taylor Lorenz talks early influencers and misogyny in the tech world (Fast Company)

In addition to plain, old misogyny, Lorenz sees an inherent conflict between the aims of platforms and creators that continues to this day.

“It’s fraught, and it’s always been fraught. Content creators are always in tension with the platforms, because their goals are not aligned. A creator’s goal is to maximize engagement. The platform’s goal is to monetize. But once that starts happening, the creator wants to keep some of the monetization for themselves,” Lorenz explains to The Verge.

Professionalization of the Creator Economy

For a long time, Lorenz tells Fast Company, “There was this really vicious narrative in the mainstream media that basically people creating stuff on the internet, it was not real work.” However, she says, “I’ve always felt very strongly that that is wrong and deluded.” 

Plus, “Content creators have more power by the minute,” Lorenz observes to The Verge. “Initially, brands had the upper hand, because we didn’t have a robust e-commerce situation. But now there’s infrastructure, and content creators can spin up a product and create their own brand. By the mid-2010’s, you see brands and influencers working very closely together. But influencers figured out, ‘Why would I advertise someone else’s products when I could just launch my own?’” 

Today, “The creator economy, as it’s known, is now a global industry valued at $250 billion, with tens of millions of workers, hundreds of millions of customers and its own trade association and work-credentialing programs,” Lorenz writes for The Washington Post. And that figure, she reports, is expected to balloon to “$480 billion by 2027.”

Yet, she notes, “Many creators still run as single-person shops, handling all of the video shoots, editing sessions and sponsorship deals on their own. But other creators have worked to pump up their revenue by running large operations with specialized divisions of labor, which some in the industry call ‘content machines.’”

In fact, she reports, “Professional creators now often recruit and hire teams of specialists: managers, writers, editors, designers and camera operators to pump out content; agents, accountants, event coordinators and publicists to lock down appearances and revenue.”

READ MORE: Millions work as content creators. In official records, they barely exist (Washington Post)

Platforms Get It (Or Don’t)

The creator economy has been a boon to some platforms – and a pain for legacy services that haven’t quite figured out how to leverage it.

“TikTok put creators first in a way the other platforms hadn’t. Other platforms were wary of creators, because tech platforms want to dictate what their platforms are. And they don’t always like when creators use them in their own ways,” Lorenz tells The Verge.

“Twitter had a leg up on Instagram initially, because it was very much a hub for culture. But creators want to monetize, and time and time again Twitter failed to roll out monetization features,” Lorenz says. 

Even in its iteration as X, Lorenz says, they fail to envision “a coherent monetization plan for people” with the Twitter Blue rollout as its latest misfire. “Elon Musk is speedrunning every mistake these other founders made for the last 20 years,” she says.

And there’s Facebook, which Lorenz says “fumbled the bag. They had every single big content creator before YouTube, and they refused to roll out monetization features in a meaningful way.” 

And they continued to drop the ball with their acquisitions, she thinks. 

READ MORE: Taylor Lorenz on her extremely online history of the internet (The Verge) 

“Facebook was a bridge platform, basically, which is why I think it’s not relevant anymore, because it didn’t lean hard enough into creators until it was too late,” Lorenz explains to Vox’s Jennings. “Facebook is sort of the epitome of the sanitized, corporate Silicon Valley version of social media. But the Facebook News Feed played such a pivotal role in influencer culture, because it taught everyone to post for an audience.”

Unfortunately, “Facebook Video had all those people, and they squandered it. They had the biggest of all the biggest YouTubers and they couldn’t get the monetization right. They didn’t care about creator monetization, but YouTube had built that out, and they were just in such a better position to absorb that talent.”

YouTube, she says, “saw very early on if they allowed people to make money, that would keep talent there. YouTube was also adjacent enough to the entertainment world where there were standards around paying for content and ad deals. YouTube started as an online video platform, and there were ad models in place for online video, like pre-roll or mid-roll. With Facebook, which was more text-based social media, there wasn’t a norm, there weren’t revenue models, and there weren’t monetization pathways already established.”

And then there’s MySpace, which Lorenz thinks “was just way too early. For most people, it was not normal to go on the internet and post about yourself. And there wasn’t this follower-based model of social media yet,” she tells Jennings.

Downstream Effects

Lorenz says that the creator economy has created “boom times” for some manufacturers, especially those “selling professional grade cameras, microphones, tripods, lights, green screens and other gear,” she writes for The Post. 

She cites Shure as one of the winners, to the extent that the audio electronics firm “started organizing its studio gear into what it called a ‘content-creator portfolio’ after seeing a surge of business in recent years from podcasters, streamers and others.” The pandemic spurred a jump in sales, with the content-creator portfolio sales doubling.

Shure Associate VP Eduardo Valdes tells Lorenz, “We want them to feel confident in the technology, like it’s a source of pride — that they are serious, that they’re buying a tool and not a toy.”

Learn more about the creator economy on our dedicated resource page.
  • Content Creation
  • Streaming
  • Capitalize
  • Media Content
  • Interactive and Cross Platform TV / Web / Mobile
  • Social Media
  • Social Networking / UGC

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Casey Neistat: Create First and the Money Will Follow
Casey Neistat: Create First and the Money Will Follow

Casey Neistat is most famous as a YouTuber, but that wasn’t his goal… his career “wasn’t an option” when he started creating videos. 

Leave a Comment on Taylor Lorenz: How the Creator Economy Became… an Economy
October 31, 2023

Why Are Major Productions Trusting Leader for Test and Measurement?



Live production is the pinnacle of television broadcasting. Creators of live content face the challenges of working live from whichever location, at whatever time, each project demands. They also have the added pressure that many millions of viewers are watching their every decision then and there without the option of ‘retake’. In recent years, producers of live television content have encountered two major new technological and operational challenges:

First was the need to work in 4K UHD, whilst at the same time as creating and monitoring the HD program output. This led to a number of production companies adopting either 12G-SDI or IP based infrastructure and operate in a hybrid SDI/IP environment.

Second, and most recently, high dynamic range has become a prerequisite for high-end live production. As with UHD, where HD analysis cannot be ignored, standard dynamic range is still watched by the majority of the audience and cannot be compromised.

Both of these technological innovations have one thing in common: traditional 3G/HD waveform monitoring is no longer sufficient.

Leader anticipated this trend several years ago and developed its ZEN Series waveform monitors and rasterizers. Introduced in 2018 and strengthened by five years of ongoing development, these deliver traditional basic HD/SDR SDI test and measurement analysis as standard and can be upgraded to support UHDTV in both 12G-SDI and IP, along with simultaneous HDR analysis.

The ‘True Hybrid’ SDI and IP operation of Leader’s LV5600 waveform monitor and LV7600 Rasterizer is unique. It allows individual operators and producers in a combined SDI and IP environment to monitor all signal streams via their familiar and trusted picture, waveform and vectorscope displays without worrying about whether the signal source is IP or SDI and now JPEG XS (SMPTE ST2110-22) analysis and generation support has been via software license.

All ZEN Series products also provide the ability to display SDR and HDR sources simultaneously. They also offer Leader’s powerful CINELITE and CINEZONE real-time false color display tools which allow quick and easy identification of potential issues in an SDR or HDR source, ensuring that SDI and IP signal sources are not compromised during live production. To assist operators, Leader has replaced they traditional quad-split display with a fully free-form customizable layout, that allows production staff to size and position multiple analysis tools to match their operating preferences. Configurations can be saved as a pre-set for quick and easy recall.

For live multi-camera productions, the ZEN Series also features the ability to overlay up to four camera sources on the waveform, vectorscope and histogram, with each source have its own trace colors, thus making camera setup and matching quick and easy even high-pressure operating environments.

If you work in live television production and are not yet familiar with Leader test and measurement solutions, now is an ideal time to find out why more and more high-end live production teams are using Leader to guarantee that they can deliver the ultimate content that brings broadcast television viewers closer to the action.

You can get the new Live Production Guide here.

  • Live Event Production
  • Connect
  • Distribution and Delivery
  • Test and Measurement Equipment / QOS

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Leave a Comment on Why Are Major Productions Trusting Leader for Test and Measurement?
October 30, 2023

AI Will Be the Most Impactful Technology in 2024, Say Global CTOs (and Pretty Much Everyone Else)



TL;DR

  • An IEEE study, “The Impact of Technology in 2024 and Beyond,” found AI as the technology most likely to have the greatest impact on a broad range of industries from film to medicine.
  • Prompt engineering and the ability to verify AI’s deliverables are required skills needed to generate meaningful outcomes with generative AI.
  • The study also finds that 5G rollout is still a work in progress and hasn’t kept pace with expectations.


READ MORE: The Impact of Technology in 2024 and Beyond: AN IEEE global study (IEEE)

Extended reality, cloud computing, 5G and electric vehicles are also among the top five most important technologies in 2024, according to the IEEE, but let’s guess what comes in at the top.

The survey of global technology leaders from the US, UK, China, India and Brazil found AI to be the most impactful technology next year, encompassing predictive and generative AI, machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP).

By contrast, extended reality (XR), including metaverse, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR), came second, just ahead of cloud computing in third.

AI, though, was voted in the top place by more than 65% of respondents, which included 350 CTOs.

In 2024, AI applications and algorithms that can optimize data, perform complex tasks, and make decisions with human-like accuracy will be used in diverse ways, the study finds.

According to the survey, among the top uses of AI in the coming year will be real-time cybersecurity, increasing supply chain efficiency, aiding and accelerating software development, automating customer service, and the speeding up screening of job applicants.

However, integrating AI into existing work isn’t as straightforward as flipping a switch. In the study, nearly half of respondents said they see difficulty integrating AI into existing workflows as one of the top three concerns when it comes to using generative AI in 2024.

“New use cases of generative AI and their integration into the general architecture may turn [out] to be serious challenges,” said IEEE life senior member Raul Colcher. “Good business analysts and system integrators will be essential.”

  • Artificial intelligence in its many forms will be the most important area of technology in 2024. Cr: IEEE
    Artificial intelligence in its many forms will be the most important area of technology in 2024. Cr: IEEE
  • In 2024, we can expect to see more sophisticated AI applications and algorithms that can optimize data, perform complex tasks and make decisions with human-like accuracy. Cr: IEEE
    In 2024, we can expect to see more sophisticated AI applications and algorithms that can optimize data, perform complex tasks and make decisions with human-like accuracy. Cr: IEEE
  • Providing oversight of AI model input data and accuracy of the outputs, managing the integration of AI with existing functions and undergoing training for these skills are some of the many ways humans will work with AI in the future. Cr: IEEE
    Providing oversight of AI model input data and accuracy of the outputs, managing the integration of AI with existing functions and undergoing training for these skills are some of the many ways humans will work with AI in the future. Cr: IEEE
  • The top three cybersecurity concerns in 2024 remain the same as last year: data center vulnerability, cloud vulnerability, and security issues related to the mobile and hybrid workforce/employees using their own devices.
    The top three cybersecurity concerns in 2024 remain the same as last year: data center vulnerability, cloud vulnerability, and security issues related to the mobile and hybrid workforce/employees using their own devices.

Additional data from the survey illuminates the challenge. Respondents were asked to list the top skills they were looking for in candidates for AI-related roles.

“Prompt engineering, creative thinking and the ability to verify AI’s deliverables — these three skills are what you need to generate meaningful outcomes with the aid of generative AI,” said IEEE senior member Yu Yuan.

IEEE member Todd Richmond added, “We need to collectively figure out what are ‘human endeavors’ and what are we willing to cede to an algorithm, e.g., making music, films, practicing medicine, etc.”

The benefit of AI is clear to many, but there’s a tricky part: potential risks. Among them is the risk of overreliance on generative AI for facts. As the IEEE puts it, the problem is that those facts aren’t always accurate. And with all forms of AI, it can be difficult to find out how, exactly, the software arrived at its conclusion.

In the survey, 59% of respondents cited an “overreliance on AI and potential inaccuracies” as a top concern of AI use in their organizations. Part of the problem is that the training data itself can be inaccurate.

“Verifying training data is difficult because the provenance is not available and volume of the training data is enormous,” said IEEE life fellow Paul Nikolic.

In 2024 and beyond, expect intense efforts to ensure that AI results are more accurate, and the data used to train AI models is clean.

READ MORE: The Impact of Technology in 2024 and Beyond: an IEEE global study (IEEE)

  • Content Creation
  • Live Event Production
  • Broadcast
  • Streaming
  • Intelligent Content
  • Management and Systems
  • Al / Machine Learning

Subscribe

for more content like this sent directly to your inbox:

Sign Up
Related Article
Yes, It’s Time to Think/Talk About Technology in 2024
Yes, It’s Time to Think/Talk About Technology in 2024

Are we the last generation to make decisions about AI? Gartner offers 10 predictions for technology in 2024 (and beyond).

Leave a Comment on AI Will Be the Most Impactful Technology in 2024, Say Global CTOs (and Pretty Much Everyone Else)
October 30, 2023
Posted October 30, 2023

From Pixels to Profits: How Virtual Influencers are Rewriting the Rules of Fame, Commerce and Authenticity, Part 2