CES 2023: Controlling the Connected Home and Media Delivery/Distribution
Adrian Pennington
TL;DR
Smart TVs now represent the most important point of entertainment aggregation, control, and data collection inthe connected home, according to Parks Associates.
Eighty-seven percent of US internet households subscribe to at least one OTT video service. More than half of US broadbandhouseholds now combine one of Netflix, Amazon Prime or Disney+ services with at least one other subscription OTT service to form theironline video service portfolio.
Increases in connected deviceownership, increased streaming video, and a largeremote workforce have further strengthened theimportance of home internet.
Smart TVs now represent the most important point of entertainment aggregation, control, and data collection in the connected home, according to a new report from Parks Associates, “2023 Top Insights – Smart Home,” based on findings from the Consumer Electronics Show.
The research analysts report that annual home service spending is $340 billion across home phone, internet, mobile, security and video services, amid continued growth of value-added services and connected devices in the home.
Consumers now place more value on their home’s internet service than previously. Increases in connected device ownership, increased streaming video, and a large remote workforce have further strengthened the importance of home internet.
Parks reports that consumers are seeking new bundles and services incorporating multiple service offerings, including home internet, pay-TV, landlines, mobile phones, and home security. The rise of these bundles, including broadband value-added services, has more than offset the decline in traditional bundles, it finds.
Such bundling and aggregation offer the traditional TV broadcaster “a path forward to reimagine video offerings in a multi-channel, multi-platform world,” the analyst says.
Data about consumer viewing via connected TVs allow providers to offer an improved experience with more relevant and personalized experiences for the viewer. Meanwhile, advertising partners can execute targeted marketing campaigns based on specific interests and behaviors. Parks cites new technologies promising to bring the “shoppable ad” vision to reality on TV through T-commerce experiences.
Content remains king — that is, the most significant factor influencing consumers’ viewing decisions regarding retention, engagement, and customer acquisition, per Parks’ report. Of this, live content has become a key component of many OTT service offerings and a staple of the consumer video portfolio, with good reason.
Sports programming, the biggest and most valuable component of live TV, is migrating from traditional broadcast television to internet streaming channels. Parks thinks that this transition makes it challenging for sports fans to locate content but that this creates opportunities for providers if they can attract fans with a bundled experience.
Internet service providers, meanwhile, are “modifying their relationships with pay-TV, treating the service as a value-add to home internet, and transitioning away from legacy cable head ends to cloud-based infrastructure and streaming TV services.” The goal is to reduce operational costs and widen service appeal, says Parks.
The analyst also notes that piracy is a real problem, potentially costing more than $67 billion dollars worldwide. It expects streaming services to experiment with new ways to protect content and to explore business models that can help recoup lost revenue from password sharing.
Kicking off CES 2023, the Consumer Technology Association’s Steve Koenig says the world is headed toward a “metaverse of things.”
January 30, 2023
“Poker Face:” The Sunday Mystery Movie But It’s Streaming
TL;DR
“Knives Out” and “Glass Onion” director Rian Johnson talks about his exciting new Peacock case-of-the-week series “Poker Face,” starring Natasha Lyonne as a mystery-solving fugitive.
Johnson discusses the challenges of writing a mystery series where the main character has the superhuman ability to recognize when someone is lying, and the importance of crafting standalone TV episodes even in an increasingly serialized era of TV.
Johnson calls this mystery subgenre a “howcatchem,” where it’s very much about the detective versus the guest star of the episode.
To make new television, it helps if you’ve watched a lot of old television. That’s a lesson evident in Poker Face, the crime-thriller series created by Rian Johnson and starring Natasha Lyonne, which makes its debut January 26 on Peacock.
Lyonne — creator and star of Netflix series Russian Doll — plays Charlie Cale, a woman employed by a casino with a preternatural ability to tell when people are lying.
As Johnson, the writer and director of Knives Out and Glass Onion, explained to Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times, the self-contained installments of Poker Face are a deliberate throwback to a style of TV storytelling that Johnson grew up with in the 1970s and ‘80s.
“That’s when I had control of the television,” Johnson said. “And it was typically hourlong, star-driven, case-of-the-week shows.”
They weren’t only detective programs like Columbo and Murder, She Wrote, he said, but also adventure series like Quantum Leap, The ATeam, Highway to Heaven and The Incredible Hulk, which were notable for “the anchoring presence of a charismatic lead and a different set of guest stars and, in many cases, a totally different location, every single week.”
Those ever-changing elements kept things fresh and surprising, he said.
Poker Face is not a whodunit but an “open mystery” because the audience starts out each episode by seeing who did it, how, and why, before Charlie begins to investigate. Johnson himself calls this mystery subgenre a “howcatchem,” where it’s very much about the detective versus the guest star of the episode, as Johnson also confirms to Brandy Clark at Collider: “These are not whodunits, these are howcatchems. Show the killing, and about Natasha [Lyonne] vs. the guest star.”
As Clark points out, the benefit of these types of shows is that a viewer can jump in at any time, without wondering or worrying if they need to see the previous episodes to understand the story or the plot.
Of course, Columbo is the key reference point and an acknowledged part of Daniel Craig’s character Benoit Blanc in the Knives Out mysteries. Johnson told Rolling Stone’s Alan Sepinwall that he binged the entire series during lockdown.
“My big revelation from bingeing it is, I wasn’t coming back for the mysteries. Although the mysteries are fun, I was coming back to hang out with Peter Falk. And in that way, I feel like those shows have as much in common with sitcoms as they do anything else.”
He added, “It’s not really about the story or the content. It’s about just hanging out with somebody that you like, and the comforting rhythms of a repeated pattern over and over with a character that you really liked being with. That’s kind of what I saw when I watched Natasha in Russian Doll, that made me think this could be interesting.”
Lyonne also said that she loved characters such as Columbo, Elliott Gould’s Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye and Dennis Franz’s Andy Sipowicz in NYPD Blue, as reported by Deadline’s Peter White.
Speaking at NBCUniversal’s TCA press tour, Lyonne said that Charlie is “floating above a situation trying to crack a riddle, but also an everyman who has their nose to the grindstone and figuring out the sounds of the street.”
Once Johnson had decided to make her a human bullshit detector, rather than a detective or a mystery writer, he realized he had a problem, but this became the key to unlocking how the show might unfold.
“How was the show just not over within the first five minutes, if she can tell when people are lying?” he told Rolling Stone. “I had her give a speech in the pilot about how it’s less useful than you think because everyone’s always lying. It’s about looking for the subtlety of why is somebody lying about a specific thing. And we found really fun ways to play that at different episodes going forward.”
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale in “Poker Face.” Cr: Peacock
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale in “Poker Face.” Cr: Peacock
Hong Chau as Marge in “Poker Face.” Cr: Peacock
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale and Chelsea Frei as Dana in “Poker Face.” Cr: Peacock
Brandon Micheal Hall as Damian in “Poker Face.” Cr: Peacock
Benjamin Bratt as Cliff Legrand in “Poker Face.” Cr: Peacock
Simon Helberg as Luca in “Poker Face.” Cr: Peacock
John Hodgman as Narc/Dockers in “Poker Face.” Cr: Peacock
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale and Benjamin Bratt as Cliff Legrand in “Poker Face.” Cr: Peacock
Lil Rel Howery as Taffy in “Poker Face.” Cr: Peacock
Judith Light as Irene Smothers and S. Epatha Merkerson as Joyce Harris in “Poker Face.” Cr: Peacock
Dascha Polanco as Natalie in “Poker Face.” Cr: Peacock
John Darnielle as Al, Chloë Sevigny as Ruby Ruin and G.K. Umeh as Eskie in “Poker Face.” Cr: Sara Shatz/Peacock
Chuck Cooper as Deuteronomy and Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale in “Poker Face.” Cr: Sara Shatz/Peacock
Chloë Sevigny as Ruby Ruin and G.K Umeh as Eskie in “Poker Face.” Cr: Sara Shatz/Peacock
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale in “Poker Face.” Cr: Sara Shatz/Peacock
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale in “Poker Face.” Cr: Phillip Caruso/Peacock
POKER FACE — “The Orpheus Syndrome” Episode 108 — Pictured: Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale — (Photo by: Karolina Wojtasik/Peacock)
Luis Guzman as Raoul and Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale in “Poker Face.” Cr: Karolina Wojtasik/Peacock
Adrien Brody as Sterling Frost Jr. and Benjamin Bratt as Cliff Legrand in “Poker Face.” Cr: Karolina Wojtasik/Peacock
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale in “Poker Face.” Cr: Karolina Wojtasik/Peacock
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale in “Poker Face.” Cr: Phillip Caruso/Peacock
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale in “Poker Face.” Cr: Sara Shatz/Peacock
Jack Alcott as Randy, Charles Melton as Davis, and Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale in “Poker Face.” Cr: Phillip Caruso/Peacock
Danielle MacDonald as Mandy in “Poker Face.” Cr: Karolina Wojtasik/Peacock NUP_197591_00014-
Lil Rel Howery as Taffy in “Poker Face.” Cr: Karolina Wojtasik/Peacock
Adrien Brody as Sterling Frost Jr in “Poker Face.” Cr: Phillip Carus/Peacock
Dascha Polanco as Natalie and Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale in “Poker Face.” Cr: Phillip Caruso/Peacock
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale in “Poker Face.” Cr: Evans Vestal Ward/Peacock
Megan Suri as Sara in “Poker Face.” Cr: Evans Vestal Ward/Peacock
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale and Megan Suri as Sara in “Poker Face.” Cr: Evans Vestal Ward/Peacock
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale in “Poker Face.” Cr: Phillip Caruso/Peacock
Although Johnson is red hot and you’d think people would be biting his hand to work with him, he says pitching a more old-fashioned TV format got push back.
“I was unprepared for the blank stares. And then the follow-up questions of, “Yes, but what’s the arc over the season?” I think there is right now this odd assumption that that’s what keeps people watching, just because there’s been so much of that in the streaming world that I think people equate the cliffhanger at the end of an episode with what gets people to click ‘Next.’ But TV before incredibly recently, was entirely in this episode mode. So I know it can work because I grew up tuning in every day for it.”
One reason it’s harder to do episodic case-of-the-week stories is the expense and the production challenge. For example, you keep have to bringing in new guests and visiting new locations.
“Holy crap, it was a headache,” Johnson admits to Rolling Stone. “I don’t think we even realized what we’re up against. No standing sets. No recurring characters besides Natasha and occasionally Benjamin Bratt. But we’re very purposefully going for the Columbo approach of big fish guest stars. So every single one of these episodes, we try and get somebody very exciting to play either the killer or the victim. And it was a lot.”
Indeed, the cast list across the season includes Adrien Brody, Ellen Barkin, Nick Nolte, Stephanie Hsu, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ron Perlman, Chloë Sevigny, Lil Rel Howery, Clea Duvall, Tim Blake Nelson, and many more.
Asked during a Q&A panel at the Winter Television Critics Association Presentation whether he writes specifically to those guest stars, he replied: “In the room, sometimes we’d have a placeholder actor, and it would end up being them, or surprisingly someone else. A benefit of this subgenre is that it is the guest star’s episode, and you see them go head-to-head with Natasha.”
Johnson continued to sing the praises of television in front of the ballroom full of television reporters and critics — saying he preferred the “pace” of this newfound process vs. film. Each hour-long Poker Face episode took about three weeks (one for prep, two for shooting) to complete. Compare that with making one film over the course of “several years,” as he put it.
“I loved that in each episode we’re in a different environment, it’s a whole new cast— it’s like making 10 mini movies,” Johnson told IndieWire’s Tony Maglio. “I literally dove into it like it was one of my movies. I really jumped completely into the deep end of the pool.”
Johnson has previously directed for TV, notably on two episodes for Breaking Bad including the show finale “Ozymandias.” Episode two of Poker Face, which he directed, was shot in Albuquerque.
“I haven’t been back there since we shot ‘Ozymandias,’” he told Rolling Stone. “It was so much fun being back in town. A lot of the same Breaking Bad crew were on our crew, and it felt like a little homecoming.”
As the streaming wars rage on, consumers continue to be the clear winners with an abundance of series ripe for binging. See how your favorite episodics and limited series were brought to the screen with these hand-picked articles plucked from the NAB Amplify archives:
Editor Bob Ducsay, ASC on the layers of structure and sleight-of-hand behind writer-director Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out: Glass Onion.”
January 30, 2023
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January 30, 2023
AI-Generated Video Is Happening. So What Does That Mean?
Image created with generative AI
TL;DR
In the past year algorithms have become a lot better at generating illustrations, art and photoreal scenes. Next up is video, but are we prepared?
The wide availability of image generators has caused not only an explosion of experimentation but also discussion around the implications of the technology.
Will we need toreframe the authorship of film and TV content as VFX supervisors, computer scientists, concept artists, engineers, and animators “become increasingly responsible for the movements and expressions of characters and the world they inhabit” on screen?
In the past year algorithms became a lot better at generating illustrations, art and photoreal scenes. The pace of development is unrelenting, meaning that this year we should expect AI-generated video tools. The implications of this are as exciting as they are challenging to the creative community.
A tour through the recent history of AI and its ability to churn out convincing and commercially viable illustrations, photographs, and paintings has been sketched by Wired.
Will Knight, the magazine’s senior writer, primes us to expect higher quality AI-made images and perhaps the emergence of AI video generators in 2023.
Researchers have already demonstrated prototypes, although their output is so far relatively simple. Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, Google, Meta and Nvidia are all working on the technology.
“AI elicits a special kind of anxiety for the film and TV industry’s creative classes,” Joshua Glick, Associate Professor of Film and Electronic Arts at Bard College, writes in another article for Wired.
“The question is whether feature-length films made by text-to-video generators will eliminate the skilled labor of screenwriters, graphic artists, editors, and directors.”
Glick is doubtful that Hollywood studios will launch a major lineup of AI-generated features any time soon. More importantly, he doesn’t think audiences are ready for AI-generated feature narratives either.
“Even as text-to-video software continues to improve at an extraordinary rate, it will never replace the social elements crucial to the product Hollywood makes and the culture that surrounds both gaudy blockbusters and gritty dramas alike,” Glick thinks.
He believes the human influence on the creation of film and TV shows is what makes storytelling on screen tick and something that AI can’t (yet) emulate.
Of more pressing concern, he notes, is that studios will use algorithm-driven predictive analytics to greenlight only those projects they believe are sure to make money, leading to less diversity of form, story, and talent.
AI has already made its way into the creation of filmed stories. This is most notably the case in VFX. The Wētā FX software Massive, for example, has helped effects artists capture the seemingly “unfilmable,” especially on the macroscale.
Beginning with the creation of digital hordes of orcs and humans for the realistic combat in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers’ (2002) Battle of Helm’s Deep, Massive has since been responsible for expansive collections of lifelike entities, from the shiver of sharks in The Meg (2018) to the swarms of flying demons in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021).
There are further examples of AI use ranging from the “synthetic resurrection” of iconic actors to performance capture assisted CGI characters. AI tools are so useful that “synthetic imagery is sure to become central to preproduction,” Glick believes. For instance, “screenwriters will be able to use AI-generated imagery for their pitch decks to evocatively establish the mood and feel of a project and position it within a larger genre.”
Likewise, concept artists will benefit from the back-and-forth tweaking of prompts and visual outputs as they flesh out a film’s narrative arc in the early stages of storyboarding. Generative AI might also expand the “previs” process of transforming flat images of material environments and character interaction into 3D approximations of scenes.
Extending this further, the use of AI in film and TV production might require a new set of skills able to guide AIs to desired results. Glick envisions a broader reframing of authorship as VFX supervisors, computer scientists, concept artists, engineers, and animators “become increasingly responsible for the movements and expressions of the characters on screen, as well as the look and feel of the world they inhabit.”
Far from ushering in the death of cinema, AI can help film the “unfilmable” and make cinema more collaborative:
“Never before has an amateur or seasoned professional been able to build such an elaborate project on such a small budget in such a short amount of time.”
This theme is taken up by Rex Woodbury, who writes about all the ways AI is set to disrupt industries in his article on Substack.
“Generative AI is the most compelling technology since the rise of mobile and cloud over a decade ago,” he declares. “We’re at an AI inflection point… underpinning a Cambrian explosion in innovation.”
He draws a direct line between tools like Adobe Premiere and Final Cut for editing, smartphones and GoPro cameras for action shots, drones for aerial shots, and YouTube and TikTok for publishing and monetizing video to AI as the next innovation that will democratize the creative industries.
“Just as AI amplifies creativity, AI amplifies productivity,” he says. “We see this in the tools that give writers and marketers superpowers, like Jasper.ai, Copy.ai, and Lex, [to help brainstorm ideas].”
He predicts that generative AI will soon collide with other maturing technologies, such as VR and AR and imagines text prompts that generate immersive, three-dimensional virtual worlds.
“Within the lifetime of someone born today, we’ll see every part of human life, work, and society reinvented by AI,” he theorizes.
It’s also likely that AI will help evolve an “internet of me” — of which TikTok represents the starting rung… customized content created just for me and you.
“The world is shifting to personalization, and AI is the fuel on the fire. All of a sudden, a ‘1-on-1’ experience is replicable at scale — and today’s AI applications are still rudimentary compared to those we’ll see in the coming years. Think of every Craigslist category — education, books, home decor. Each one is ripe for reinvention.”
None of these writers dismisses the very real ethical and legal issues surrounding AI’s pervasion of society. But it’s more a matter of figuring out how to live with AI, than banning it outright. That genie has long left the bottle.
“Leaps forward in technology often walk a fine line between deeply-impactful and dystopian,” Woodbury says. He lists the major ethical issues we need to work out, among them:
Who is responsible for AI’s mistakes?
Who is the creator of an AI work? Is it the AI? The developers? The person who wrote the prompt? The people whose work was used to train the model?
How do we determine what’s human-made vs. machine-made? Where does the line that separates the two even exist?
How do we get rid of AI bias?
How do startups differentiate themselves and build a moat?
Where will value accrue in the ecosystem, and how should value creation be distributed?
Will AI be a net job creator or a net job destroyer? How do we retrain workers who are displaced by AI?
That’s a massive list. Perhaps we need an AI for that.
Even with AI-powered text-to-image tools like DALL-E 2, Midjourney and Craiyon still in their relative infancy, artificial intelligence and machine learning is already transforming the definition of art — including cinema — in ways no one could have ever predicted. Gain insights into AI’s potential impact on Media & Entertainment in NAB Amplify’s ongoing series of articles examining the latest trends and developments in AI art
Researchers trained an open-source procedural cinematography toolset Cine-AI to mimic human film auteurs like Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie.
January 30, 2023
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January 30, 2023
This Is What’s Next for AI: Content, Coding… and Western Civilization?
TL;DR
Think AI was impressive lastyear? Wait until you see what’s coming, including industry-transformingbreakthroughs in music composition, videoanimation, writing code and translation.
AI’s increasing use will be fought in the courts as new regulation in US and Europe aims to curtail the impact of AI on copyright and misinformation.
Most experts believe that human-level AI can be achieved within the next 100 years; half of them predicted a date before 2061.
On New Year’s Eve, OpenAI president and co- founder Greg Brockman (@gdb) tweeted: “Prediction: 2023 will make 2022 look like a sleepy year for AI advancement & adoption.”
Prediction: 2023 will make 2022 look like a sleepy year for AI advancement & adoption.
The most well known AI tools are those from OpenAI, such as image generator DALL-E 2 and text generator ChatGPT, but the tech is advancing so quickly that by the time a certain industry has grasped the implications of the latest development, another has emerged to leapfrog in sophistication.
“Now it’s beginning to head toward video, and then it’ll go 3D,” Mark Curtis, head of innovation at Accenture’s Interactive division, tells Patrick Kulp at Adweek. “We’ve had to continuously rewrite this trend over the last month and a half because new stuff was coming up. And I worry that everything we’re going to say is going to be irrelevant by February.”
While imagery and text were the big leaps forward in 2022, there are many other areas where machine learning techniques could be on the brink of industry-transforming breakthroughs including: music composition, video animation, writing code, and translation.
“It’s hard to guess which dominoes will fall first, but by the end of this year, I don’t think artists will be alone in grappling with their industry’s sudden automation,” says Vox’s Kelsey Piper.
He predicts we’ll soon have image models that can depict multiple characters or objects and consistently do more complicated modeling of object interactions (a weakness of current systems).
“I doubt they’ll be perfect, but I suspect most complaints about the limits of current systems will no longer apply.”
Piper also suggests better text generators — ones that provide better answers to nearly every question you ask them. That may already be happening. Microsoft is reportedly planning to integrate ChatGPT into its Bing search engine.
“Instead of providing links in response to search queries, a language model-powered search engine could simply answer questions.”
Marketers also say 2023 will be the year that brands and agencies get serious about how synthetic content can be deployed to serve bottom lines and augment human creativity.
“The things that agencies should be doing is beyond experimenting with this; they should be calculating now what it means for their business,” Curtis tells Kulp.
Generative AI, he added, “is a tool humans will use to kickstart creative thinking or to create the base level of something, which they then adapt continuously, or to move more quickly. …It is not an answer to everything, but it does radically shift the economics of a lot of what we do in creativity.”
Agency BBDO has experimented and agrees that the ad industry should be thinking more about the various ways it could revolutionize how creatives do their jobs.
“In my mind, it doesn’t appear that many of the people commenting on this have even used the tool,” Zach Kula, group strategy director, tells Adweek. “If they did, it would be obvious it’s not even close to replacing creative thinking. In fact, I’d say it exposes how valuable true creative thinking actually is. It puts the difference between original creative thought and eloquently constructed database information in plain sight.”
Experts say it’s likely that technology like voice cloning, synthetic imagery and generated copy could align in the next year to allow marketers to create full realistic-seeming videos out of whole cloth with AI.
According to Kulp, those capabilities could make it easier for marketers to make targeted, personalized video ads aimed at different segments at scale.
In addition to possible upsides, generative AI also has a host of risks that any marketer needs to be aware of, including the potential for accidental copyright infringement or plagiarism. Brands are already preparing defenses against fake content such as auto-generated user reviews or defamatory content generated at scale.
Within five years, 80% of enterprise marketers will establish a “dedicated content authenticity function” to root out AI-generated misinformation, according to industry analyst Gartner. The consultancy also projects that 70% of enterprise CMOs will list “accountability in ethical AI” among their top concerns as more regulations and risks develop.
In fact, 2023 will be marked by a tightening of regulations around AI. In the US, Microsoft (an investor in OpenAI), GitHub and OpenAI are being sued in a class-action lawsuit that accuses them of violating copyright law by letting Copilot, GitHub’s code writing service, regurgitate sections of licensed code without providing credit.
In Europe, the EU’s proposed AI Act could limit the type of research that produces AI tools like GPT-3, experts have warned. According to a TechCrunch article by Kyle Wiggers, so could more local efforts, like New York City’s AI hiring statute, which requires that AI and algorithm-based tech for recruiting, hiring or promotion be audited for bias before being used.
“Next year will only bring the threat of regulation, though — expect much more quibbling over rules and court cases before anyone gets fined or charged,” Wiggers says. “But companies may still jockey for position in the most advantageous categories of upcoming laws, like the AI Act’s risk categories.”
Brockman’s tweet is actually alarming given the rapid advance of the technology and the failure of rules and ethical considerations to keep pace with it.
“I think a slow, sleepy year on the AI front would be good news for humanity,” Wiggers says. “We’d have some time to adapt to the challenges AI poses, study the models we have, and learn about how they work and how they break.
“And… we might have time for a more serious conversation about why AI matters so much and how we — a human civilization with a shared stake in this issue — can make it go well.”
Synthetic content generators are going to seem trivial in comparison to the broader sweep of AI which is to effectively mimic human intelligence. A human-level AI would be what Max Roser, founder and director of Our World in Data, describes as a machine, or a network of machines, capable of carrying out the same range of tasks that humans can.
Not so long ago the stuff of science fiction, the date for such a development actually happening has been brought a lot closer.
According to a number of experts and surveys, including by the Metaculus community and research by Ajeya Cotra, who works for the nonprofit Open Philanthropy, there is large agreement that the timelines for achieving human-level AI are shorter than a century, and many have timelines that are substantially shorter than that.
In Roser’s article, the majority of those who study this question believe that there is a 50% chance that transformative AI systems will be developed within the next 50 years. In this case, Roser says, it would plausibly be the biggest transformation in the lifetimes of our children, or even in our own lifetimes.
With nearly half of all media and media tech companies incorporating artificial intelligence into their operations or product lines, AI and machine learning tools are rapidly transforming content creation, delivery and consumption. Find out what you need to know with these essential insights curated from the NAB Amplify archives:
OpenAI lead researcher Mark Chen speaks to The Atlantic’s Ross Andersen about how AI tools like DALLE-2 and Chat GPT-3 are being used.
January 31, 2023
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January 29, 2023
“Troll:” Norway’s Motion Blur Makes a Modern (Ancient) Kaiju
TL;DR
Pushing aside “RRR” in the global marketplace, Norway’s “Troll” has become Netflix’s best performing non-English film.
Partly inspired by “King Kong” and Godzilla films, “Troll” employs many classic monster movie tropes with a distinctly Norwegian spin.
The character design for the titular troll was inspired by paintings by Theodor Severin Kittelsen, one of Norway’s most popular artists.
Espen Horn, producer and CEO of production company Motion Blur, said it was important that the production use Norwegians as crew, SFX and VFX vendors as much as possible, “because we wanted to show the world that this was genuinely a Norwegian or Nordic film.”
Troll from Netflix has seen some highly impressive viewing figures since its arrival on the platform and quickly became its best performing non-English film. This breakdown comes from Naman Ramachandran at Variety: “With a total of 128 million hours viewed and still counting, the film has taken the top spot on the non-English Netflix Top 10. It is in the Top 10 in 93 countries including Norway, France, Germany, the US, the UK, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Mexico.”
Monster movies have always had a wide fan base and Troll has all the attractions and tropes those fans like — a cityscape destruction, believable and well-executed VFX, a credible folklore backstory, and a monster with feelings and a purpose. Something that Renaldo Matadeen picked up on in his review for Comic Book Resources.
“The remains of his tribe got left in a palace under the Royal Palace, which means the troll king’s domain has been desecrated. So, he’s stomping his way to Oslo to destroy the place for what happened to his family and to crush the symbol of Christianity, politics and corruption.”
Yes, Troll was partly inspired by King Kong, including Godzilla vs. Kong, but don’t forget Cloverfield with its clever “monster in a city” reality. But one of the most important aspects of the production was to keep it very Norwegian notwithstanding the monster action at its core. Espen Horn, producer and CEO of Motion Blur, explained the vision. “It was a big and important dream for us. That we should use Norwegians as crew, SFX and VFX vendors as much as possible because we wanted to show the world that this was genuinely a Norwegian or Nordic film,” he said.
“That was very important as even as the film has a classic monster genre formula to it, as some people claim, it was important to us to maintain originality in terms of the characters, mythology and the nature of how we are as people. I think the audience were happy that we kept the Norwegian originality.”
Mads Sjøgård Pettersen as Captain Kristoffer Holm, Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora Tidemann, and Kim S. Falck-Jørgensen as Andreas Isaksen in writer-director Roar Uthaug’s “Troll.” Cr: Netflix
Gard B. Eidsvold as Tobias Tidemann in writer-director Roar Uthaug’s “Troll.” Cr: Netflix
Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora Tidemann in writer-director Roar Uthaug’s “Troll.” Cr: Netflix
Kim S. Falck-Jørgensen as Andreas Isaksen, Mads Sjøgård Pettersen as Captain Kristoffer Holm and Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora Tidemann in writer-director Roar Uthaug’s “Troll.” Cr: Netflix
Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora Tidemann, Mads Sjøgård Pettersen as Captain Kris, and Kim S. Falck-Jørgensen as Andreas Isaksen in writer-director Roar Uthaug’s “Troll.” Cr: Netflix
Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora Tidemann in writer-director Roar Uthaug’s “Troll.” Cr: Netflix
Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora Tidemann in writer-director Roar Uthaug’s “Troll.” Cr: Netflix
Mads Sjøgård Pettersen as Captain Kris, Kim S. Falck-Jørgensen as Andreas Isaksen, and Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora Tidemann in writer-director Roar Uthaug’s “Troll.” Cr: Netflix
Mads Sjøgård Pettersen as Captain Kristoffer Holm, Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora Tidemann, and Kim S. Falck-Jørgensen as Andreas Isaksen in writer-director Roar Uthaug’s “Troll.” Cr: Netflix
Mads Sjøgård Pettersen as Captain Kristoffer Holm in writer-director Roar Uthaug’s “Troll.” Cr: Netflix
Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora Tidemann and Anneke von der Lippe as Berit Moberg in writer-director Roar Uthaug’s “Troll.” Cr: Netflix
Gard B. Eidsvold as Tobias and Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora Tidemann in writer-director Roar Uthaug’s “Troll.” Cr: Netflix
Half-jokingly, Espen saw that owning the Troll story included some gentle reprisal for a fellow Scandinavian country’s appropriation of another folklore legend. “It was after Finland ‘stole’ the copyright of Santa Claus from Norway. Finally, we could copyright the Troll and insert some Norwegian DNA in to the story,” he said.
“It was essential that the people as well as the Troll were the heroes. Very often when you watch a monster movie it feels like explosions and the fights are more important than the love of the characters or the creature.”
Again reviews bought in to the sympathy for the monster, this from Noel Murray at the Los Angeles Times. “As with many other films about lumbering beasties, Troll alternates between making the big guy terrifying and sympathetic. It’s to the credit of Uthaug and his special effects team (as well as the refreshingly unfussy Espen Aukan screenplay) that this troll inspires such conflicted emotions and isn’t merely menacing or laughably goofy.”
It’s also to the production’s credit that the positive environmental messages baked into the story survived without the feeling of being spoon fed any kind of propaganda and without diluting the monster thrill ride. “We tried to do it in our own Norwegian modest fashion,” Espen demurred.
Jesse Hassenger at Polygon agreed on the lack of a Hollywood ponderous third act in his review. “But there are plenty of advantages to shedding Hollywood-approved bloat while maintaining a kind of gee-whiz energy. Specifically, it resembles Emmerich’s 1998 version of Godzilla, reconfigured for greater speed and efficiency.”
Motion Blur is the production company behind Troll and over the last ten years have been making films and TV including two shows that were signed up for Netflix before Troll, the series Post Mortem and feature Kadaver. Espen, however, was sure it was the right time to attempt a huge monster movie with Scandinavian VFX houses of such quality like Denmark’s Ghost and Copenhagen Visuals, the Norwegian Gimpville and Sweden’s Swiss International. “We realized that with these Scandinavian facilities we had the ability to realize our dreams of creating such a monster, it seemed like the right time to do it.”
Espen describes the origins of the Troll project. “Around ten years ago we were developing a Troll story with another director. Roar Uthaug, the eventual director of Troll, was also developing a similar idea for a film. For various reasons both productions had to be stopped.
“But eventually we got together around three-and-a-half years ago to make a Troll movie. He had a very particular idea of how the story should evolve and had carved out the story and started working with screenwriter Espen Aukan.” The script was written fairly quickly and Motion Blur started to finance it.
Originally Troll was to be financed as a movie theater event with support from the Norwegian Film Institute, “We started to finance it as a typical cinema movie but then Netflix came on board — they bought so much into our vision for the film and how to accomplish it. They were very accommodating to fulfil this vision; it was actually a fairly easy choice to go along with Netflix and then not do a theatrical release.”
It was a 55-day shoot, which isn’t very long, but compared to Norwegian films is on the high side. “Shot in seven different locations including Oslo, so for the production it was very much a road movie in that sense. In one place for three or four days then move the 150 crew and cast to the next location. All were quite difficult to reach. Either up in the mountains or down deep inside a tunnel or a cave. But we got so much help from the local community including neighbors, farmers, engineers, even helping with extras.
“To shoot in rural Norway was a fantastic experience. It was extremely rewarding that when you come to a small place the whole community gathers up and are so supportive. We also had fantastic help from the Norwegian army who were very accommodating in helping us first of all get it right in terms of language and rules and regulations as well as uniforms, guns and helmets, tanks etc.”
But what was Motion Blur’s inspiration for the creation of the Troll? They didn’t want the blundering and small cave troll from Lord of the Rings; in fact, Espen even derided them as “Hairless and stupid trolls.”
“For VFX we used Norway’s Gimpville, Ghost and Copenhagen Visuals in Copenhagen and Swiss International in Stockholm. The monster itself was partly derived from folklore. There is a famous painting by [Theodor Severin] Kittelsen who was one of Norway’s most popular artists, it was the painting that Roar Uthaug had as his inspiration. He always thought, ‘what would happen if we got a real troll walking in to Oslo down Karl Johan, how would everyone respond?’ ”
He worked with a Norwegian artist Einar Martinsen and they started conceptualizing the troll with that thought of Oslo in crisis from a giant creature.
But Kittelsen’s paintings set the scene, “The old Norwegian trolls had trousers, pine trees sticking out of their heads, had extremely large noses, were clumsy and a little bit stupid. We wanted a troll that looked badass but also would have the warm tender eyes of emotions, we wanted him to have memory to show feelings and emotions and the ability to camouflage itself.”
They presented their Troll design to Netflix and the streamer loved it, “We then started to work on the troll with Ghost who did most of the CGI on it. It was important that he was originated from Norwegian folklore — important to Norwegians and to Netflix. It was important that it had good heritage from the old Kittelsen painting and from the old fairy tales of Asbjørnsen and Moe from the 19th century.”
Big content spends, tapping emerging markets, and automated versioning: these are just a few of the strategies OTT companies are turning to in the fight for dominance in the global marketplace. Stay on top of the business trends and learn about the challenges streamers face with these hand-curated articles from the NAB Amplify archives:
Director S.S. Rajamouli’s breakout Tollywood hit “Rise Roar Revolt” is the first and only Telugu-language film to smash the US box office.
January 29, 2023
“M3GAN:” James Wan, Gerard Johnstone, and Jason Blum Know What You Want
TL;DR
Hit movie “M3GAN” has busted the $100 million worldwide ticket sales barrier on a $12 million production budget.
Director Gerard Johnstone was inspired by horror-comedies like Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s rom-zom-com “Shaun of the Dead.”
New Zealand actress Amie Donald played the demented AI and ended up doing her own stunts.
Perhaps it’s our underlying fear of what AI will lead to, or a horror jolt that we needed to kickstart our year, but the hit movie M3GAN is busting the $100 million worldwide ticket sales barrier on a $12 million production budget. Also, a generous PG-13 rating has lured in the teenage market with even younger kids finding a way into theaters to catch horror-comedy at its best.
Vanity Fair’s Julie Miller looked into the toy slayers and analyzed the genre. “The killer doll trope is nothing new — 60 years ago, a pigtailed doll in ribbons and ruffles named ‘Talky Tina’ took out an evil stepfather in a Twilight Zone episode,” she writes.
“In the decades since, there have been knife-wielding dolls, deranged puppets, demonic fetish figures, and diabolical porcelain dolls fronting horror films.” But maybe the effect is easily explained by Frank McAndrew, a psychologist who has researched the concept of creepiness.
“They have eyes and ears and heads and all of the things that normal human beings have,” explains Frank “But there’s something off — the deadness in their eyes, their blank stares. They’re cute and they’re supposed to be for children,” he says, but the human realism causes “our brain to give off conflicting signals. For some people that can be very discomforting.”
McAndrew further defines that dolls are especially effective horror-movie antagonists because murderous streaks seem so unlikely in a child’s toy.
But perhaps the most interesting aspect of M3GAN is how a seemingly CGI-laced movie was made for only $12 million. The mid-sized budget was perhaps a consequence of shooting in New Zealand during COVID — since at the time the country hadn’t yet been exposed to the pandemic. But it was also due to the skills of a young local actress, Amie Donald, who played the demented AI and ended up doing her own stunts.
Amie Donald as M3gan in director Gerard Johnstone’s “M3GAN.” Cr: Blumhouse
Amie Donald as M3gan in director Gerard Johnstone’s “M3GAN.” Cr: Blumhouse
Amie Donald as M3gan, Allison Williams as Gemma, and Violet McGraw as Cady in director Gerard Johnstone’s “M3GAN.” Cr: Blumhouse
Amie Donald as M3gan and Violet McGraw as Cady in director Gerard Johnstone’s “M3GAN.” Cr: Blumhouse
Amie Donald as M3gan and Violet McGraw as Cady in director Gerard Johnstone’s “M3GAN.” Cr: Blumhouse
Allison Williams as Gemma in director Gerard Johnstone’s “M3GAN.” Cr: Blumhouse
Amie Donald as M3gan, Allison Williams as Gemma, and Violet McGraw as Cady in director Gerard Johnstone’s “M3GAN.” Cr: Blumhouse
Ronny Chieng as David in director Gerard Johnstone’s “M3GAN.” Cr: Blumhouse
Amie Donald as M3gan in director Gerard Johnstone’s “M3GAN.” Cr: Blumhouse
Amie Donald as M3gan and Violet McGraw as Cady in director Gerard Johnstone’s “M3GAN.” Cr: Blumhouse
Amie Donald as M3gan, Allison Williams as Gemma, and Violet McGraw as Cady in director Gerard Johnstone’s “M3GAN.” Cr: Blumhouse
Jen Yamato at the Los Angeles Times tracked down the actress’s movement coaches. “Casting local performer and international competitive dancer Donald, now 12, to physically embody M3GAN turned out to be fortuitous. Although it was her first film role, the actor, who has also since appeared on Sweet Tooth, was off book within a week and loved doing her own stunts. ‘She was just extraordinary,’ says director Gerard Johnstone,” Yamato reports.
“Working with movement coaches Jed Brophy (The Lord of the Rings) and Luke Hawker (Thor: Love and Thunder) and stunt coordinator Isaac ‘Ike’ Hamon (Black Adam), she developed M3GAN’s physicality, which becomes more humanlike the longer she’s around humans. She adopted barely perceptible movements — a slight cock of the head, a step a bit too close for comfort — to maximize the unsettling effect M3GAN has on people.”
Donald proved to the director how well she could do her own stunts and even on the first day of shooting, nailed the all-fours forest move you can see on the trailer after perfecting it at home. “All of a sudden we get this video from her mother, where Amie had just figured out how to do this on the carpet at home,” said Johnstone. “And she could run on all fours!”
CGI was definitely minimized in the movie, but WETA Workshop contributed additional designs to the film, and Oscar-nominated Adrien Morot and Kathy Tse of Montreal-based Morot FX Studios were entrusted to smooth out the joins of animatronics, puppets, posable and stunt M3GANs, as well as Donald herself.
Director Gerard Johnstone was also keen to bring a level of humor to the movie and find ways to echo his own experience of parenthood, as he told Gregory Ellwood at The Playlist. “But what I brought to it was definitely my own sense of humor and my own experiences as a parent. I wanted to put as many of my own struggles and anxieties and frustrations that I was having as a parent into this movie. Parenting in the age of AI and iPads isn’t easy.”
Speaking to Valerie Ettenhofer in an interview for Slash Film, Johnstone cited Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s rom-zom-com Shaun of the Dead as teaching him a significant lesson in style. “My big lesson from them when I first watched Shaun of the Dead… was just how seriously they took both genres,” the director shares. “If I was going to do this, I had to treat the horror as seriously as I did the comedy.”
Johnstone struck a balance between horror and comedy with his first film, Housebound, which he continued with M3GAN, Ettenhofer notes, “a movie that offsets its most violent and unsettling scenes with moments in which the titular android does a hair-twirling dance or breaks into spontaneous song.”
Johnstone also namedrops a few other greats that he considers fun horror touchstones. “I’m a big fan of Sam Raimi, Drag Me to Hell and The Evil Dead trilogy.” He also commends Wes Craven, plus the “very deadpan” films of Joel and Ethan Coen, which he says employ “just a very dry tone, but you can tell they’re secretly making comedies.”
All the film references in the world mean for nothing, however, when your movie becomes a litany of Internet memes, which M3GAN quickly generated. Karla Rodriguez at Complex put it to the director that once a part of your movie or a part of the trailer becomes a meme, you know you’ve struck gold.
“And they were amazing,” picked up Johnstone, “and I just couldn’t believe how many of them there were. But I thought they were giving too much away in the trailer of the dance scene. I was like, ‘I just want a hint of it, something weird happening to tease people.’ And Universal said, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And I didn’t know what I was talking about clearly because people just took it, recut it, put it to different music and it was just the gift that kept on giving.”
So where does that leave the psychotic M3GAN doll? A scary range of merch maybe, but definitely at least one sequel because, like artificial intelligence, we just can’t get enough of her. Producer Jason Blum has already said as much. “Blum did something he’d never done in his nearly 30-year career: He publicly admitted his desire to make a sequel before the movie even opened in theaters, Rebecca Rubin reports at Variety. “He just felt certain that audiences would instantly fall in love with M3GAN, short for Model 3 Generative Android, whose chaotic dance moves, pithy one-liners and killer tendencies turned her into an internet icon as soon as Universal debuted the first trailer.”
“We broke our cardinal rule,” he says. “I felt so bullish that we started entertaining a sequel earlier than we usually do.”
From the latest advances in virtual production to shooting the perfect oner, filmmakers are continuing to push creative boundaries. Packed with insights from top talents, go behind the scenes of feature film production with these hand-curated articles from the NAB Amplify archives:
In a world where the wealthy and greedy thrive, the working class are fighting back, and the power dynamics are reversed — on screen, at least.
Class warfare has come out into the open with the release of “Glass Onion,” “The Menu,” and “Triangle of Sadness” as the gap continues to widen between the rich and everyone else in a meme that will no doubt be solidified in Netflix’s “Squid Game 2.”
One critic thinks these films don’t go far enough and — tongue in cheek — calls for a mainstream movie to go all the way without pulling any punches.
Given that $26 trillion of new wealth created since the start of pandemic went to the richest 1%, reports charity Oxfam, that billionaire Donald Trump’s organization was found guilty of tax fraud but fined a paltry $1.6 million, and that Elon Musk made history by losing a record $165 billion but is still worth $178 billion, you’d be forgiven for hating the rich just a little bit. Hollywood is banking on it.
With seemingly little irony — given the wealth of senior studio execs and owners at streamers like Amazon and Apple — it is open season on the ultra-rich.
Several recent movies, and at least one TV show, set their sights on the oligarchy pulling the strings of the world, “promising brutal, if only imagined, comeuppances that us plebs could cheer on from the pit,” Richard Lawson notes in Vanity Fair.
The main projects being called out for this meme are the 2022 trio of Knives Out sequel Glass Onion, The Menu, and Triangle of Sadness, all of which all depict outsiders unseating the so-called elites for our viewing pleasure.
“The consequences they suffer in these films feel like the world is beginning to right itself,” Kimber Myers at Mashable suggests, “a triumph seemingly impossible off screen. Throughout each movie, the filmmakers create feelings of disgust at these archetypes of privilege and power. We don’t feel jealousy of their success; it’s righteous anger at the unfairness in how they achieved it and delight at their fall from grace.”
True enough, but hardly new. You could read 2000’s Gladiator, itself a retread of sorts of Spartacus, about the working class heroically fighting back against the oppressed and privileged. For which also read the populist narrative of RRR in which plucky Indians defeat the British Raj in style.
N.T. Ramo Rao JR as Komaram Bheem and Ram Charan Teja as Alluri Sitarama Raju in “Rise Roar Revolt.” Cr: Netflix
Gladiator director Ridley Scott is reportedly advanced on making a sequel to his Oscar-winning Roman epic, so look for more of the same.
One to watch before then is Squid Game 2, the follow-up to the Korean satire that took the world by storm in 2021. The show was a naked assault on capitalism in which very few winners of the game of life actually survive.
Also out of Korea was Parasite, garlanded with the Best Picture Oscar (much to Donald Trump’s displeasure) in 2020. This was a transparent metaphor for the underclass taking revenge on those complacent enough not to see their riches as reason enough for attack. The director, Bong Joon-ho’s had form. Snowpiercer (2013), his movie set on a train — which was later adapted into a TNT TV series — was an us-against-them attack on the layers of class and privilege that extends throughout every society.
Edward Norton as Miles Bron and Daniel Craig as Detective Benoit Blanc in writer/director Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Cr: Netflix
In Glass Onion, The Menu, and Triangle of Sadness the ultra-rich squander their privilege. The villain of Glass Onion manages to escape the pandemic by stowing away on his own private island in a literal bubble of his own making. Miles Bron, is of course, a thinly veiled Musk-type of techpreneur who is revealed as being not that bright after all.
Ruben Östlund’s Cannes Palmes D’Or winner Triangle of Sadness targets the relationship between money, power, and beauty, getting quite ugly in the process, Myers found. It’s never subtle, but its most direct condemnations of greed are voiced by the superyacht’s American captain (Woody Harrelson). As passengers gorge on truffles, sea urchin, and heaping spoonfuls of caviar, he has a hamburger.
“The central set piece, an operatic spew of vomit and other fluids on a doomed private cruise ship, is grotesquely amusing — even cathartic,” finds Lawson.
Charlbi Dean as Yaya, Alicia Eriksson as Alicia, Sunnyi Melles as Vera, Woody Harrelson as The Captain, Vicki Berlin as Paula, Zlatko Buric as Dimitry, Harris Dickinson as Carl in director Ruben Östlund’s “Triangle of Sadness.” Cr: NEON
Mark Mylod’s target in The Menu are customers who think nothing of paying more than $1,000 for lunch. Meanwhile, in the real world, groceries cost 11% more than they did a year ago. The Chef (Ralph Fiennes) plots the deaths of his guests, as they quite literally get their just desserts.
An example on TV is HBO’s deliciously entertaining The White Lotus, which took its second season to a fabulous resort in sun-drenched Sicily.
Creator Mike White aired an interesting theory that his show is concerned with the psychology of being astronomically rich. Here, the rich are eating themselves.
“When you’re wealthy and you don’t have situational problems that have to do with money, then your problems become existential,” White told NPR’s Terry Gross during a recent episode of Fresh Air.
“You have all of the tools to figure out your life, and you can’t figure out your life,” he said, adding that “if you’re in paradise and you feel like something’s missing or you’re melancholy or you’re tortured, you know it’s not the ambient nature of what’s going on — it’s something in you.”
Jennifer Coolidge in season two of “The White Lotus,” courtesy of HBO
For all the rage against the machine, most of these stories don’t actually leave the billionaire’s in tatters. In Squid Game it is the dog-eat-dog world of capitalism that sees the working class killing itself for a rich master’s enjoyment.
Vanity Fair’s Lawson also finds the results less than satisfying.
“I’ve no doubt that Triangle of Sadness despises witless, unfeeling wealth as much as it says it does, but it has disdain for everyone else too,” he says. “That’s not really the righteous us vs. them fantasy Iwent looking for. I realize that may be the point, but still.
Fiery as the finale of The Menu may be, it feels awfully narrow, to Lawson “even safe,” he says. “The film strides up to the idea of bloody rebellion and then gets scared of its deepest implications.”
Glass Onion is too “Twitter-speak snarky to register as anything truly condemnatory,” he critiques. It’s a goof: teeming with pop-culture references to imply urgency, but never transgressive.
And The White Lotus, he says, is less concerned with skewering the rich since it is “also guiltily glad to be along for the trip” in terms of showing the audience Instagram-friendly luxury and Love Island-like bodies.
Lawson calls for a show that truly upends the status quo rather than simply gesturing toward it. “I want to see the rich really eaten, chased from their mansions, and reduced to rubble,” he says.
Perhaps something like The Purge (2013) in which is the wealthy family being attacked without and within by an unleashing of violence mixed with Barbarian, Disney’s breakout horror from 2022 in which a smug Hollywood star gets his comeuppance in the underworld of Detroit.
After a decade of streaming, TV delivered online looks remarkably like cable, writes New York Times TV critic James Poniewozik.
Enticing viewers to binge watch or dropping episodes weekly enables creators to extend story arcs and go deeper into character, but sometimes the dramatic tension gets lost in the process.
Interactive experiments like Netflix’s “Kaleidoscope” are dismissed as not being the revolution streaming once promised.
The biggest impact that streaming TC has had on the business and aesthetics of television could be its ability to tell stories over longer arcs — but that’s not always a good thing.
Assessing a decade of streaming, The New York Times TV critic James Poniewozik says binging has transformed storytelling and viewing habits but we may be starting to hit that transformation’s limits.
“Giving viewers the option to binge when they please has encouraged a form of storytelling more focused on the season and less on the episode,” Poniewozik writes, adding, “I think something more nuanced is going on: Decision by decision, TV is collectively feeling its way toward figuring out which viewing experience works best for which kind of series.”
He cites two examples: Game of Thrones, though its episodes only occasionally focused on single stories, “might not have become as big a phenomenon without the weekly hype cycle.”
On the other hand, FX on Hulu’s The Bear, whose entire season dropped at once last summer, prompted more buzz and discourse than many of FX’s weekly series. “It may be that this kind of dramedy — character-based, relatively short, not driven by big plot detonations — is better taken in one gulp,” Poniewozik suggests.
Either way, though, streaming TV is remarkably the same as cable shows of old since in almost every case “you progress, scene by scene, episode by episode, through a narrative order chosen by a creator, not by you or by the roll of some automated dungeon master’s eight-sided die.”
Poniewozik is referring to experiments in non-linear storytelling, which puts the onus on the viewer to chop and change story order and endings.
Netflix heist drama Kaleidoscope is the most recent example, but there have been several others. Netflix’s interactive film/show/game Black Mirror: Bandersnatch was perhaps the most successful in allowing viewers to choose the path the story followed. So did the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt special Kimmy vs. the Reverend; the animated Cat Burglar added a trivia-game element. Netflix was not alone in this either, with Steven Soderbergh going the choose-your-own-adventure route in the HBO series/app Mosaic.
Giancarlo Esposito as Leo Pap and Tati Gabrielle as Hannah Kim in episode “Green” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Giancarlo Esposito as Leo Pap in episode “Blue” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Peter Mark Kendall as Stan Loomis, Paz Vega as Ava Mercer, Jai Courtney as Bob Goodwin and Rosaline Elbay as Judy Goodwin in episode “Blue” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Rufus Sewell as Roger Salas in episode “Blue” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Giancarlo Esposito as Leo Pap in episode “Pink” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Giancarlo Esposito as Leo Pap in episode “Green” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Giancarlo Esposito as Leo Pap and Tati Gabrielle as Hannah Kim in episode “Yellow” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Paz Vega as Ava Mercer and Giancarlo Esposito as Leo Pap in episode “White” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: David Scott Holloway/Netflix
Giancarlo Esposito as Leo Pap in episode “Yellow” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Rufus Sewell as Roger Salas in episode “Blue” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Tati Gabrielle as Hannah Kim in episode “Yellow” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Giancarlo Esposito as Leo Pap and Tati Gabrielle as Hannah Kim in episode “White” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Giancarlo Esposito as Leo Pap and Paz Vega as Ava Mercer in episode “Red” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Rosaline Elbay as Judy Goodwin in episode “Pink” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Peter Mark Kendall as Stan Loomis and Rosaline Elbay as Judy Goodwin in episode “Pink” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Rosaline Elbay as Judy Goodwin in episode “Orange” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Jordan Mendoza as RJ in episode “Orange” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Paz Vega as Ava Mercer in episode “Orange” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Paz Vega as Ava Mercer and Niousha Noor as Nazan Abassi in episode “Orange” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Rosaline Elbay as Judy Goodwin and Peter Mark Kendall as Stan Loomis in episode “Pink” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Peter Mark Kendall as Stan Loomis in episode “Green” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
Giancarlo Esposito as Leo Pap and Peter Mark Kendall as Stan Loomis in episode “Green” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
S.J. Son as Liz in episode “Blue” of “Kaleidoscope.” Cr: Netflix
The critic dismisses Kaleidoscope with a shrug, calling it “not especially noteworthy, except for one gimmick,” and more broadly says attempts at interactivity “have gotten no more traction than Smell-o-Vision, maybe in part because our culture already has a popular and relatively young form of interactive amusement, the video game.”
Instead, TV’s dominant format continues to be the static season, in which episodes are served up in a set progression. Often — even on streaming — they arrive once a week.
“The only choosing viewers do is what to watch, when to watch and whether to fill their couch-side snack bowl with chips or pretzels.”
The downside to this is the flabby nature of some shows which are padded out to retain viewers over more hours (or weeks if being gradually released) than is necessary for the story.
I’m a fan of William Gibson’s The Peripheral adaptation made for Amazon Prime but this show could have benefitted from a tighter runtime over fewer episodes. Arguably, Andor, the Star Wars prequel series for Disney+, got its quotient of run time to emotion right. Importantly, its episodes ranged around the 40-minute mark. In an interview with Rolling Stone, showrunner Tony Gilroy, dismissed “the idea that you have to wrap up every episode in a bow” and defended the series’ slow-burn start as a necessary “investment.”
The three-season arc of His Dark Materials produced by Bad Wolf for the BBC is a superb example of treating the source material and the audience with respect, devoid of unnecessary padding, when in other hands you can imagine the storylines being strung out and the drama dissipating.
As Poniewozik concludes, streaming has “added to TV’s bag of tricks, giving creators the option of making more unitary long-form works.” Other times it imposes the expectation of length where it isn’t needed.
We’re spending up to five hours on our mobile phones every day, with exclusive sports content serving as a crucial on-ramp for new users, according to mobile data analytics provider Data.ai.
Its “State of Mobile 2023” report further explores a boom in downloads that saw mobile services downloaded a record 255 billion times globally last year. As a result, mobile ad spend is on track to hit $362 billion in 2023, after surpassing $336 in 2022, despite tightening marketing budgets.
Adding coverage of major sporting events can be a “highly effective-albeit expensive-way” to add new users to popular streaming services, is one is one takeaway.
Globally, streaming of the World Cup matches and top cricket tournaments in India drove the biggest download spikes.
In the US, the World Cup also drove large adoption spikes for Peacock TV and fubo TV, while streaming deals with the NFL helped Peacock TV, Paramount Network and Amazon Prime Video.
FOX Sports and Canada’s TSN GO also saw “huge increases” in adoption as a result of their FIFA World Cup coverage.
DAZN and ESPN are the “clear standouts” in terms of consumer spending in the sports app category, earning more in 2022 than the rest of the top 10 sports apps combined. Nearly all of ESPN’s revenue comes from the US, while DAZN has managed to monetize across more markets by casting a wide net in terms of its sports coverage in different markets. Some of DAZN’s content includes Serie A in Italy (where frequent blackouts don’t appear to have dented its popularity) and Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan, as well as pay-per-view boxing.
Time spent per day has reached five hours in the top mobile-first markets. Cr: Data.ai
Time spent per day has reached five hours in the top mobile-first markets. Cr: Data.ai
Despite tightening marketing budgets, mobile ad spend is on track to hit $362 billion in 2023 after surpassing $336 in 2022. Cr: Data.ai
Globally, streaming of the World Cup matches and top cricket tournaments in India drove the biggest download spikes. Cr: Data.ai
Led by TikTok, shortform video apps dominated consumer attention in 2022. Cr: Data.ai
Sports betting apps downloads peak at the start of the NFL season each year and the Super Bowl. The report found that sports betting installs reached 4.3 million at the start of the 2022-2023 NFL season, up 8% year-over-year and more than four times the total from September through October 2018. FanDuel emerged as the market leader in 2022, with BetMGM, DraftKings, and William Hill vying for the number two spot.
Data.ai observes that sports betting apps over-index for a male audience in the 25-44 age range, a similar demographic to those likely to use financial apps, for example, for cryptocurrency trading.
Non-sports content that created the biggest download spikes included Euphoria (HBO Max), Halloween Ends (Peacock TV) and House of the Dragon (HBO Max).
The United States market may be saturated by OTT providers but there’s still room for growth in Europe and Asia. That said, many European markets became more concentrated between 2020 and 2022, largely explained by the massive launch by Disney+ in the region. The report finds that OTT (over-the-top) apps such as Netflix and Disney+ grew 12% year-over-year to $7.2 billion.
“Look for other OTT providers to attempt to emulate Disney+’s successful global expansion,” is Data.ai’s note.
Spending on other apps (non-gaming) increased by 6% year-over-year to $58 billion, largely driven by subscriptions and purchases in OTT, dating, and short videos. Downloads increased 13% year-over-year to 165 billion.
Shortform video apps, led by TikTok, dominated consumer attention in 2022. Users of these apps streamed a whopping 3.1 billion hours of user-generated content daily, up 22% year-over-year, and spent $5.6 billion, up 55% year-over-year, fueling the creator economy.
“TikTok’s recent success was well beyond that of other Entertainment apps,” the report finds. “Over the past 10 years TikTok has more than twice as many downloads as the next closest app, YouTube.”
Other findings in the report: Time spent per day has reached five hours in the top mobile-first markets.
Downloads of mobile apps grew to 255 billion (+11% YoY), and hours spent peaked at 4.1 trillion (+9% YoY). Meanwhile, consumer spending across all app stores, cooled to $167 billion (-2% YoY) for first time ever due to decline in gaming spend, which was previously bolstered by pandemic conditions. However, non-gaming mobile services and subscriptions reached record spend.
“For the first time, macroeconomic factors are dampening growth in mobile spend,” says Data.ai CEO Theodore Krantz. “Consumer spend is tightening while demand for mobile is the gold standard. In 2023, mobile will be the primary battleground for unprecedented consumer touch, engagement and loyalty.”
6G may already be on the horizon, but there’s still a lot to understand about the benefits — and limitations — of 5G, which is rolling out across the US but has yet to reach peak saturation. Dive into these selections from the NAB Amplify archives to learn what, exactly, 5G is, how it differs from 4G, and — most importantly — how 5G will bolster the Media & Entertainment industry on the road ahead:
Ericsson predicts 91% of the North American market will have adopted 5G by 2028, with video accounting for as much as 80% of mobile network traffic.
January 29, 2023
Posted
January 23, 2023
Iñárritu, del Toro, and Cuarón: Life, Death and Everything Before and After
TL;DR
Netflix hosted a special evening celebrating Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón, aka “The Three Amigos.”
The three iconic filmmakers came together for a conversation reflecting on decades of friendship, partnership, exploring identity through cinema, and their latest films, del Toro’s “Pinocchio” and Iñárritu’s “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths.”
“For the three of us, one thing we have in common is that we don’t have a difference between filmography and biography,” del Toro said. “We make movies that reflect our lives, where we were in the beginning.”
An openness about death as a fact of life is a characteristic of Mexican culture and one that the country’s celebrated directors share in their movies.
Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón discussed death, metaphorical and literal, as a theme in their work during recent roundtable conversations that also touched on their friendship, filmmaking as biography and the politics of streaming.
“Sometimes it’s a literal death or the closeness to that death that in most cases is combined with the end of the journey of a character,” said Cuarón in an extensive roundtable discussion hosted by Netflix. “Where do you think that comes from?” he asked his compatriots.
“It comes from a very primal fear and consciousness that we all share,” Iñárritu responds. “No matter what race, nationality, or political belief, we all will die. Ever since I was a kid, I was always thinking, we all will be gone. For me, [it’s important] to have the opportunity to imagine your own death, and to imagine how you can make it not morbid but a little bit profound… that is, when we confront weakness or fragility, is when our biggest character [traits] or flaws come out.”
del Toro admits to thinking about dying since he was seven. “I’ve been a death groupie because I think it makes life make sense,” he said, adding that he values the “absolute inalienable right to be fucked up, to be imperfect… Imperfection is one of the most beautiful things. And that’s why I think those themes are very well represented in the [idea of the] monster, or in the fear of death.”
The directors are among the most lauded in current cinema. Between 2013 and 2018, Cuarón, del Toro and Iñárritu have taken home five of the six Best Director Oscars and two Best Picture trophies between them for a run of work that according to Deadline firmly established them in the pantheon of cinema history.
With Gravity, Birdman, The Revenant, The Shape of Water and Roma, they have delivered their unique visions of cinema with the world. To which you can add this awards season, Iñárritu’s Bardo and del Toro’s Pinocchio which are both directly and indirectly biographical.
For Iñárritu, the death of his second son and near death of his third born were profound life-and-death situations. Bardo, he says, “is an allegory of my own life, a fictional way for me to liberate a lot of things — shame, pain, doubt, fear. That’s why movies exist for me. It’s a cathartic thing.”
Daniel Giménez Cacho as Silverio Gacho in “Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths.” Cr: Netflix
del Toro shares that Pinocchio stemmed from the same deeply emotional place, in his case about fatherhood and being a son.
“To me, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever written is the final line, ‘What happens, happens, and then we’re gone.’ It’s the essence of the one thing I’ve learned in 58 years — this little time we have for each other that is important. I lost my dad after The Shape of Water and my mom right before Pinocchio opened, and I was able to see them as people, as neither saints nor devils. When I came up with the idea of Pinocchiohaving a dialogue with Death, that was when the movie appeared for me. I thought, ‘It’s about that.’ ”
In thinking about Roma, Pinocchio and Bardo, del Toro notes that one of them is pure biography, one is a classic children’s fairy tale, and the other is obliquely a biography, but they all are joined in similar ways.
“Different approaches, but ultimately the way we have deepened in our own biography within film is very similar,” he says, adding, “The first part of our career was how to handle the language of cinema. The latter part of our career is when the language of cinema and who we are start making contact.”
Cuarón,speaking to Deadline, describes this trio of movies as simply, “symbolic biographies.”
There’s a lot of mutual respect, shared history and friendship among the group who have been dubbed “the Three Amigos.” Iñárritu says that he doesn’t have the same depth of relationship with other directors that he has with his Mexican peers.
“With others we] talk about technical things, stuff that is on the surface. But with these two, the benefit is they know very deeply who I am, and what my motivations are, and what triggers me. That deep knowledge of what needs to be said, and of how to say it in a way that is truthful and useful, is a complex mechanic.”
del Toro adds, “We have a dialogue that is very real. It’s helpful to have these two guys to keep me in check, so that I don’t get high on my own supply. We remember, at the end of the day, that we grew up together.”
Iñárritu compares the trio to the triumvirate of Spielberg, Coppola and Scorsese, who grew up and made their careers together in the 1970s.
“We do make very different films, and we do come from different approaches, but I’m always in awe of what Guillermo and Alfonso can do that I never could,” he adds. “Like Pinocchio, for Guillermo: I wouldn’t even know where to start making a film like that. To see these incredible puppets and the technology he uses, and how he works with stop motion; there’s something about it I can’t even understand. And yet I admire it and I learn from that.”
Of course, love cinema they may, but each of these directors has now made films funded by Netflix. There is a tension between the epic and cinematic art that they all aspire to and the screening of their films to most audiences on TV screens or laptops.
“I love the experience of going to the cinema, and I go and see films in the theater as often as I can,” Cuarón defends, “but I’m by no means going to say it’s the only way to experience a film. There’s a lot of cinema I’m quite happy to watch on a platform.”
He says he is less concerned about the ways that people are watching cinema, than he is about a “dictatorship of ideas” that is driving production decisions in Hollywood.
“It’s about the movies that are being made to please that media,” he expands, in relation to streaming platforms. “If you watch a Fellini or a Godard movie on your computer, it’s still a great movie. It doesn’t change the power of the idea. But I think the ideas are being reduced to computer size in terms of ideology, and I think everybody is participating in that. The reduction of the idea is what we should discuss, not the possibilities of the medium.”
del Toro agrees, saying that for him, “the size of the idea” is more important than the size of the screen. “Cinema — the marketing and financial side — has always tried to be constrained by rules. Right now, for example, you hear something like, “The algorithm says people need to be hooked in the first five minutes of the film,” but that was true in the ‘70s and ‘80s. That’s always been true. You need to have a strong opening sequence.”
He pushes the conversation wider than streaming versus cinema, espousing that cinema now is “post-COVID, post-Trump, post-truth cinema, and it’s very apocalyptic in a way. It’s always interesting generationally that when you think an artform is dying, what is really dying is the way you understand that artform.”
Iñárritu voiced concern about the impact of social media on young filmmakers, something that his generation did not have to face.
“It can be cruel, and it can be paralyzing. To have the courage to be disliked and to fail at this time is much more difficult than it was before.”
From the latest advances in virtual production to shooting the perfect oner, filmmakers are continuing to push creative boundaries. Packed with insights from top talents, go behind the scenes of feature film production with these hand-curated articles from the NAB Amplify archives:
Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Bardo” is a personal odyssey through the mind of the Mexican auteur and, by extension, Mexican history.
January 25, 2023
Posted
January 22, 2023
Filming Under Fire: “Retrograde” and the Realities of War
TL;DR
The Oscar-nominated filmmaker Matthew Heineman travels to Afghanistan to capture the turmoil as American troops pulled out in August 2021.
The original intent of the film was for a holistic look at modern-day military deployment, then pivoted to tell the story of the final acts of the longest war in US history.
Heineman and his crew risked their lives to tell the story of the airlift from Kabul and its aftermath as the Taliban took control of the city.
Director Matthew Heineman’s latest documentary captures the final months of the 20-year-long war in Afghanistan. The film begins by covering the story of a group of Green Berets supporting the Afghan National Army. Once they are ordered to pull out, an operation referred to as “retrograde,” Heineman then focuses the film on a young Afghan general, General Sami Sadat, who is desperately fighting to protect his country from a Taliban takeover.
Produced by National Geographic, Retrograde launched at Telluride and was nominated for Best Political Documentary at the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards. The film also won the Producing Award at DOC NYC Feature and is on the shortlist for an Oscar nomination. The documentary feature is available for streaming on Disney+.
In military parlance, the term retrograde can mean several things, among them withdrawal from a war zone, but the ambiguity of the title is calculated.
“It’s a historical document of this final chapter in the war in Afghanistan,” the director tells Sophia A. McClennen at Salon. “It’s also an allegorical tale for a dynamic that has happened throughout history and will continue to happen long in the future: going into a country to fight a war, then leaving the country, and the effect that process has on everyone involved.”
Heineman is known for his Oscar-nominated doc Cartel Land and his narrative feature A Private War. He has also made docs about ISIS in Syria, the opioid crisis, and human trafficking. Each time, he explains, “I try to take this large complex subject that has already been framed by news headlines and stats and humanize it. I try to put a human face to it. And that’s certainly what I try to do with Retrograde.”
The intimacy and access in Retrograde resulted from a tenacious effort to embed with US Army Special Forces, better known as the Green Berets. The access was enabled by producing partner Caitlin McNally, but even then the process took years to be approved by the Pentagon.
By the time that happened, the United States was preparing to exit Afghanistan. Two months after the film crew landed in Afghanistan, President Biden pulled out the troops.
Heineman didn’t know what to do. “I have no film here,” he related to IndieWire’s Anne Thompson. “We’d been shooting for two months, and there’s no real arc to what’s happening.”
“It wasn’t a fait accompli that the Afghans were going to lose to the Taliban at that point, so there was a sort of blank of where this story was going to go,” he told Stephen Saito at Moveable Feast.
The filmmakers decided that Afghan General Sadat could emerge as a central character, and he agreed to cooperate. “We completely pivoted the film to focus on him and look at the end of the war through his eyes,” Heineman told Thompson.
The film vividly conveys the feelings of the Green Berets and their Afghan allies after President Biden’s announcement.
“There’s a scene in the film where they tell their Afghan counterparts that they’re leaving,” Heineman tells Matthew Carey at Deadline. “It’s quite a poignant scene where their faces all say more than words can ever say. That motif of faces was something that was very purposeful in the shooting of the film and the cutting of the film, really holding on faces for a really long time.”
He could have created a series: Heineman returned to the editing room with 1,300 hours of footage. Instead, he edited the story to 94 taut minutes.
Speaking again to Salon, he adds, “In interviews, people can lie, either because they’re nervous or they want to spin a narrative. But faces don’t lie. That explains the motif that we developed both in the field and also in the editing room of holding on faces for a really long time.”
Some critics have noted that the film looks slick, with a sheen and a composition that wouldn’t look out of place, in say, Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down.
“Retrograde” captures the final nine months of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan from multiple perspectives. Cr: Matthew Heineman/OTP
“Retrograde” captures the final nine months of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan from multiple perspectives. Cr: Matthew Heineman/OTP
“Retrograde” captures the final nine months of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan from multiple perspectives. Cr: Matthew Heineman/OTP
“Retrograde” captures the final nine months of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan from multiple perspectives. Cr: Matthew Heineman/OTP
“Retrograde” captures the final nine months of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan from multiple perspectives. Cr: Matthew Heineman/OTP
Variety’s Peter Debruge, for example, notes that Heinman “brings back hi-def vérité footage that looks sharper and more artfully framed than most Hollywood features.”
“Am I supposed to not hone my craft and grow as an artist?” Heineman responds to Salon. “To me, the aesthetics are really important. My goal always at every step along the way, is I want you to feel what it’s like to be in the control room as you’re calling in an airstrike or drone strike. I want you to feel like what it’s like to be in a Blackhawk helicopter as rockets are being shot at you. I want you to feel what it’s like to go to the front lines of a war zone as your country is crumbling and there’s a lack of communication and information.”
Heinman put himself in some life threatening situations but denies being an adrenaline junkie. “I’m not drawn to the danger,” he tells IndieWire. “I’m drawn to people who have big stakes. I don’t enjoy being shot at.. I guess I am drawn, but I’m not quite sure exactly why.”
He recounted the filming of a scene where he’s backseat in a helicopter in a particularly dangerous area. The Taliban began firing. He tells Dano Nissen at The Knockturnal, “When you’re in the helicopter and rockets are being shot at you there is no object button. There is no I want to go home. You are there. You’re in it.”
He continued, “In those situations the only thing I have agency over is my camera. And that is what I choose to focus on. I focus on framing and exposure. I’m mixing sound when I’m filming. Those are things I can control. If I’m going to risk my life to get a scene I’m going to get it right.”
Accompanying Heineman were veteran combat cinematographers Timothy Grucza and Olivier Sarbil, supported by field producers and translators, but the scenes depicting the chaotic and hazardous exodus from Kabul airport were shot by just Grucza and Heinman alone.
“Never in my career have I ever felt something as strong as what I felt being at the Abbey Gate as thousands of Afghan civilians were desperately trying to flee, and as 18-year-old Marines, who weren’t even alive during 911, were making these impossible ‘Sophie’s Choice’ decisions on who to let in and who not to,” he relates to Moveable Feast. “The Taliban was watching at gunpoint a hundred yards away, as ISIS was circling around us in suicide vests, waiting to attack, which happened 12 hours later in that very spot. All I could think about was, ‘What have we done here?’ ”
Of course, he could escape with his American passport back home to NYC. He understands the privilege of his circumstance and the responsibility that comes with it.
“On one level, I think the film is a historical record of this turning point in history, but it’s also an attempt to get people to care and feel just a little bit more and understand this conflict in a way they might not have otherwise.”
To Salon, he adds, “I think the film is a living, breathing document of the massive chasm between the ideological reasons for going to war and the reality of those who are actually fighting it in real time.”
This poetic, languorous (and award-winning) documentary features a family effort to rescue and heal black kites in Delhi as the city deals with social upheaval.
“The Territory” follows the Indigenous Amazon community the Uru-eu-wau-wau as they protect their land from aggressive deforestation efforts.
January 23, 2023
Posted
January 22, 2023
FAST Channels: Finding the Right Playout Solution/Strategy
TL;DR
A repository of top-notch content isn’t the only thing you need to launch a FAST channel successfully. You also need powerful tools to program a wide array of VOD content into a linear channel.
As CTV ad spending rises, it provides opportunities to grow your FAST channel’s revenue. But you can’t achieve that without at least some control of your ad inventory.
Designing a FAST channel with great content and strategic ad breakswon’t get viewers and drive revenue if you don’t distribute it on the right platforms.
There are 30 FAST providers today ranging from Peacock to Xumo, and you can believe that number is going to grow in 2023. Free Ad-Supported TV is the hottest ticket in the Connected TV (CTV) universe with an overwhelming 92% of US households now reachable with CTV advertising. Additionally, 67% of consumers prefer some sort of ad-supported streaming content. In fact, the CTV ad spend is expected to reach $23.6 billion in the next year before reaching $32.5 billion in 2026.
Many of these users would also be cord-cutters, who prefer to stream content but want to retain the traditional linear TV-watching experience.
FAST would seem to offer a win-win situation for content owners, publishers, and end-users alike, but before you start building and monetizing a FAST channel, there are a few building blocks to get to grips with.
Perhaps the main issue to get right is ad insertion. Since ads are the primary source of revenue for FAST channels it stands to reason as the most common challenge associated with starting one up.
“You must ensure that the channel serves a variety of ads that resonate with viewers — too many irrelevant or repetitive ads will drive viewers away from your content,” states video services and platform developer Zype, which has published a handbook, “FAST Channels: The Complete Guide for 2023,” tuned to content owners embarking on a FAST strategy.
If you’re distributing the FAST channel on your own OTT platform then this should be no problem: you are in control, you can customize the ad experience and you can collect first-party data — though it’s likely you will need the assistance of a tech specialist to set up the infrastructure (hello, Zype).
When distributing on other FAST services and CTV devices from Samsung TV Plus to Roku sticks or Pluto TV, you won’t have full control over the ad inventory.
“In turn that increases the risk of degrading the user experience with the same low-quality ads played repeatedly. This can cause viewers to steer clear of your channel, and your ad revenue will likely drop.”
Also, third-party platforms will claim part of your ad revenue as a commission, which will take a further toll on your revenue.
Make sure you keep these in mind when you start monetizing your channel, Zype says.
It reserves its main advice, though, for selecting the right technology on which to build your FAST channel. For Zype, most of what needs to be accomplished can be taken care of by a sophisticated playout platform (including its own, of course) and shrewd software integrations.
For instance, you can use a playout tool’s programming timeline to design your linear channel. Playout solutions can offer drag-and-drop interfaces, similar to a video editing tool, that makes it easy to create a linear 24/7 channel and insert pre- and mid-roll ad breaks. To simplify and even automate creation of programming schedules, you can schedule or loop individual videos, playlists, and programming blocks.
Some playout solutions let you insert live events just as easily as VOD content. Other plus points include the ability to collect first-party data from end users to help you analyze the performance of different content assets. APIs allow you to integrate the platform with your central data hub to learn from real-time updates about users. That, in turn, can help you optimize your FAST channel with smarter programming decisions and drive more revenue.
“While a good playout solution will provide in-depth audience data and analytics on its own, you can take things up a notch by using integrated technology partners, like IRIS.tv,” says Zype, which has such an integration.
“With this, you get concrete data on individual scenes in a video and use that information to improve targeting and deliver a better ad experience to users.”
Playout software also helps you overcome one of the biggest challenges of FAST — ad insertion. Most playout software offers SSAI (Server-Side Ad Insertion) tools to connect an ad server and manage ad insertion. Most playout solutions also allow you to connect to a third-party SSAI, such as Google Ads Manager or Freewheel.
According to Zype (again, promoting its own stack), some advanced playout solutions include the ability to enable prefetch to place ad calls to the server in advance for ad breaks.
“That, in turn, ensures better personalization, fill rates, and render rates. It also improves your chances of ads not getting filtered out by ad blockers. That, in turn, leads to higher revenues while taking the ad experience for end-users up a notch.”
For more tips for strategizing a FAST launch, such as being sure to localize content, head to Zype’s guide.
Currently one of the fastest-growing channels in advertising, Connected TV offers a highly effective way for brands to reach their target audience. Learn the basics and stay on top of the biggest trends in CTV with fresh insights hand-picked from the NAB Amplify archives:
TikTok provides key messages for brands wanting to engage with the billions of users on the shortform video platform in a new report.
TikTok claims it fosters endless opportunities to spread joy; among TikTok users who took an action off-platform as a result of TikTok content, 90% said the platform makes them happy and never gets boring.
TikTok’s big prediction? In 2023, TikTok-first entertainment will inspire people to test out new products and ways of thinking and behaving.
If you’re looking for clues for how TikTok is shaping global culture and politics you won’t find them in its own report, a glossily produced brochure enticing brands to work with creators and influence users of its platform.
Much of what the shortform video giant says in its “What’s Next: 2023 Trend Report” could have been plucked from similar marketing messages produced over the years for YouTube. And maybe that’s the point. Move over Google, there’s a new place for investors to roost.
“Essentially, [TikTok] is a space where people can find new ideas on how to explore their passions and live their lives,” we learn. “And as people seek out ways to break the status quo, they’ll look to peers and role models who have the confidence to live life the way they want to.”
Sofia Hernandez, global head of business marketing for TikTok, is quoted, also saying not a lot: “2022 was the year people realized they didn’t have to live their lives as they always have done — with different points of view and ideas transcending cultures on TikTok. Next year we’re going to see more of this — as our communities get more confident and inspire positive change together.”
Against the backdrop of the increasing cost of living, apparently what people want is to have fun. They want humor, they want to feel happy and healthy. They want to feel part of a community and, above all, they want to be entertained.
It’s not rocket science, but TikTok says its platform is the best place for advertisers to reach audiences and that to do so they should work with creators.
Four out of five users say TikTok is very or extremely entertaining, per the report. “This means that when advertising messaging is delivered like an ad, but loved like entertainment, brands can see incredible business results,” TikTok explains. “For brands, the most effective messages on TikTok are uplifting, funny and personalized, or entertaining their audiences. Brands can build on this entertainment value by using editing techniques like syncing sounds to transitions or adding text overlays — which are effective at keeping viewers’ attention.”
The report differentiates content on TikTok from other platforms, where it is “personalized” based on broad identity categories or simple browsing histories. In fact, TikTok is 1.8 times more likely to introduce people to new topics they didn’t know they liked compared to traditional social platforms, per the report. We learn that content is curated on the platform based on what viewers find entertaining, so it captures their attention and trust.
“The trust is a result of who’s making the content. When a viewer sees a video from a creator they can relate to or from an expert they’re more likely to take the information to heart.”
Among people who took an “off-platform” action as a result of a TikTok video, 92% say they felt a positive emotion that ultimately resulted in an off-platform action. Meanwhile, 72% say they obtained reviews from creators they trust on TikTok, more than any other platform.
TikTok’s big prediction? In 2023, TikTok-first entertainment will inspire people to test out new products and new ways of thinking and behaving.
We are also led to believe that “people come to the platform to uncover truths and debunk myths, which builds credibility and trust between Creators and their viewers,” which may be news to those concerned about TikTok’s potential for political bias or cultural sway, though in truth these levels of mistrust have yet to reach Twitter and Facebook-style proportions.
Have longer video footage at your disposal? TikTok advises you to let artificial intelligence automatically cut video clips and save yourself time on editing, “so you can focus on the fun stuff.”
Joy, we also understand from the report, is a growing factor in people’s purchasing decisions worldwide, so it should be a key element of marketing strategies in 2023.
“Create TikTok content that helps people carve out joy for themselves, or even provides it through humor, relaxation and relatable points of view. Different creative approaches and tools can help you incorporate these elements into the videos you make for the platform.
In 2023, “messaging on TikTok — and beyond — should speak to this desire for levity and encourage people to make more room for themselves.”
Technology and societal trends are changing the internet. Concerns over data privacy, misinformation and content moderation are happening in tandem with excitement about Web3 and blockchain possibilities. Learn more about the tech and trends driving humanity’s digital future with these hand-curated articles from the NAB Amplify archives:
The value of social media across functions is clearer than ever, but finding experienced talent is the top challenge businesses face.
January 25, 2023
Posted
January 20, 2023
What’s Next for Streaming? (It’s All About the ARPU, Baby)
Penn Badgley in season four of “You,” courtesy of Netflix
TL;DR
After a tough 2022, premium subscription streamers are in the middle of reorienting their business model from content commissions to distribution.
The days of multi-million dollar paychecks for show creators seem to be over as content must now wash its face in metrics for ARPU (Average Revenue Per Unit).
A greater focus on franchise content — sequels and spinoffs — and linear TV-like schedule releases can help streamers counter high churn rates.
Netflix’s decision to cancel high profile drama 1899 after just one season came as a shock to fans and a reality check to content producers that streaming shows will be cut to a different cloth from now on.
Just as consumers don’t have an endless budget to subscribe to streaming services, so content providers are no longer willing to open the checkbook if the numbers don’t add up.
And those numbers have changed along with the way success is measured.
“The enthusiasm for streaming among consumers is still there, but I think the assumption that all these platforms are going to continue to grow and add subscribers every quarter is gone,” Hub Entertainment Research founder Jon Giegengack told Lucas Manfredi at The Wrap. “I’m not entirely sure why people thought it would go on forever, but we’ve reached the point where that’s not guaranteed.”
Netflix’s first subscriber loss in over a decade last April caused a shock wave that sent streamers back to the drawing board. Revised strategies include a shift of focus from pure subscriber growth to profitability and average revenue per user.
“Ultimately, companies need to generate cash so that they can pay the bills and not go bankrupt,” David Offenberg, an associate professor of finance at Loyola Marymount University, told The Wrap. “I think the focus will be on ARPU [Average Revenue Per Unit] for the rest of eternity at this point. We’re done with focusing on subscribers. And if you’re not at scale yet, your chances of getting there are pretty slim.”
Netflix was the first to alter course and has succeeded in leading the competition on ARPU. Figures in the article show Netflix has an ARPU of $16.37 in the US and Canada, followed by Hulu’s ARPU of $12.23 and Warner Bros. Discovery of $10.66. Disney+ has lagged behind its rivals with a domestic ARPU of just $6.10.
Another universal tactic is to adopt different pricing tiers with many streamers introducing a free or lower cost ad-supported option.
Additionally, many streamers are increasingly leveraging bundled services. The average household has 12.5 different entertainment sources that they consume, according to a Hub Entertainment survey of TV consumers. These sources include streaming TV, social media, gaming, music, sports, podcasts, audiobooks and reading.
Cr: Parrot Analytics
Cr: Parrot Analytics
Companies that are able to super-aggregate these services into bundles will have an edge, Manfredi maintains. Notable examples of super bundles include Amazon Prime, which offers benefits like access to Prime Video content and free delivery on Amazon purchases, and Apple One, which includes AppleTV+, iCloud storage, Apple News, Apple Music, Apple Arcade and AppleFitness+.
The cancellation of major shows like 1899 is far from unique and speaks to the fact that streamers can no longer afford to have an endless library of shows and movies
“As profitability and ARPU take center stage moving forward, streamers have learned that they will need to be more mindful about their content spend and what that investment is going towards,” says Manfredi.
1899 was an expensive show to produce and required an entirely new and unique virtual production volume to be built in Berlin. Likewise, the multimillion-dollar deals that have been awarded to show creators like Ryan Murphy, Shonda Rhimes and Rian Johnson, “are a thing of the past,” according to Morning Consult entertainment and media analyst Kevin Tran.
“Streamers need to make better use of the intellectual property they already own while also keeping in mind moving forward that sheer quantity of content is now far from a compelling differentiation factor,” he says.
On the flip side, Tran warns that pulling content could make showrunners and actors “more hesitant to work with a company that they view as too eager to axe pricey or declining shows from their streaming platforms” and potentially anger fans of those shows.
Manfredi also thinks that the days of binge viewing are largely over. It makes more sense for streamers to drop episodes, especially of its most popular content, over a period of months to eke out subscriber engagement. Netflix’s two-part release of Stranger Things S4 last year was a case in point.
“If people can binge watch a whole show and then drop their subscription until the next season comes out, that’s a pretty tough calculation if you have to come up with a brand new, super expensive show to reengage them every time,” Giegengack said. “If you parse those shows out and the episodes come out once a week, or maybe starting with two like they do on Paramount+ to get people hooked, and then parse them out further apart after that, each piece of content that you’re investing with can keep people engaged for a longer period of time.”
Churn is still a huge issue for all streamers. In the third quarter of 2022, cancellations across Netflix, Hulu, AppleTV+, Disney+, Discovery+, HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock, Showtime and Starz grew to 32 million, according to Antenna. The figure represents a “significant expansion” from 28 million cancellations in the previous quarter and 25.2 million cancellations in the same quarter a year ago.
In a bid to counter churn, Manfredi detects a new urgency around commissioning franchises. One poll suggests 75% of people are likely to cycle subscriptions in the next six months with the main stated reason being that there was only one title on a given streamer that they were interested in viewing.
“A reliable way to retain subscribers is to keep them connected to things that they know and love,” Lionsgate Television Group vice chairman Sandra Stern told The Wrap. “I think for streamers particularly that is a really major objective.”
Disney+ has mastered this strategy with regular output of new Marvel Studios shows such as Loki and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and new Star Wars series like Andor. Netflix has scored success with Wednesday and Paramount+ continues to earn mileage from Yellowstone spinoffs. Look out for Peacock’s John Wick universe spinoff later this year.
“Andor” creator and showrunner Tony Gilroy and editor John Gilroy recount the complexities of bringing the Star Wars episodic to the screen.
January 22, 2023
Posted
January 19, 2023
The Bonkers Format for Peacock Series “Paul T. Goldman”
TL;DR
Peacock’s docuseries straddles an uneasy line between real life, true crime and satire. “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” director Jason Woliner tells the incredible and possibly unbelievable story of one man and his very bad second marriage.
The series dramatizes a real-life story and alternates between the polished narrative footage and documentary footage of the production itself, along with interviews and a fly-on-the-wall cinéma vérité style.
The project took 10 years to get off the ground, in large part because the show’s format and content is so uniquely bizarre.
“In 2012, a man named Paul T. Goldman tweeted at me,” is how director Jason Woliner (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) begins, discussing his new Peacock series. “He said that he had an incredible story to tell and had written a book — and a screenplay — about it. He asked for my help bringing it to the screen.”
A decade later and the resultant Peacock series Paul T. Goldman is judged to be “hard to describe, impossible to forget, and one wild ride,” by Consequence TV’s Liz Shannon Miller, who says the bar for the “weirdest TV show of 2023” has been set pretty damn high.
Ostensibly about a man’s failed marriage and claims that he was a victim of his wife’s scam, this is less a shocking tale of sex and crime and more a fascinating portrait of a man and his ambitions: his desire for fame, for revenge. The series depicts its central character “through a lens that is alternately dark, strange, bizarre, and, more often than not, very funny,” Shannon Miller adds.
From the Peacock series, Paul T. Goldman as Paul T. Goldman, Jason Woliner as Jason Woliner, photo by: Evans Vestal Ward/Peacock)
From the Peacock series, Paul T. Goldman as Paul T. Goldman, Jason Woliner as Jason Woliner, photo by: Evans Vestal Ward/Peacock)
Paul T. Goldman and Jason Woliner on the set of Peacock series “Paul T. Goldman.” Cr: Tyler Golden/Peacock
MovieWeb’s Matthew Mahler calls it “a mind-melting blend of cringe comedy, character study, and meta documentary.”
Ben Pearson of SlashFilm is not the only critic to call the show “bonkers.” He adds, “Since the rise of streaming, many shows have felt as if they were designed by an algorithm and stretched out with the sole intention of keeping viewers engaged with a platform for as long as possible. Not this one.”
First of all there is the show’s odd format, which combines fiction with sort-of reality, scripted with a behind-the-scenes “making of” docuseries.
“Quirky and odd, the show’s main point feels like the fact we’re all the heroes of our story, at least in our own highly subjective eyes,” Brian Lowry reviews for CNN. “It’s honestly hard to know where to begin in describing the program.”
Initially conceived as a feature, the project was then due to be made for Quibi — Jeffrey Katzenberg’s ill-fated shortform mobile video platform. When it folded, Peacock picked the idea up and made it into a six-part limited series backed by Seth Rogan’s production company.
Filmed on and off for a decade, with much of the filming crammed into 15 days last Summer, Woliner hired documentarian Jason Tippet in 2017 to bring his fly-on-the-wall style.
“He’ll find a spot and plant the camera and walk away and just kind of roll until something interesting happens,” the director explained to SlashFilm. “So we decided early on to make him that third camera, he’s the part of the process. Sometimes he would just roam around the set and basically follow Paul and be far enough away that people didn’t feel like they were on camera. But everyone on set knew that was the deal, that they were mic-ed and we were recording behind the scenes.”
Goldman had written a book, “Duplicity: A True Story of Crime and Deceit,” about the events, along with a screenplay for a film or TV deal that was ignored by everyone except Woliner.
“Every page had mind-blowing things on it,” Woliner tells MovieWeb. “It’s just kind of an amazing peek into this person’s mind and his experience and his perspective, which in many ways was completely different from my own. And then I would find parts of his book that were completely relatable at its core, being about a desire to be loved and lead what you’d consider a normal life.”
PAUL T. GOLDMAN — “Chapter 5: The Chronicles“ Episode 105 — Pictured: Paul T. Goldman as Paul T. Goldman — (Photo by: Evans Vestal Ward/Peacock)
Paul T. Goldman as himself and Frank Grillo as Dan Hardwick in “Paul T. Goldman,” directed by Jason Woliner. Cr: Peacock
“Paul T. Goldman,” directed by Jason Woliner. Cr: Peacock
“Paul T. Goldman,” directed by Jason Woliner. Cr: Peacock
Melinda McGraw as Audrey Munson in “Paul T. Goldman,” directed by Jason Woliner. Cr: Tyler Golden/Peacock
“Paul T. Goldman,” directed by Jason Woliner. Cr: Peacock
“Paul T. Goldman,” directed by Jason Woliner. Cr: Peacock
“Paul T. Goldman,” directed by Jason Woliner. Cr: Peacock
“Paul T. Goldman,” directed by Jason Woliner. Cr: Peacock
“Paul T. Goldman,” directed by Jason Woliner. Cr: Peacock
From the Peacock series, Paul T. Goldman as Paul T. Goldman, photo by: Evans Vestal Ward/Peacock)
Woliner not only decided that he would direct a documentary about his production of Goldman’s story, but that Goldman would write and star in all of it. “It was just like, we are filming his writing, and we’re going to see what it reveals,” he said.
“It really was just this kind of falling in love with his mind and then trying to figure out how to translate that into a series, but in a newer thing that is separate from bad or good.”
A tension, which Woliner was keen to exploit, is about how he as a documentarian (and a director of comedy) is telling the story of Paul telling his story. In his interview with Mahler, he calls the filmmaker the “villain of a documentary,” but admits that the show is ultimately his version.
“It’s me telling the story of him telling his story, but it is all filtered through my own perspective. And at the end of the day, I’m the one controlling the edit and not Paul.”
A documentary filmmaker, he says, is “this person who has descended upon the life of a real person and use their life to explore something, to make a point about the human condition or whatever, but they’re the one with all the power, and there is always an imbalance. I hope Paul is happy with the show. I know if he controlled it fully, it would be a very different show.”
As the streaming wars rage on, consumers continue to be the clear winners with an abundance of series ripe for binging. See how your favorite episodics and limited series were brought to the screen with these hand-picked articles plucked from the NAB Amplify archives:
Hulu’s new feature documentary examines the rise and fall of a “disruptive” $47 billion unicorn led by hippie-messianic figure Adam Neumann.
January 18, 2023
Posted
January 18, 2023
How Streamers and Influencers Get It Together
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale in Peacock’s “Poker Face,” photo by Evans Vestal Ward/Peacock
TL;DR
Working with influencers is an integral part of a brand’s communication mix, but cutting through the noise amid all the competition requires knowledge about what works and what doesn’t.
Drawing on interviews with CreatorIQ clients, a new report takes a deep dive into the strategies of Netflix, Prime Video and Peacockto achieve unprecedented levels of success.
Netflix has organically embedded itself in digital culture, while Prime Video leans into meme tactics, and Peacock has developed a robust network of creator partners.
Major streamers are getting sophisticated in their use of creator influencers to drive interest in their content and brand. Here are three standout examples of best practice brought to us in a study by creator marketing platform CreatorIQ.
Netflix Balances Earned and Paid Advocacy
More than any other streaming service, Netflix has embedded itself in digital culture, giving birth to viral memes like “Netflix and Chill” or “Who’s Watching?” Given the platform’s ubiquity, it’s no surprise that Netflix continues to feature widely in organic conversation among creators, with much of this activity concentrated around hit shows like Stranger Things and Bridgerton. From Q1 to Q3 2022, 1,200 creators mentioned #StrangerThings across 3,400 pieces of content, while 731 creators used #Bridgerton in 1,500 posts.
However, Netflix has also leveraged strategic paid campaigns to promote more niche titles. For example, to drum up enthusiasm for feature-length thriller The Gray Man, the brand sent TikTok star Kelly Killjoy a themed gift set, including a personalized action figure, which she shared in a sponsored “unboxing” video. On top of Netflix’s strong organic momentum, an intentional approach to outreach helped the brand secure 172,200 mentions via 28,000 creators from Q1 to Q3 2022, more than any other streaming service in CreatorIQ’s database. This content accrued 12.1 billion impressions, a 7% YoY growth, and 881.8 million engagements.
Prime Video Leans Into Meme Culture
Amazon’s Prime Video platform stands out for its lighthearted approach to influencer marketing, with humor-based accounts playing a key role in the streaming service’s success. During the first three quarters of 2022, Amazon Prime Video consistently promoted new releases via campaigns helmed by powerhouse comedy creators like Elliot Tebele (@fuckjerry on Instagram) and Overheard LA (@overheardla). Participants typically shared original memes or offbeat short-form videos that riffed on Prime Video shows, tagging their content #PrimeVideoCreator.
By aligning itself with some of social media’s most prominent comedians, the streaming service has inspired an active, highly engaged fanbase. Prime Video’s 6,300 creators authored 33,300 posts from Q1 to Q3 2022, a 36% year-over-year increase in share of voice that contributed to a 12% growth in reach (14.4 billion).
Peacock Expands Partner Program
NBCUniversal’s streaming service has achieved impressive momentum on social media thanks to a robust network of creator partners. In 2021, the brand began assembling a community of dedicated advocates to hype various titles across social channels as part of its #PeacockPartner program, resulting in a steady stream of content creation.
Peacock has significantly increased its investment in these partnerships: from Q1 to Q3 2022, #PeacockPartner was used across 173 posts by 63 creators — up from just 13 posts via eight creators during the previous three quarters.
In addition to rallying around timely events like the Super Bowl, brand ambassadors routinely voiced their excitement about their favorite series. Parenting blogger Tara Cark (@modernmomprobs on Instagram), for example, authored 14 posts promoting “Girls5eva” as one of the most prolific members of the #PeacockPartner community in 2022.
Bolstered by its growing core group of advocates, Peacock’s overall community size (4,300 creators) increased by 68% year-over-year, while its share of voice (22,300 posts) surged 76% year-over-year. This momentum resulted in a 62% year-over-year improvement in the brand’s total reach (12.8 billion).
Takeaways
The overwhelming success of the campaigns highlighted here point to one key principle: deliberate, data-driven decision-making is the differentiator between good and great influencer marketing.
By leveraging the right influencer marketing software to gain visibility into creator, content, and campaign performance, and consistently refining their strategy based on these insights, teams can tap into the full power of the creator economy, and consistently outperform their targets.
Some more tips: Analyze a creators’ previous performance and audience demographics to ensure that they offer brands a direct line to their desired consumers.
Different social platforms have distinct creator communities, content formats, and user bases. Teams should think critically about which platform will best allow them to achieve their objectives for a given initiative.
Finally, take an always-on approach to monitoring campaign impact. Teams shouldn’t wait until a campaign is over to evaluate its success.
Netflix balances earned and paid advocacy across a massive creator community. Cr: CreatorIQ
Prime Video leans into meme culture, increases reach by 12%. Cr: CreatorIQ
Peacock expands partner program, fueling 76% spike in share of voice. Cr: CreatorIQ
Celebrity endorsements have become the gold standard for creating fast wealth, making social media influence more important than capital.
January 17, 2023
Posted
January 17, 2023
AI Will Generate an Endless, Customized Stream of Media (and You’re the Muse)
TL;DR
Author Ryder Carroll contends that in the near future AI will be able to generate entire books, TV shows, movies and video games from scratch, tailored specifically for you.
Using the same vast amounts of data the internet already has on you, AIs will know your preferences and tastes better than you do, keeping you entertained for hours on end with personalized content of your choosing.
The cost to the consumer for an endless supply of bespoke content could simply be as much as your current streaming services.
However, since AIs lack the ability to understand the human experience and emotion, there will always be a need for human input “as long as we continue to need each other.”
We’re at the very beginning of a seismic shift in how content will be created. In the not so distant future, you’ll no longer waste time looking for something to watch, read, learn or even play, it will be created for you… on demand… in real time by artificial intelligence.
So says author and digital product designer Ryder Carroll, blogging at Medium. “Soon there won’t be any need for human-created content, because computers will be able to create their own.”
Harbingers of this future can be found today in open-source AI content generators like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Carroll’s article was “co-written” with the help of Lex, an AI writing assistant. It researched data and made suggestions that made it much faster to write, he says.
Then there’s DALL-E 2, Google’s DeepDream, and Midjourney, the text-to-image generators taking the internet by storm.
“In the near future, AI will be able to generate entire books, TV shows, movies, and even video games from scratch, tailored specifically for you. Using the same vast amounts of data the internet already has on you, AI’s will know your preferences and tastes better than you do, keeping you entertained for hours on end with personalized content of your choosing.”
In the unlikely case that you don’t like where the AI’s story is going, you’ll have the ability to change it whenever you like. Netflix’s branching narrative experiments like Kaleidoscope will look rudimentary in comparison.
As Carroll puts it: Want this mystery to be funnier? Make a request. Want him to end up with another love interest? Make it so. Want the protagonist to have a different gender? weight? age? belief system? Let the AI know, and it will seamlessly change the plot in real time to better suit your desires.
“You won’t even have to input anything, because it will already know how you feel.”
How? Because AI will scrape your social media accounts, calendar, emails, and texts, scanning for context, mood, and emotionality. Personal smart devices will enable your AI to monitor your vitals with increasing fidelity before, during and after the experience that it generates for you.
“Should your entertainment or education AI sense your boredom or overstimulation, it will automatically tune your movie or lesson in real time for the optimal experience. Like a never ending ‘choose your own adventure’ you could rewatch or reread or replay games indefinitely. Every instance of the experience, slightly different based on your current circumstances and tastes. If you felt nostalgic, you could revisit an old recording, allowing you to step into the world of a younger self.”
When AI begins to generate our entertainment, Carroll argues, there will be no need for cast, crew, writers, sets, or marketing. It will all be artificially generated, “rendering today’s astronomical production budgets obsolete.”
The cost to the consumer for an endless supply of bespoke content could simply be as much as your current streaming services.
Rather than shutting off creative jobs, or perhaps more importantly, starving us all of the opportunity to use our own imaginations to create content, Carroll says the technology will empower every person to be content creators with the full capabilities of production studios or publishing houses at their disposal.
“This would not necessarily create some closed loop ideological knowledge bubble, cutting us off from anything beyond ourselves,” he maintains. “Quite the opposite. Though we may be creating for an audience of one, our AI will be drawing from a global well of minds to generate these experiences for us.”
He elaborates on this line of argument suggesting that every piece of content we co-generate with AI could be recorded and shared “like recipes.” This would allow other humans — or their AI — to use them as a starting off point to create their own books, movies, or games.
“It would create a global marketplace of networked imagination and learning where all perspectives are valuable and accessible,” he suggests.
So where does this leave artists and creators themselves? In a valuable place, Carroll argues. He follows the logic of his thought and admits that no matter how engrossing a custom game, lecture, movie, dreamy avatar may be, we will eventually have to attend to our physical needs in the real world. Most importantly, he says, is the need to fully connect with each other.
“AIs lack the ability to understand the human experience and emotion. The lack of this understanding greatly limits AI’s creative capabilities. At best it can generate things based on patterns. Those patterns come from us. In other words, AI needs us as a muse. In this context, AI will continue to need us as long as we continue to need each other.”
Until AI can experience the world like us, including experiences like “unemployment, illness, puberty, heartbreak, prejudice, forgiveness or laughter,” it won’t be able to fully meet our needs, he says.
“There is an entire dimension of reality where we will remain left to our own devices. This gap between artificial and natural reality is likely to surface demands that will create new markets and industries that require the odd qualifications that will remain uniquely human.”
With nearly half of all media and media tech companies incorporating artificial intelligence into their operations or product lines, AI and machine learning tools are rapidly transforming content creation, delivery and consumption. Find out what you need to know with these essential insights curated from the NAB Amplify archives:
Netflix continues to push the boundaries of storytelling with its new non-linear heist series, “Kaleidoscope,” loosely based on true events.
January 23, 2023
Posted
January 17, 2023
Virtual Production Is Going Great, But… We Have Some Talent and Tech Challenges
TL;DR
Altman Solon’s 2022 Global Film & Video Production Report finds virtual production is on the rise, but the industry faces challenges over sourcing talent and harnessing the power of data.
Productions are shifting towards a data-driven approach to improve production forecasting and measure VP success.
Virtual production is still in its early days, with widespread adoption limited to specific projects where it’s easily applicable. However, there are emerging trends around how VP is used, the impact it has on projects, and criteria used for deciding when to use it.
Virtual production continues to gain traction across the film and TV industries, but the cost of using it remains high and talent with VP experience and training is limited, according to a new Altman Solon report.
Creatives are still be skeptical about incorporating the technologies — and the research finds there’s also a lack of sophisticated data analysis necessary to make the case for virtual production.
The consultancy’s 2022 Global Film & Video Production Report highlights VP as a growing trend in the industry, driven by the need for virtual and collaborative tools to lower production costs, improve timelines, and overcome the limitations of physical production sets.
It surveyed over 100 industry experts with more than three years of experience in virtual production and found that motion capture was the most popular VP technology, with 50% reporting they or their team have used it over the past 12 months.
The second most popular tool, cloud-based editing (48%), has gained favor among production staff because it enables remote collaboration. Three-quarters of respondents identified virtual scouting as a tool that saves money and shortens timelines. Newer technologies like in-camera VFX (42%) and virtual scouting (39%) have lower adoption rates.
Despite the popularity and effectiveness of certain tools, widespread adoption is limited to specific projects where VP is easily applicable — often projects that require many filming locations or sci-fi/fantasy productions.
For small productions, the survey found that travel budget savings can make a virtual production project more economically viable.
“While medium and small stages exist, producers of mid-tier content often lack the readiness and experience to shoot on a Tier 2 or medium stage, and one-off shoots don’t reap the benefits of shooting multiple episodes or seasons on a stage,” the report says.
There are some 84 virtual production stages in the US and another 40 in the UK, however this number also includes smaller “xR stages” used mainly for music videos or commercials, not shows or films.
The report suggests that smaller production studios with limited resources won’t be able to afford a larger stage and may opt for traditional shooting methods or green screens, rendering LED volumes less relevant for the mid- to low-budget markets.
Because virtual production is still an emerging technology, there is a shortage of talent with “hands-on” experience in the industry, creating staffing challenges for production studios. Additionally, the broader industry has historically lacked diversity in terms of race and gender, creating a talent funnel issue when trying to hire candidates of diverse backgrounds for VP-specific roles.
Instead, most respondents are now looking for candidates in adjacent industries like gaming, AR/VR, animation, automotive and transport, and architecture, among others, and through on-campus recruitment to find candidates with the necessary technical skills. Candidates from industries that use real-time gaming technology and are familiar with the workflows are desirable for VP roles.
“Virtual production is the future of global filmmaking but how and when it maximizes its potential will be determined by the industry’s ability to attract talent to this new field,” said Altman Solon director Derek Powell.
“It’s clear that the networking-heavy approach used in Hollywood for generations will not deliver the VP workforce needed now and in the future. The good news is that studios are employing new and creative recruiting techniques, including better outreach to candidates with diverse backgrounds.”
Virtual Production as Part of a Data-Driven Strategy
Because of virtual production, studios now have more access to data, opening the opportunity to gather data across the production process and run analytics to uncover insights for more informed decision-making.
That’s a change, since historically, production studios didn’t collect technical production data. VP can be used to collect and leverage production data that identifies possible efficiencies (for example, using lens metadata and lighting parameters defined in the gaming engine to make corrections in post-production). According to the report, there is potential for productions to use VP data to automate processes in post-production that in the past were done with creative teams, thus saving time and money.
However, while VP tools enable great collection of data versus traditional production methods, production teams hit roadblocks when collecting it. According to the survey, the top three limitations to collecting data are “lack of business intelligence strategy” (62%), “lack of business intelligence impact” (49%), and “lack of training and execution” (45%).
“All these inhibitors are characteristic of organizations with immature business intelligence and data strategies,” finds the consultancy — which would no doubt offer its services to assist in this regard. “This indicates that while production teams have the tools to gather and analyze data, they are still nascent in this area and slowly transitioning to be more data-driven.”
This matters most when budget forecasting, which was the top data-usage focus of VP executives surveyed. Altman Solon says: “In traditional productions, variables associated with set design, shooting, travel, and logistics can change greatly when a shooting location needs to change or if a scene needs to be reshot, which can include bringing talent and crews back to a location. For these reasons, using data to improve budget forecasting was the top-ranked selection in the survey.”
Other Issues Highlighted in the Report
Currently, there are no standard virtual production processes, and each production has its own unique process structure. Data security is also a concern for half the respondents, largely due to the use of cloud-based tools, which some users perceive as having weaker security controls than on-premises solutions. Similarly, just under 50% of respondents expressed concern over the potential for customizable workflow configurations since cloud-based tools have fewer customization capabilities.
Next, Listen to This
Epic Games’ Los Angeles Lab Director Connie Kennedy and American Cinematographer Virtual Production Editor Noah Kadner join us to talk about the confluence of practical and virtual production, and help shed some light on what virtual production actually is — and isn’t.
The use of LED walls and LED volumes — a major component of virtual production — can be traced directly back to the front- and rear-projection techniques common throughout much of the 20th century.
The creators of “1899” understand that virtual production requires designing the story, as well as the set, with rigor and detail.
January 31, 2023
Posted
January 12, 2023
“Copenhagen Cowboy:” Neon, Neo-Noir, and Nefarious
TL;DR
Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Copenhagen Cowboy” for Netflix is noir-thriller drama and the Danish director’s second television series through a streaming platform.
The superheroes (and villains) are ultra-stylized and neon-saturated, and the pacing is glacial.
Refn wants to maintain his autonomy and independence as a filmmaker, and says the Hollywood system is falling apart desperately.
Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn says that the characters in his new Netflix series, Copenhagen Cowboy, are a “female evolution” of characters from previous projects such as Drive, Valhalla Rising and Only God Forgives.
So, that could only mean one thing: stylized ultra-violence.
“I’ve done films in the past with a certain type of character that was first played by Mads Mikkelsen in Valhalla Rising on one hand and then Ryan Gosling played him as a driver in Drive and then Vithaya [Pansringarm] played him as a lieutenant in Only God Forgives,” Refn explained during the Venice Film Festival premiere of the series, as reported by Diana Lodderhose at Deadline.
Copenhagen Cowboy is his take on a superhero show. He continued, “So, I was working with Robert Wade and Neal Purvis, on a larger female evolution of that character and then suddenly one night, I was like, ‘Maybe I should try to do a version of it as female and not just one but many.’ And that was the kind of aspiration to do it.”
Dubbed by critics as a neon-noir or acid western, though described by the Danish filmmaker as “poetic neo-noir,” the series, which launched on January 5, revolves around a young heroine called Miu (Angela Bundalovic) on a search for justice after a lifetime of servitude.
“I think that the [superhero] genre, like fairy tales… it’s a reflection of us as a society and it mirrors our desires and it’s our fantasies and it’s everything that’s really interesting because it’s heightened reality,” Refn noted.
It’s not for everyone.
“[Y]our enjoyment of Copenhagen Cowboy will go as far as you can tolerate Refn’s visual aesthetic,” Sean Price writes in his review for The Spool. “The primary colors that paint the entire frame with a neon glow, the pulsing Cliff Martinez score, and of course, the Miami Vice font.”
But even Price acknowledges the show’s vibe is not without its virtues.
“There may not be substance behind the style, but it goes a long way when your style includes Cliff Martinez,” whose score he says “does most of the emotional heavy lifting” for Copenhagen Cowboy.
The show is shot in Denmark, is produced by his wife Liv Corfixen, and also features his daughters Lola and Lizzielou Corfixen. It’s also a product of the pandemic and streaming’s content creation boom.
Refn told Deadline‘s Crew Call podcast that he pitched the idea to the newly formed Netflix Nordic when he “really didn’t know how the world was going to turn out.” The Netflix Nordic was sold on the idea of a new narrative borne out The Pusher trilogy, and after a five-month stint with an all female writing team, Copenhagen Cowboy was brought to set.
“We had a great crew and, in a way, there is something very easy about working in the Scandinavian model because we are not so many people and I like that kind of smaller components of productions and so forth. It was just very pleasant.”
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn., courtesy of Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn., courtesy of Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Christian Geisnaes/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Christian Geisnaes/Netflix
“Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Christian Geisnaes/Netflix
In an interview with Anthony D’Alessandro for Deadline, Refn was asked if he ever considered making a mainstream superhero project.
“I’ve always cherished my independence,” he replied. “I think waking up in the morning and going to work and paint the way you want it to look and go home, is still the most satisfying experience ever.
“If you don’t have the power of control at the end of the day or the ability to manipulate into your favor, it is committee. You have to spend your entire day struggling to get a compromise across, then what example am I to my own kids?”
He also added that he thought the studio system is not in good shape, commenting, “Hollywood is very seductive and intoxicating, but it’s also a system that’s falling apart desperately,” Refn said. “And I think they’re doing it to themselves more than anything else.”
Making a Netflix Hit and Surviving for Season 2
A cynic might wonder if Refn’s analysis of Hollywood is in some way influenced by studios that are less apt to write him a blank check for a niche production. The Ringer’s Miles Surrey describes his previous lavish budgets as “a blank check that came out of nowhere and wasn’t necessarily earned.”
Surrey writes, “Whether or not Refn moved to the small screen because he was no longer finding any takers for his feature films, his divisive style is an intriguing fit for the stretched-out length of a TV show.”
But Refn’s Netflix Nordic endeavor seems a bit more right-sized to Surrey. He writes, “Copenhagen Cowboy should be more accessible—and presumably far cheaper to produce—than Refn’s grand Amazon experiment” (meaning his 13-hour Too Old to Die Young).
None of these comments mean that Surrey is panning the show, however. “This is as challenging as television can get, and while it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, there’s no denying that Refn is utterly singular in his image making. To appreciate a Refn project like Copenhagen Cowboy is to accept that, sometimes, style wins out over substance.”
But even Netflix and its competitors are getting more ruthless, and it will be interesting to see if the streamer deems the show a success and, therefore, worthy of a second season.
“[T]he way the story leaves off, it’s clear these six chapters have been planned as part of a multi-season arc, should the Netflix gods be feeling generous,” notes The Hollywood Reporter’s Angie Han.
Collider’s Chase Hutchinson is a fan of the unconventional series, who never the less isn’t holding out a lot of hope for continuing Miu’s storyline: “[T]he series is, to be frank, rather unlikely to find the broadest of audiences which is crucial in a ruthless streaming world ruled increasingly by metrics. Still, no matter what happens in the future, the mere presence of such a show is worth celebrating.”
For Refn’s part, it’s clear he hasn’t gone all-in on a streaming-centric model. He told reporters, “I don’t think theatrical [cinema] will ever go away. I think theatrical will always exist, but it needs to be challenged in order to become better, more sufficient and more meaningful.”
On the set of “Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Christian Geisnaes/Netflix
On the set of “Copenhagen Cowboy,” directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Cr: Christian Geisnaes/Netflix
As the streaming wars rage on, consumers continue to be the clear winners with an abundance of series ripe for binging. See how your favorite episodics and limited series were brought to the screen with these hand-picked articles plucked from the NAB Amplify archives:
Director David Leitch’s “Bullet Train” is an assassin movie with comedy, action, and an existential question at the center of it all.
January 30, 2023
Posted
January 12, 2023
CES 2023: The Consumer Technologies That’ll Impact Your Year
Watch CTA VP of research Steve Koenig’s full presentation here.
TL;DR
The Consumer Technology Association thinks enterprise technology will drive innovation forward and help pull the US, if not the world, out of a recession. We’ll turn to robotics, AI, and the metaverse to deal with shortages of skilled workers and other things that have become scarce in the post-pandemic world.
The CTA foresees both a “metaverse as a service” and a “metaverse of things.”
US technology retail revenues will fall 2.4% to $485 billion in 2023 but remain $50 billion above pre-pandemic levels, despite a looming recession.
The Consumer Technology Association says the world is headed toward a metaverse of things — a combination of sensors in the real world internet of things (IoT) and the virtual world of the 3D internet.
“The metaverse is closer than you think,” said CTA VP of research Steve Koenig, opening the Consumer Electronics Show.
“Metaverse is still a speculative term,” he conceded. “But make no mistake, this is a real trend, just as the internet was a real trend in the early 1990s.”
Keonig said he expects businesses of all types to move beyond digital transformation into a new phase of automation and virtualization, where connected intelligence, quantum computing, autonomous systems and 5G industrial IoT applications will counter the shortage of skilled human workers.
“Twenty years ago, technology was the nice-to-have when it comes to business or the commercial enterprise. Today humans are the nice-to-have,” he said.
“The simple truth is, we can’t hire enough workers if we’re talking about skilled labor and knowledge workers. …Across the global economy, across every economic sector, businesses are struggling to find workers.”
The latest data from the CTA forecasts US technology retail revenues to fall 2.4% to $485 billion this year from $497 billion in 2022 and a peak of $512 billion in 2021. Despite an anticipated recession in the US and inflationary pressures, revenues will remain roughly $50 billion above pre-pandemic levels.
Consumer spending on gaming, video, audio and apps is a high spot and set to grow for the fifth straight year to generate $151 billion in consumer spending.
However, the CTA lowered expectations for sales of related hardware: laptops, LCD TVs, tablets, smartphones and gaming consoles. Despite flat overall TV sales, OLED TV is projected to add $2.3 billion in 2023 revenues as the industry focuses on premium products. As home gaming console sales slow, portable gaming models gain traction with consumers who are spending less time at home since the pandemic began. Portable gaming consoles will generate $1.5 billion in 2023, up 41% over 2022.
Koenig noted that shipping costs are coming down and shortages from the pandemic-induced supply chain maybe be abating.
“The bad news is we are moving from a chip shortage to potentially an oversupply,” Koenig said. “The downside risk of oversupply is we might see chip architectures deferred as we work through this inventory.”
Another growth spot is automotive technology where revenues are projected to rise 4% to $15.5 billion in 2023. Advances in battery technology have allowed producers of electric vehicles to offer increasingly consumer-friendly options, with companies including Panasonic, LG and other companies building infrastructure to support more battery production, the CTA said.
As reported by Lisa Johnston at Consumer Goods Technology, the CTA expect displays to take over vehicle dashboards, with the vehicle cabin serving as the convergence of entertainment and commerce thanks to the layering of 5G, vehicle wireless information exchange, and voice control.
“It’s Like Doing Four Movies in Two Years:” Editing and Post on “Andor”
TL;DR
Disney+ series “Andor” goes back five years from the events of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” following the journey of Rebellion hero Cassian Andor.
Series creator and showrunner Tony Gilroy and his editor brother, John Gilroy, discuss the intensity of the work involved and how naive they were going in.
Editor John Gilroy recounts how the show wasn’t relatable in size to any other medium, film or linear television, describing it as “like doing four movies in two years.”
Currently streaming on Disney+, Andor is a much more substantial series with genuine emotional depth — so it may not appeal to all Star Wars fans.
2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story made the mildly devoted Star Wars fan take another look at the universe. Making two seasons of an episodic filling out the prequel story promised more of the same devotion and the vital backstory we wondered about.
The great news is that this is exactly what has happened with Andor. The Playlist’s Rodrigo Perez talks for all of us new devotees, writing, “A much more adult, serious, dirtier, and complicated look at the Star Wars galaxy and what living under an oppressive regime does to its populace; centering on one of its leads, Rebel Alliance Captain and spy Cassian Andor.”
Showrunner and creator Tony Gilroy explains where Andor sits in the Stars Wars timeline. “It rewinds back five years from the events of Rogue One to follow Cassian Andor on his journey to get to the movie. He’s the one person that the whole Rebel Alliance is going to trust with this assignment. So, he’s the tip of the spear. How did he get to be the tip of the spear? How did he get to have all of the skills that are required for that?”
With the advent of streaming, the ability to do a series that could potentially answer those questions by examining the untold story of the formative years of the Rebellion and the personal history of the hero who gave his life for the cause became more of a reality.
“We’ve done 12 episodes for the first season. The 12 episodes that we’ve done cover one year in time. We’re going to do another twelve that are going to take us over the next four years into Rogue One.”
In a series of interviews, Gilroy and his editor brother, John Gilroy, spill on the intensity of the work involved and how naive they were going in, which ironically helped them cope.
“Scripts just have to be dead tight, just dead tight,” Tony said to Maggie Lovitt at Collider. “I was so naive at the very beginning. I don’t know. I mean, when I think back, what I didn’t know when we started is shocking to me. Really, it’s like I said before, it’s like having kids. If you knew what it was going to be, you wouldn’t do it. Once you do it, you’re like, Oh my God.”
Diego Luna as Cassian Andor and Adria Arjona as Bix Caleen in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Diego Luna as Cassian Andor in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Diego Luna as Cassian Andor in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Faye Marsay as Vel Sartha in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Matt Lyons as Dewi Pamular and Matt Lyons as Freedi Pamular in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Duncan Pow as Melshi and Diego Luna as Cassian Andor in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
B2EMO in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Andy Serkis as Kino Loy in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Arvel Skeen, Diego Luna as Cassian Andor, Gershwyn Eustache Jr. as Taramyn Barcona, and Alex Lawther as Karis Nemik in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Diego Luna as Cassian Andor and a shoretrooper in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Diego Luna as Cassian Andor with delivery guards Kenny Fullwood and Josh Herdman in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Kyle Soller as Syril Karn and Denise Gough as Supervisor Dedra Meero in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Andy Serkis as Kino Loy in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Diego Luna as Cassian Andor and Alex Lawther as Karis Nemik in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Alastair Mackenzie as Perrin Fertha, Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma, and Bronte Carmichael as Leida Mothma in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Diego Luna as Cassian Andor and a KX-series Droid in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Diego Luna as Cassian Andor in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Stellan Skarsgard as Luthen Rael and Diego Luna as Cassian Andor in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma, Bronte Carmichael as Leida Mothma, and Alastair Mackenzie as Perrin Fertha in “Andor.” Cr: Disney+
Brother John, who edited four episodes (and was the finisher on the rest), also saw the strength of scripts that were watertight, as he told Sarah Shachat, host of IndieWire’s “Filmmaker Toolkit” podcast. “Finding the tempo of the show was really not hard in the cutting room because a lot of it was written and executed so well,” he said.
In fact, there were no scenes that weren’t used in the show. John even joked that there wouldn’t be any DVD extras as there was nothing left to use. “The better the scripts, the less you’re going to have to invent later,” he concluded.
John explained to Iain Blair at Post Perspective how the show wasn’t relatable in size to any other medium, film or linear television. “I’ve been on big movies editing for a year, but this was like doing four movies in two years. It was huge, with a lot more people on the post team and a lot more editors — seven in addition to me. You work the same way as a movie, but you delegate more, and there are a lot of moving parts. You’re always overlapping with one or two or more blocks at a time, so there’s a lot of place-setting,” he said.
“They put a lot of money into this, but not as much as in a big feature, so the way you make up for that is that the TV schedules are longer. All the VFX shots took a very long time, but we had more time to get it all right. It’s the same thing with the sound. The sound crew is smaller, but all the prep is far more spread out.”
During an episode of “The Rogue Ones: A Star Wars Andor Podcast,” John described his work practice and how he cut his episodes together. “For me it’s a feel, it’s instinctual. When I’m cutting a show I’m actually watching it in super slow motion kind of. It’s like watching a glacier move, but it’s moving in my head as I’m building it,” he said.
“It might be one of my superpowers but I can watch something over and over again and I’m really good at keeping my bearings and keeping objective,” he added. “You’ve also got to know when it’s done and not walk past the truth, I think I have a pretty good sense of that. There’s so much work to do but you could mess about with something forever, I’ve seen people do it, believe me.”
Speaking to Shachat on the IndieWire “Filmmaker Toolkit” podcast, the brothers discussed the score and how “spotting it,” or cueing the score, was so important.
“We had to learn how to spot differently on this than we had been trained to do making movies. If you spot normally a lot of times you can have a scene, say an eight page scene and you spot it like a movie and you put good music too soon all of a sudden the scene just disappears, it just washes out,” Tony said.
He challenged the music fans to watch how late they spotted. John agreed that the scenes were longer and you didn’t want to run out of gas. “You feel that it’s sometimes better when it’s dry for the first few minutes,” he said.
But less definitive was the process of dealing with so much content that needed editing, and were there options for each shot to deal with as well? “It’s the kind of shooting plan they would have on a big movie. But on a big movie they would have four shooting plans or at least a back-up. They would then shoot the crap out of it,” Tony said.
“Ours is the opposite of that and is very specific,” he continued. “We were always trying to find points of entry to start us off. Like the gloves on the wall in Ferrix, where you would hang them after working a shift. In your imagination that’s where your father or your mother hanged their gloves before you. It was that obsessiveness we were after that slowly built-out their culture.”
The Playlist’s Perez sums up what this gem of a Star Wars episodic means to him, and encourages everyone to watch it, even super-fans. “If Andor is slow to start, it ignites with fury in episodes three and four, paving the way to a show that, so far, feels gripping in its tension and resolve,” he writes in his review.
“It’s debatable if the series will be embraced universally by all Star Wars fans, but if you’ve been disenchanted by most of the Disney-era Lucasfilm projects — or at least craving something more substantive with depth — Andor is likely a provocative one that will light a fire under you, and compel you to sit up and take notice.”
As the streaming wars rage on, consumers continue to be the clear winners with an abundance of series ripe for binging. See how your favorite episodics and limited series were brought to the screen with these hand-picked articles plucked from the NAB Amplify archives:
Editor Bob Ducsay, ASC on the layers of structure and sleight-of-hand behind writer-director Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out: Glass Onion.”
January 21, 2023
Posted
January 11, 2023
“Aftersun:” How Do You Remake Memories?
TL;DR
The emotional weight of the debut feature from Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells has been lauded by critics.
Wells discusses how she baked certain visual choices either into her script, when she discovered others on set, or during the edit.
The indie film is produced by Barry Jenkins’ production company Pastel and bears some of the hallmark’s of his Oscar-winning film “Moonlight.”
Sight and Sound, the prestigious international film magazine, selected Charlotte Wells’ debut feature Aftersun as the best film of 2022.
Inspired by, but not based on, the director’s experiences as the child of young parents, the ‘90s-set film stars newcomer Francesca Corio as Sophie, an 11-year-old girl on a package holiday to Turkey with her father Calum (Paul Mescal).
The film, which also won seven British Indie Film Awards, is described by the magazine as an “exquisitely subtle yet deeply affecting and honest depiction of mental illness, father-daughter love, and memory.”
Developed and produced with the support of the BFI Film Fund, using funds from the National Lottery, Aftersun was one of the most talked about films at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and was picked up for international distribution by A24.
IndieWire’s Eric Kohn judged it “the most evocative look at an adolescent gaze coming to terms with the adult world since Moonlight.”
Several critics compare the way Aftersun paints its characters’ interior lives to that of Moonlight director Barry Jenkins. Not coincidentally, perhaps, Jenkins and his producing partner Adele Romanski served as producers on the film.
The 35-year-old was born and raised in Edinburgh, but moved to the US in 2012 to study film at NYU. There, her standout short films including Laps and Blue Christmas caught the attention of Romanski, who encouraged Wells to develop the script.
“Her short films were pretty fucking brilliant,” Romanski tells Kohn. “I was curious to hear what she was working on and how the storytelling style for her shorts would translate into that longer format. Then we waited patiently for years.”
That was in 2018. Wells finally retreated into a two-week writing frenzy in 2019, but held onto her first draft for another half a year before sending it to Romanski. “I spent six months pretending to rewrite but in actual fact just spellchecking it over and over again,” she said.
Her film is very much about memory — how certain moments stay with us forever, but also how our interpretation of events can differ from what actually happened. The story’s “beautiful elusiveness — its accumulation of seemingly inconsequential fragments that gradually accrue in emotional power,” per Tom Grierson in the Los Angeles Times, makes it a difficult movie to encapsulate, even for its maker.
Deadline’s Damon Wise isn’t the only interviewer to observe Wells appearing “somewhat shell-shocked by her film’s progress in the world,” adding “I’m actually a little in awe of the fact that this film has — and could — reach so many people.”
That’s perhaps because, as she tells Marshall Shaffer at Slant Magazine, “Mental health struggles are messy, symptoms overlap and diagnoses are often [incorrect]. It’s incredibly difficult to pinpoint many mental illnesses.”
Frankie Corio as Sophie and Paul Mescal as Calum in writer-director Charlotte Wells’ debut feature, “Aftersun.” Cr: A24
Frankie Corio as Sophie and Paul Mescal as Calum in writer-director Charlotte Wells’ debut feature, “Aftersun.” Cr: A24
Frankie Corio as Sophie in writer-director Charlotte Wells’ debut feature, “Aftersun.” Cr: A24
Paul Mescal as Calum in writer-director Charlotte Wells’ debut feature, “Aftersun.” Cr: A24
Paul Mescal as Calum in writer-director Charlotte Wells’ debut feature, “Aftersun.” Cr: A24
Frankie Corio as Sophie and Paul Mescal as Calum in writer-director Charlotte Wells’ debut feature, “Aftersun.” Cr: A24
Frankie Corio as Sophie and Paul Mescal as Calum in writer-director Charlotte Wells’ debut feature, “Aftersun.” Cr: A24
Writer-director Charlotte Wells on the set of her debut feature, “Aftersun.” Cr: A24
Writer-director Charlotte Wells on the set of her debut feature, “Aftersun.” Cr: A24
Of the film’s deliberate ambiguity Wells says to Alex Denney of AnotherMag, “I think inherent in whatever style it is that I have there is space for people to bring their own experiences. It’s both conscious and not: I think when you avoid a certain kind of exposition it does create ambiguity and people will fill that ambiguity with their own experiences, their own reference points that they enter the cinema with.”
Withholding information “is kind of the point of the film” she tells IndieWire. “I think the ambiguity is inherent in the subtlety and my aversion to exposition. But for me, the answers are all in the film.”
Her reticence to talk in concrete terms about her work is also warning not to label it an autobiography. “It’s very much fiction, but rooted in experience and memory,” she reveals to Denney. “It’s personal in that the feeling is mine and I allowed my own memories and anecdotes through all of childhood to form the kind of skeleton outline [of the first draft]. But after that point it did become very much about the story I was trying to tell, and that frequently required pushing it away from my own experience.”
Cinematographer Gregory Oke records on lush 35mm and partly masks Calum’s appearance throughout the film, rendering him as a semi-ghostly presence.
“We worked hard to keep Calum at arm’s length, to keep more physical distance between him and the camera in order to create the feeling that he is in some sense unknowable,” Wells tells Denney.
Interspersed throughout the narrative is a jarring dreamlike rave sequence, which finds the adult Sophie confronting her father under strobe lights on the crowded dancefloor.
“In a lot of ways, there was a mystery to the process of discovering exactly what this was,” Wells explains to IndieWire. “So much of the process found its way into the film. The process of rooting through the past and memories and allowing some to rise to the surface, transforming them or reframing them.”
Noting Aftersun’s impressionistic style, Deadline’s Wise wonders whether Wells achieved that by taking things away in the edit, or scripting it.
“Both,” is her reply. “I didn’t shoot anything I didn’t want to be in the film. But there is plenty that isn’t in the final cut, that was lost in service of the edit. There were discoveries in the edit that were originally just strategies that we used to solve problems but which ended up being quite a meaningful strategy in terms of creating a sense of memory.”
The way Aftersun deceptively drifts from scene to scene — punctuated by meditative cutaways of shots like a person’s hand or a random passerby yelling at their child kid — are all painstakingly crafted.
“Some of [those shots] were whole scenes reduced to an image,” Wells tells IndieWire’s Kohn. “Some were details in the script, and some were discovered on set based on months, if not years, of conversations with my cinematographer.”
When it’s suggested the deft execution of Aftersun feels like a magic trick, she demurs. “I don’t have an answer as to what it is,” she says. “We didn’t set out to pull off an emotional heist.”
From the latest advances in virtual production to shooting the perfect oner, filmmakers are continuing to push creative boundaries. Packed with insights from top talents, go behind the scenes of feature film production with these hand-curated articles from the NAB Amplify archives:
Writer/director Mike Mills discusses the making of his black-and-white comedy-drama starring Joaquin Phoenix and Woody Norman.
January 11, 2023
Posted
January 10, 2023
Tech Resolutions for 2023: Learn to Trust Our AI Colleagues
TL;DR
The degree to which businesses and workers learn to trust their AI “colleagues” could play an important role in their business success.
Mistrust of AI can come from business leaders, front-line workers, and consumers. Regardless of its origin, it can dampen enterprises’ AI enthusiasm and, in turn, adoption.
AI will progress to exhibiting empathic emotional intelligence and then to general-purpose AI, which stands to deliver versatile systems that can learn and imitate a collection of previously uniquely human traits.
We spent the last 10 years trying to get machines to understand us better. It looks like the next decade might be more about innovations that help us understand machines, Deloitte predicts in its end-of-year Future Trends report.
Few business leaders doubt AI’s abilities to contribute to the team, and Deloitte says there’s plenty of evidence suggesting businesses that use AI pervasively throughout their operations perform at a higher level than those that don’t. But there’s a trust issue when implementing AI into the workforce. Specifically, enterprises have a hard time trusting AI with mission-critical tasks.
In short, if humans don’t trust machines or think they’re making the right call, it won’t be used.
“With AI tools increasingly standardized and commoditized, few businesses may realize true competitive gains from crafting a better algorithm,” the report states. “Instead, what will likely differentiate the truly AI-fueled enterprise from its competition will be how robustly it uses AI throughout its processes. The key element here, which has developed much slower than machine learning technology, is trust.”
Deloitte elaborates the argument. Computers were once seen as more or less infallible machines whose calculations were never wrong that simply processed discrete inputs into discrete outputs.
As algorithms increasingly shoulder probabilistic tasks such as object detection, speech recognition, and image and text generation, the real impact of AI applications may depend on how much their human colleagues understand and agree with what they’re doing.
“What may matter in the future is not who can craft the best algorithm, but rather who can use AI most effectively.”
In that case, developing processes that leverage AI in transparent and explainable ways will be key to spurring adoption.
One of the biggest clouds hanging over AI today is its black-box problem. Because of how certain algorithms train, it can be very difficult, if not impossible, to understand how they arrive at a recommendation.
“Asking workers to do something simply because the great and powerful algorithm behind the curtain says to is likely to lead to low levels of buy-in.”
How to make AI more trusted. Cr: Deloitte Analysis
How does this lack of trust manifest itself in the creative industries and its increasing use of generative AI tools like OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 image generator and GPT-3 text generator.
“In many cases, generative AI is proving itself in areas that were once thought to be automation-proof,” says Deloitte. “Even poets, painters, and priests are finding no job will be untouched by machines.”
That does not mean, however, that these jobs are going away, the report insists. “Even the most sophisticated AI applications today can’t match humans when it comes to purely creative tasks such as conceptualization, and we’re still a long way off from AI tools that can unseat humans in jobs in these areas.”
The prevailing approach to bringing in new AI tools is to position them as assistants, not competitors.
“Workers and companies that learn to team with AI and leverage the unique strengths of both AI and humans may find that we’re all better together,” says Deloitte. Think about the creative, connective capabilities of the human mind combined with AI’s talent for production work. We’re seeing this approach come to life in the emerging role of the prompt engineer.”
As enterprises consider adopting these capabilities, they could benefit from thinking about how users will interact with them and how that will impact trust.
“Think of deploying AI like onboarding a new team member,” the consultancy advises. “We know generally what makes for effective teams: openness, rapport, the ability to have honest discussions, and a willingness to accept feedback to improve performance. Implementing AI with this framework in mind may help the team view AI as a trusted copilot critic.”
For some businesses, the functionality offered by emerging AI tools could be game-changing. But a lack of trust could ultimately derail these ambitions.
Deloitte also addresses the longer term future of AI, which it characterizes as “exponential intelligence.”
“Affective AI — empathic emotional intelligence — will result in machines with personality and charm,” says Mike Bechtel, Deloitte’s chief futurist. “We’ll eventually be able to train mechanical minds with uniquely human data — the smile on a face, the twinkle in an eye, the pause in a voice — and teach them to discern and emulate human emotions. Or consider generative AI: creative intelligence that can write poetry, paint a picture, or score a soundtrack.”
After that, we may see the rise of general-purpose AI: intelligence that has evolved from simple math to polymath. Today’s AI is capable of single-tasking, good at playing chess or driving cars but unable to do both. General-purpose AI stands to deliver versatile systems that can learn and imitate a collection of previously uniquely human traits.
With nearly half of all media and media tech companies incorporating artificial intelligence into their operations or product lines, AI and machine learning tools are rapidly transforming content creation, delivery and consumption. Find out what you need to know with these essential insights curated from the NAB Amplify archives:
To simplify multicloud management, enterprises are turning to metaclouds, or superclouds, with a single pane of control for common tasks.
January 11, 2023
Posted
January 10, 2023
Tech Resolutions for 2023: Cement Digital Trust With Blockchain
TL;DR
From everyday enterprise applications to blockchain-native business models, decentralized architectures and ecosystems disintermediate trust, placing it not in a single person or organization but distributing it across the community of users.
Blockchain-enabled “trustless” systems could be an antidote to diminishing faith in government, media, money, businesses, and other civic and private institutions.
By changing how content is made, managed, protected, and monetized, a disintermediated web has the potential to call out deepfakes and to transfer power from intermediaries to producers and consumers.
The blockchain is becoming key not only to developing and monetizing digital assets but also to creating digital trust so profound it could be an antidote to our collective diminishing faith in government, media, money, businesses, and other civic and private institutions.
This is a macro tech trend identified by Deloitte in its major end-of-year report, highlighting new technologies and approaches that stand to become the norm within the next 18 to 24 months, and projects where these trends could be headed next during the coming decade.
The global shift of computing to the cloud and to the edge has not only decentralized the systems of the internet but given rise to technologies and platforms rooted in the cryptographically secure blockchain. As organizations begin to understand blockchain’s utility, they’re realizing that building stakeholder trust could be one of its primary benefits.
“Digital ledger technologies and decentralized business models that achieve consensus through code, cryptography, and technology protocols are demonstrating that none of us is as trustworthy as all of us,” explains Mike Bechtel, Deloitte’s Chief futurist. “In this world, digital natives are increasingly likely to demand higher-quality proof and higher order truth. Indeed, we anticipate tomorrow’s leaders to assert ‘chain or it didn’t happen.’ ”
This, of course, is the world of Web3, the exponents of which essay a future “in which the loudest voices can’t overshadow a single, immutable version of the truth, based on public blockchains,” according to Deloitte.
Organizations of all stripes may be able to cement their credibility, the consultancy suggests, by helping “reinvent” a decentralized internet because in our current environment of ever-increasing mistrust, blockchain and Web3 could power “trustless” systems that decentralize data to rebuild trust.
Deloitte elaborates, arguing that digital trust issues today undermine confidence in traditional institutions and the technology that powers them.
Yet decentralized systems, applications, and business models add “a protective layer,” enabling organizations to close the digital trust gap by helping them create “a single version of irrefutable truth.” Such systems rely on cryptography- and code-driven consensus of systemwide users, rather than moderation by third-party intermediaries — without sacrificing data privacy.
The resulting shared, trusted record can be inspected by selected third parties but cannot be controlled by any single, central superuser.
Blockchain-based trust use cases. Cr: Deloitte Analysis
Further benefits: A consortium of participants keeps the information up to date so that each participant maintains a copy of the updated, immutable database. People can securely store, share, and control their own tamper-proof credentials (such as personal health, education, voting records, etc.) in an encrypted digital wallet. Proof of identification stored in encrypted digital wallets could lead to more secure transactions.
What’s more, Deloitte claims, organizations can break down data silos to collaborate with external partners, unknown or untrusted parties, and competitors, without compromising privacy, confidentiality, security, or intellectual property.
This directly impacts media by validating something as genuine.
“In an era of deepfakes, AI-generated imagery, and alternative facts, seeing something with your own two eyes is not necessarily sufficient proof of the truth,” Deloitte notes.
“But if an entire community sees it on a public blockchain? Trustless, decentralized platforms could become an arbiter of truth: Chain or it didn’t happen.”
By changing how content is made, managed, protected, and monetized, the report continues, “Web3 could rescue us from its Web2’s obsession with clicks and likes. A disintermediated web has the potential to transfer power from intermediaries to producers and consumers.”
Creators gain too. In Web2, “digital” is synonymous with “abundant.” Nearly all digital content is infinitely shareable, legally or not. The infinite supply of content drives demand (prices and consumer attention) toward zero.
Web3 changes that. By introducing the notion of “digital scarcity,” Web3 architectures offer creators an opportunity to reassert some ownership and control of their content, data, profiles, and identities, with the ability to manage and monetize them across multiple websites and platforms rather than creating multiple copies.
Creators could lock access to a song, video, or other intellectual property so it’s only accessible via smart contract and programmable money, with the potential for revenue to be shared in real time.
With consumers in charge of their own buying and browsing data, blockchain could significantly disrupt digital advertising, too. In addition to giving consumers control over their data and who uses it — in itself a massive disruption — it could also help eliminate advertising fraud caused by internet bots and domain spoofing, which one research firm estimated as costing global advertisers US$68 billion by the end of 2022.
“Amid a crisis of faith in which seeing isn’t believing, and people can’t tell the truth from a lie, many of us have been waiting on a superhero: a person, company, or technology that might somehow serve as an unimpeachable arbitrator to help us settle quarrels and distinguish fact from fiction.”
Decentralized, trustless architectures are beginning to teach us that we are the heroes we’ve been looking for; and that none of us, in fact, is as trustworthy as all of us.
The degree to which businesses and workers learn to trust their AI “colleagues” could play an important role in their business success.
January 11, 2023
Posted
January 10, 2023
Tech Resolutions for 2023: Make an Immersive Internet for Enterprise
TL;DR
The metaverse is best thought of as a more immersive incarnation of the internet itself: “internet plus” as opposed to “reality minus,” says Deloitte.
Technologies such as augmented and virtual reality are transforming the metaverse from specialized tech to enterprise tool — potentially paving the way to new business models.
The spatial web is likely to blur the lines between physical and virtual environments further, paving the way for ambient “glass-less” experiences and, eventually, brain-computer interfaces.
Our mediation with the internet is morphing from rectangular glass screens to something more immersive — and invasive. CES 2023 was a great place to explore the latest ideas in visual and vocal web interfaces, which are needed, says consultant Deloitte, for companies to build business models activated in the metaverse.
In its 2023 Future Trends report, Deloitte says business leaders should consider the metaverse not as a diminished proxy for in-person experiences but instead as an enriched alternative to email, text chat, and heads in square boxes. In other words, the metaverse is best thought of as a more immersive incarnation of the internet itself: “internet plus,” as opposed to “reality minus.”
Simultaneously, technology interaction is poised to progress from separate digital realities toward ambient computing, where users can look up from their devices at a world that synchronizes effortlessly with technology.
Deloitte asks us to consider the metaverse use case that has defined the market up to now: gaming. The entire digital gaming industry is expected to surpass $220 billion in revenue in 2023, more than streaming video, digital music, and e-books combined.
Specifically, the online gaming industry is poised to exceed $26 billion next year, boasting an audience of 1.1 billion gamers.
Choose your metaverse strategy and tactics. Cr: Deloitte Analysis
Crucially, these gamers often gather online not just for gameplay but for the social and commercial possibilities offered by the immersive internet.
A striking 82% of those attending live in-game events also made a purchase because of the event, either in the form of digital goods or physical merchandise.
Whether through gaming or other means, 25% of consumers could be spending at least one hour in the metaverse each day by 2026, while 30% of businesses are estimated to have products and services ready.
Such figures are “emphatic proof” for Deloitte that the economy of the immersive internet mirrors the physical world.
“Brands can charge a premium for providing a unique experience or signaling value to other consumers,” it states, before urging brands across industries to invest now “to meet today’s customers where they already are.”
Potential developments in internet interaction over the next decade include sensory expansion. Deloitte asks us to consider the possibility of one day “smelling a cake baking in the metaverse or, if you’re willing to lick a screen, tasting it.”
Startups such as OVR Technology are developing scent packs to connect to VR headsets, while others such as HaptX are building haptic gloves to deliver a sense of touch.
AR tools such as smart glasses and motion sensors can enable spatial interaction, allowing users to interact directly with physical data without creating a digital copy. For example, patrons can walk up to a restaurant wearing smart glasses and be treated to a display of hours, current promotions, and reviews. Or, by suppressing images in their glasses, a group of friends can attend a concert without seeing any of the city billboards in view.
The spatial web is likely to blur the lines between physical and virtual environments. Mike Bechtel, Deloitte’s chief futurist, says, “As reality itself increasingly comes online, digital content will be seamlessly woven into our physical spaces, inseparable from our shared personal and professional experiences.”
The next generation of devices may connect users to the metaverse without requiring additional headsets or handheld devices. Deloitte invites us to imagine stepping into a media room that displays the metaverse as a hologram across the walls.
“Or imagine a laptop that uses cameras to translate an employee’s real-life gestures into an avatar’s movement in the virtual workplace.”
These areambient experiences, Bechtel explains, in which ubiquitous digital assistants monitor the environment, awaiting a voice, gesture, or glance, reacting to (or proactively anticipating) and fulfilling our requests.
What about mind control? Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) represent an extreme in simplifying user interactions with technology, but noninvasive BCI technology is already finding its way into AR/VR headsets. Today’s smart thermostats accept voice control; tomorrow’s will know you feel chilly and proactively adjust to ensure your comfort.
Neural interfaces that afford direct communication between biological thought and digital response “should eventually allow users to control digital avatars and environments using thoughts.”
The metaverse may be a wild frontier, but here at NAB Amplify we’ve got you covered! Hand-selected from our archives, here are some of the essential insights you’ll need to expand your knowledge base and confidently explore the new horizons ahead:
To simplify multicloud management, enterprises are turning to metaclouds, or superclouds, with a single pane of control for common tasks.
January 11, 2023
Posted
January 10, 2023
Tech Resolutions for 2023: Tame the Multicloud Chaos
TL;DR
The use of cloud is showing widespread but haphazard adoption, which is now creating inefficiencies and a lack of flexibility as more and more of a company’s business moves into data centers.
To simplify multicloud management, enterprises are beginning to turn to a layer of abstraction and automation that offers a single pane of control.
While this makes common sense on purely technical grounds, the issue is whether the market — AWS, Azure, etc. — will support it.
Businesses are using services from multiple cloud platforms and managing it has become a significant problem. A solution could be a metacloud — one cloud to rule over them all — but as you can imagine, this has problems too.
In its latest Future Trends report, consultancy Deloitte explains that the vast majority of enterprises are using multiple platform-as-a-service tools, and as many as 85% are using two or more cloud platforms. A quarter are using at least five cloud platforms.
It has, in the words of the report, “created a tangled web of cloud tools that are sometimes interconnected but just as often redundant and create holes in security.” According to the analysts, this situation is unlikely to change anytime soon. Solution teams want to use what they perceive to be the best tool for the job, regardless of which cloud it’s in. Nor do not want to be subject to the availability of tools within a single vendor’s walled garden. Yet they can end up paying for cloud services they don’t use.
To simplify multicloud management, enterprises are beginning to turn to a layer of abstraction and automation that offers a single pane of control.
Known alternately as metacloud or supercloud, this family of tools and techniques can help cut through the complexity of multicloud environments by providing access to common services such as storage and computation, AI, data, security, operations, governance, and application development and deployment.
“Metacloud offers a single pane of control for organizations feeling overwhelmed by multicloud complexity,” says Deloitte.
What is a metacloud? Cr: Deloitte Analytics
This layer sits above an organization’s various cloud platforms, leveraging native technical standards through APIs. The idea is that applications still enjoy the strong security of the cloud provider, but in a consistent manner with centralized control.
While this makes common sense on purely technical grounds, the problem is whether the market will support it
While a compatibility layer has clear benefits for users, it naturally leads to the commoditization of the cloud providers (Amazon, Google, Microsoft) which may not be in their interests.
“History suggests, however, that metacloud may only be an interim solution,” say Deloitte. Past efforts to reign in sprawling data centers, databases, and operating systems have ultimately resulted in consolidation, centralization, standardization, and rationalization — not via middleware or orchestration engines, but with refactoring and simplicity.”
What could end up taking the place of metacloud is “a more tactical approach,” Deloitte suggests, “one that borrows the centralization and control of metacloud but leaves in place the freedom developers currently have to choose the right tool for the job.
This tactical metacloud could govern provisioning of cloud credentials and allocate resources only to users that have a valid business case and the technical knowhow to make use of cloud resources without creating complexities.
Multicloud may feel messy, but it’s the world we’re living in, and likely will be for the foreseeable future,” the report warns. “Smart business and technology leaders should look for areas to reduce complexity wherever possible — potentially through approaches like metacloud — and eliminate security and redundancy problems created by maintaining multiple cloud instances.”
The cloud is foundational to the future of M&E, so it’s crucial to understand how to leverage it for all kinds of applications. Whether you’re a creative working in production or a systems engineer designing a content library, cloud solutions will change your work life. Check out these cloud-focused insights hand-picked from the NAB Amplify archives:
New Visual Language for Media Creation initiative is backed by DreamWorks, Marvel, Paramount, Sony, Universal, Disney and Warner Bros.
January 9, 2023
Putting Together the Post Puzzle of “Glass Onion”
TL;DR
Film editor Bob Ducsay, ASC, discusses the layers of structure and sleight-of-hand behind “Knives Out: Glass Onion.”
Beginning with 2012’s “Looper,” writer-director Rian Johnson has collaborated with Ducsay for more than a decade.
To help avoid reshoots during post, Ducsay was embedded with the production team while shooting on location in Greece.
People who seek to explain how to make successful whodunit movies usually compare them to a careful construction of something — a recipe, perhaps, or a puzzle. Writer-director Rian Johnson of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery expertly spins those plates of cast, suspense, plot, comedy and drama, but has a secret weapon in his movie-building: his film editor of more than a decade, Bob Ducsay.
Ever since taking on editing Johnson’s Looperin 2012, Ducsay has brought his guile and organizational prowess to the partnership, and they were never needed more than for the growing Knives Out series of movies.
Leslie Combemale at the Motion Picture Association’s The Credits has it right when describing Ducsay’s vital part in the success of the franchise, “It is Ducsay, working in partnership with Johnson, who must maintain the story’s nuance and attention to character to preserve the very finely calibrated balance required by a whodunit.”
In fact, having Ducsay at his side from the beginning was crucial for The Last Jedi, Johnson tells Variety’s Jazz Tangcay.
“Editing a movie of that size and scope in terms of the VFX work, the post-production process is so much more exponentially complicated. It really becomes a different thing.” Yet despite the grand scale of the film, the characters and stories still needed to work.
Ducsay himself celebrates the successful partnership, “I think one of the most important things, and I don’t wanna say learned, but appreciated about Rian, is how in the construction of the edit, he places such a high emphasis on simplicity. I’ve always thought that was just generally a good goal. Why do you cut? What is it that you’re trying to do by, in a 24th of a second, switching what the audience is seeing?”
The new movie, Glass Onion, is another tribute, just short of an homage, to Agatha Christie’s books. Especially in the way she would introduce a new book by ignoring what came before. Johnson told a press conference that her story-washing was the way he was able to continue his interpretation of the genre. “The mode in which we were thinking to keep making them was always not to continue the story of the first one, but to treat them the way Agatha Christie treated her books and to do an entirely new mystery every time, a new location, new rogues gallery of characters,” he said.
“It’s not just a change of whodunit. She was mixing genres. She was throwing crazy narrative spins that had never been done in whodunits before. She was really keeping the audience on their toes. Every single book had a whole new reason for being. So, sitting down to write this one, that was kinda the marching orders.”
Daniel Craig as Detective Benoit Blanc in writer/director Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Cr: Netflix
Kate Hudson as Birdie Jay, Jessica Henwick as Peg, Daniel Craig as Detective Benoit Blanc, and Leslie Odom Jr. as Lionel Toussaint in writer/director Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Cr: John Wilson/Netflix
Daniel Craig as Detective Benoit Blanc, Dave Bautista as Duke Cody, Edward Norton as Miles Bron, and Madelyn Cline as Whiskey in writer/director Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Cr: John Wilson/Netflix
Edward Norton as Miles Bron and Daniel Craig as Detective Benoit Blanc in writer/director Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Cr: Netflix
Daniel Craig as Detective Benoit Blanc in writer/director Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Cr: Netflix
GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY (2022) Kate Hudson as Birdie, LeslieKate Hudson as Birdie Jay, Leslie Odom Jr. as Lionel Toussaint, and Kathryn Hahn as Claire Debella in writer/director Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Cr: NetflixOdom Jr. as Lionel and Kathryn Hahn as Claire. Cr: Courtesy NETFLIX
Edward Norton as Miles Bron in writer/director Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Cr: Netflix
Kate Hudson as Birdie Jay, Leslie Odom Jr. as Lionel Toussaint, Kathryn Hahn as Claire Debella, Edward Norton as Miles Bron, Jessica Henwick as Peg, Madelyn Cline as Whiskey and Dave Bautista as Duke Cody in writer/director Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Cr: Netflix
Jessica Henwick as Peg, Kate Hudson as Birdie Jay, and Janelle Monáe as Andi Brand in writer/director Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Cr: John Wilson/Netflix
Daniel Craig as Detective Benoit Blanc and Janelle Monáe as Andi Brand in writer/director Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Cr: John Wilson/Netflix
Daniel Craig as Detective Benoit Blanc in writer/director Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Cr: John Wilson/Netflix
Edward Norton as Miles Bron, Madelyn Cline as Whiskey, Kathryn Hahn as Claire Debella, Dave Bautista as Duke Cody, Leslie Odom Jr. as Lionel Toussaint, Jessica Henwick as Peg, Kate Hudson as Birdie Jay, Janelle Monáe as Andi Brand, and Daniel Craig as Detective Benoit Blanc in writer/director Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Cr: John Wilson/Netflix
Janelle Monáe as Andi Brand, and Madelyn Cline as Whiskey in writer/director Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Cr: John Wilson/Netflix
Edward Norton as Miles Bron, and Dave Bautista as Duke Cody in writer/director Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Cr: John Wilson/Netflix
However, there’s a particular challenge in presenting a sequel even if it’s based on a clean-slate story. Ducsay explained the challenge to Glenn Garland on the Editors on Editing podcast.
“When it’s a sequel it’s especially difficult because people will think, is it as good as, better or worse than the first movie. To me that was asking a lot and I really felt it. You want to bring the same level of delight to the audience that you gave them in the first movie,” he said.
“We wanted to be really honest with the audience to the point of if you watched it a second time you would notice so much in plain sight that you didn’t see the first time. So that’s the trick, you need to know where the audience was looking at a particular time, what was the audience thinking as well.”
Ducsay used friends and filmmaking colleagues to give him feedback on how his edit was working by throwing preview parties. “So not your typical audience. But they can help identify things that they think will be an issue and also pitch suggestions of how you might fix something.”
The editor expanded on the idea of placing clues in plain sight in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter’s Carolyn Giardina.
“It was important to us to make sure that the audience didn’t feel cheated,” he said, repeating the idea that the filmmakers wanted to be “as honest as we could be with the audience. We wanted to leave as many things in plain sight as possible without tipping our hand too much. And that really is a tremendous challenge. You really have to understand where people [in the audience] are looking [and] what they are thinking about. And if you know these things or if you have a really good idea of these things, it becomes easier to understand just what you can give away and what you have to withhold. We started getting bolder as we went on, because we were getting away with a lot of things. And when I say ‘getting away,’ it’s not trying to dupe the audience — it’s just putting the information out there and having a good idea that they can’t see it.”
Cinema is particularly good at playing with time. You just assume you’re in the present when you’re watching something but it could be in another time period, which sometimes creates complications in the edit. “With Glass Onion we had a couple of things that we had to finesse because it was causing confusion not for a huge portion of the audience but enough that it concerned us. Then you have to understand what it is that’s causing them to not be where you want them to be at this moment.”
These complexities needed unpicking on a daily basis during the Glass Onion shoot in Greece, one of the reasons Ducsay was embedded with the production, as he explained to Matt Feury on The Rough Cut podcast. “Essential for Rian is that the editor be on location but it means you have to work at great speed and be thorough; which is hard to do,” he said.
“But we put a particular focus on guidance while the movie is being photographed so he can come in and see how things are progressing. Are we missing any coverage or is there some story point that maybe felt strong on the page but is a little bit more diffused when it’s been photographed. The goal is to come out of the shoot with little or no additional photography needed.” Interestingly, both Glass Onion and Knives Out didn’t have any additional photography.
“All these actors are giving you wonderful things, but sometimes it’s too big, sometimes it’s too small. So we might realize we really need to change a take, so we need to find something that is less of a thing, something that’s smaller, or sometimes it’s just taking it out because it’s the line that does the damage, not the way it was performed. It’s the greatest fun of a film like this when you have a big ensemble cast of great actors across the board. Every single one of them just gives a brilliant performance, but I get to go in there and tune things.”
Ducsay concluded on this chapter of time in the Rian Johnson universe, “Ensemble movies are much more challenging from a character standpoint, you have to keep a lot of balls in the air. You want to get this meal just perfect, all the right flavors and spices and everything just at the right level and it has become over the year my favorite thing about editing as I love actors and I love what they bring as in the detail of character.”
Speaking with Ducsay in Deadline’s video series The Process, Johnson revealed that learning how to collaborate with an editor wasn’t something that necessarily come easily to him.
“Johnson famously began making films on tape at a young age, editing them in-camera, and later went on to cut his feature directorial debut, Brick, as well,” Deadline film reporter Matt Grobar notes. “He admits in his chat with Ducsay that he was frustrated as he pressed on in his career by the notion of having to cede control of the editing process to someone else, after having for so many years had his own hands on the material.”
The writer-director described the initial awkwardness he felt about the process as “like playing the piano by telling somebody what keys to press.”
One solution Johnson landed on was to build “elaborate” LEGO structures in order to distract himself from interfering. “If I don’t keep my hands busy, I will go insane while we’re editing,” he said.
“Once I learned the collaborative nature of it and how to work with you, as opposed to through you, it became something where it was additive… just like my relationship with Steve [Yedlin], who’s my cinematographer, or any of the other HODs,” Johnson told Ducsay. “It becomes something where the added voice, the added perspective, the time it takes to talk through it was something that added to the finished product, as opposed to being an obstruction.”
From the latest advances in virtual production to shooting the perfect oner, filmmakers are continuing to push creative boundaries. Packed with insights from top talents, go behind the scenes of feature film production with these hand-curated articles from the NAB Amplify archives:
“Bullet Train” editor Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE draws on her experience cutting dance choreography films to help elevate action movies.
January 9, 2023
Posted
January 9, 2023
How Diffusion Drives Generative AI
TL;DR
Diffusion models replaced GANs (generative adversarial networks) to drive the recent trend in generative AI tools.
Diffusion-based AI has also proved adept at composing music and video.
The tech has been around for a decade but it wasn’t until OpenAI developed CLIP (Contrastive Language-Image Pre-Training) that diffusion became practical in everyday applications.
Text-to-image AI exploded last year as technical advances greatly enhanced the fidelity of art that AI systems could create. At the heart of these systems is a technology called diffusion, which is already being used to auto-generate music and video.
So what is diffusion, exactly, and why is it such a massive leap over the previous state of the art? Kyle Wiggers has done the research at TechCrunch.
We learn that earlier forms of AI technology relied on generative adversarial networks, or GANs. These proved pretty good at creating the first deepfaking apps. For example, StyleGAN, an NVIDIA-developed system, can generate high-resolution head shots of fictional people by learning attributes like facial pose, freckles and hair.
In practice, though, GANs suffered from a number of shortcomings owing to their architecture, says Wiggers. The models were inherently unstable and also needed lots of data and compute power to run and train, which made them tough to scale.
Diffusion rode to the rescue. The tech has actually been around for a decade but it wasn’t until OpenAI developed CLIP (Contrastive Language-Image Pre-Training) that diffusion became practical in everyday applications.
CLIP classifies data — for example, images — to “score” each step of the diffusion process based on how likely it is to be classified under a given text prompt (e.g. “a sketch of a dog in a flowery lawn”).
Wiggers explains that, at the start, the data has a very low CLIP-given score, because it’s mostly noise. But as the diffusion system reconstructs data from the noise, it slowly comes closer to matching the prompt.
“A useful analogy is uncarved marble — like a master sculptor telling a novice where to carve, CLIP guides the diffusion system toward an image that gives a higher score.”
OpenAI introduced CLIP alongside the image-generating system DALL-E. Since then, it’s made its way into DALL-E’s successor, DALL-E 2, as well as open source alternatives like Stable Diffusion.
So what can CLIP-guided diffusion models do? They’re quite good at generating art — from photorealistic imagery to sketches, drawings and paintings in the style of practically any artist.
Researchers have also experimented with using guided diffusion models to compose new music. Harmonai, an organization with financial backing from Stability AI, the London-based startup behind Stable Diffusion, released a diffusion-based model that can output clips of music by training on hundreds of hours of existing songs. More recently, developers Seth Forsgren and Hayk Martiros created a hobby project dubbed Riffusion that uses a diffusion model cleverly trained on spectrograms — visual representations — of audio to generate tunes.
Even with AI-powered text-to-image tools like DALL-E 2, Midjourney and Craiyon still in their relative infancy, artificial intelligence and machine learning is already transforming the definition of art — including cinema — in ways no one could have ever predicted. Gain insights into AI’s potential impact on Media & Entertainment in NAB Amplify’s ongoing series of articles examining the latest trends and developments in AI art
Vincent van Gogh’s painting ”Wheat Field with Poppies and Lark,” 1887, courtesy of the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
TL;DR
Culture risks being populated by AI-generated images that do nothing more than repeat the past over and over — and that’s a bad thing because it destroys our capacity as humans to connect.
Blogging at “The Convivial Society,” armchair philosopher L. M. Sacascas takes aim at the ultimate blandness of machine-made media and says that it is all surface, no depth.
Unlike “high art,” AI art can startle or surprise us but isn’t able capitalize on that initial reaction to lead the viewer to a deeper insight or aesthetic experience, Sacascas argues.
One reason we appreciate and are moved by Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel chapel or Vincent Van Gogh’s wheat field paintings is because we can relate to the blood, sweat and tears — and years, in the case of the Renaissance Italian — that went into them.
Can the same be said of machine-generated art? Does the product of generative AI have any depth of meaning?
Armchair philosopher L. M. Sacascas, blogging at The Convivial Society, has gazed into the abyss and got nothing back but a shrug.
If nothing else, the rise of generative AI tools like DALL-E 2 this year has changed the discourse around the technology from Cyberdyne Systems slavery to more benign issues like whether copyright law needs to be changed.
But Sacascas and others are more concerned with what AI media will do to our imaginations in the longer term.
There are those who argue that AI tools will actually enhance our imaginations by conjuring visuals or sounds that we might not have even dreamed of.
But Sacascas is unconvinced. He quotes digital artist Annie Dorsen; “For all the surrealism of these tools’ outputs, there’s a banal uniformity to the results.”
Dorsen went on to write that “when people’s imaginative energy is replaced by the drop-down menu ‘creativity’ of big tech platforms, on a mass scale, we are facing a particularly dire form of immiseration.”
AI is the manifestation of something Andy Warhol saw all those years ago: the commercialization of art, its mass production rendering shock images like assassinations or execution chambers, as banal as wallpaper.
Paraphrasing the words of Dorsen, Sacascas and philosopher Bernard Stiegler: When industrial technology is applied to aesthetics, conditioning of the same “substitutes for experience.”
That’s bad, they argue, not just because of the dulling sameness of a world of infinite but meaningless variety. It’s bad because a person who lives like this “has forgotten how to think” and is “incapable of forming an inner life.”
AI-generated images may be technically amazing — but there isn’t room for the happy accidents or the blood, sweat and tears that inspired so much of what we hold up as high art from the past.
“They may startle or surprise, which is something, but they do not then go on to capitalize on that initial surprise to lead me on to some deeper insight or aesthetic experience,” Sacascas writes.
Tech commentator Rob Horning has made a similar observation in his recent comments about generative AI focused on ChatGPT.
“AI models,” Horning observes, “presume that thought is entirely a matter of pattern recognition, and these patterns, already inscribed in the corpus of the internet, can [be] mapped once and for all, with human ‘thinkers’ always already trapped within them. The possibility that thought could consist of pattern breaking is eliminated.
This also hints at how, as Sacascas wrote last summer, we seem to be increasingly trapped in the past by what are essentially machines for the storage and manipulation of memory.
“The past has always fed our capacity to create what is new, of course, but the success of these tools depends on their ability to fit existing patterns as predictably as possible. The point is to smooth out the uncanny aberrations and to eliminate what surprises us,” he says.
Dan Cohen, another blogger on AI art, agrees. “The best art isn’t about pleasing or meeting expectations,” he wrote. “Instead, it often confronts us with nuance, contradictions, and complexity. It has layers that reveal themselves over time. True art is resistant to easy consumption, and rewards repeated encounters.”
In contrast, all AI tools are designed to “meet expectations, to align with genres and familiar usage as their machine-learning array informs pixels and characters.”
This is in tension, says Cohen, “with the human ability to coax new perspectives and meaning from the unusual, unique lives we each live.”
Proponents of AI art — artists producing artworks with AI tools — can and do explain the process by which they arrived at the prompts that yielded the final image, but Sacascas dismisses this as like “talking exclusively about the shape of the brush or the chemical composition of the paint.”
You can’t discuss or critique an AI image in the same way that you would dissect a painting or symphony that has been made by someone. What’s missing is a deeper understanding of the image precisely because the viewer of the artwork knows that there’s a person behind its creation. It is that knowledge — the shared knowledge of having inhabited the same world as the artist — from which richer meaning about the human condition is derived.
He argues this in relation to “high art,” like a painting by masters Pieter Bruegel the Elder or Rembrandt van Rijn.
“What I find, whether or not I am fully conscious of it, is not merely technical virtuosity, it is another mind,” he says. “To encounter a painting or a piece of music or poem is to encounter another person, although it is sometimes easy to lose sight of this fact.”
He argues, “I can ask about the meaning of a work of art because it was composed by someone with whom I have shared a world and whose experience is at least partly intelligible to me.
“Without reducing the meaning of a work of art to the intention of its creator, I can nonetheless ask and think about such intentions. In putting a question to a painting, I am also putting a question to another person.”
The same argument extends outside of AI-generated media and to the volume of visuals, videos and text we are bombarded with daily.
Sacasas has previously written about how skim reading characterizes so much of our engagement with digital texts. He calls it a coping mechanism for the overwhelming volume of text we typically encounter on any given day.
So, likewise, might we settle for a scanning sort of looking, he suggests, “one that is content to bounce from point to point searching but never delving thus never quite seeing.”
Does that happen when we watch TV, for example? Do you skip seconds or minutes of the latest binge-worthy show in order to simply catch up? What happened to savoring the drama and all its on-screen elements?
Filmmakers like Damien Chazelle, James Cameron and Alejandro González Iñárritu have all given us three-hour movies as if to test our patience in cinemas where we can’t just leave. You could argue nonetheless that in each case (Babylon, Avatar: The Way of Water and Bardo) it is the sumptuous visuals that will leave more of an impression than any deeper emotional meaning.
Sacasas doesn’t reference movies but his words can be applied: “This suggests that there are surfaces that may arouse a desire to know more deeply but which do not have the depth to satisfy that desire. I think this is where we find ourselves with AI-generated art.
“Why does this matter? Because without that profundity of feeling of connection with another person, then there is nothing but surface. Nothing in fact but loneliness which fatally undermines the reason humankind produces art in the first place.”
Essentially, he is saying that without the blood, sweat and tears of artists we have no culture, or none worth having.
The problem, as Sacasas sees it, is that we need these encounters with depth of meaning to “sustain us, to elevate our thinking, judgment, and imagination.”
So the exchange we are offered is this: in place of occasional experiences of depth that renew and satisfy us, we are simply given an in finite surface upon which to skim indefinitely.
Even with AI-powered text-to-image tools like DALL-E 2, Midjourney and Craiyon still in their relative infancy, artificial intelligence and machine learning is already transforming the definition of art — including cinema — in ways no one could have ever predicted. Gain insights into AI’s potential impact on Media & Entertainment in NAB Amplify’s ongoing series of articles examining the latest trends and developments in AI art
Artificial intelligence text-to-image tools are able to explore the realm of the improbable or unimaginable. So why are we limiting them?
January 9, 2023
Posted
January 5, 2023
Next-Gen (Generated) Creativity: The AI Imagery and Text Tool Combo
TL;DR
OpenAI lead researcher Mark Chen speaks to The Atlantic’s Ross Andersen at the Progress Summit 2022 about how tools like DALLE-2 and Chat GPT-3 are being used.
Artists who use generative tools will still be able to rise above the crowd and make money because their innate talent means that they are better at using tools like DALL-E 2.
Artist Don Allen Stevenson explains some of the ways AI tools can be used to boost the ideation process and create CG virtual worlds for the metaverse.
Breakthroughs in text-to-image and language modeling technology such as DALL-E 2 have astonished us this year. OpenAI lead researcher Mark Chen speaks to The Atlantic’s Ross Andersen at the Progress Summit 2022, and says that while AI democratizes art for all, artists are producing the better final product.
Chen describes the process of training the tool on several hundred million images, a combination of licensed and publicly available media, which — importantly — have text (metadata) descriptions so that the AI associates word prompts with the images.
DALL-E 2 knows what individual objects are “and is able to combine things in ways that it hasn’t seen in the training set before,” says Chen. “That’s part of the magic of AI, that you can kind of generalize beyond what you trained it on.”
There’s an art to training neural networks, too, he implies. “You want to make these them big enough so they’re basically have enough base intelligence to be able to compose all of these elements together.”
If there’s an art to scaling these big models, there’s also an art to writing prompts. Evolving from single-sentence descriptions, creators are now attaching concepts like the mood they want or very specific details or textures. Prompts can now run for several paragraphs.
“I think it’s really about personalization… all these adjectives that you’re adding [into a prompt] helps you personalize the output to what you want. It makes sense that prompts have grown in length and in specificity. It’s a tool to help people create the content that they want for themselves.”
Addressing the controversial issue surrounding whether artist’s should be recognized, or paid, when their work is used to inspire an AI artwork, Chen defends OpenGI’s approach, saying the organization works closely with the art community.
“Our goal isn’t to stiff artists or anything like that. Throughout the whole release process we want to be very conscientious and work with the artists and have them provide feedback.”
However, Chen also suggests that artists who use generative tools will still be able to rise above the crowd and make money because their innate talent means that they are better at using them. DALL-E 2, in other words, is — like a paintbrush or a video camera — a tool.
“With DALL-E, we found that artists are better at using these tools than the general population. We’ve seen some of the best artwork coming out of these systems basically produced by artists,” Chen says.
“With AI you always worry about job loss and displacement and we don’t want to ignore these possibilities but we do think it’s a tool,” he continues.
“You know, there are smartphone cameras but [that] really hasn’t replaced photographers. [Instead] it allows people to make the images they want.”
Chen then turns to Chat GPT-3, OpenGI’s AI algorithm that turns text prompts into whole written articles, or scripts, or poems.
One idea would be to combine GPT-3 with DALL-E 2 “so maybe you have a conversational kind of interface for generating images,” says Chen.
Artist Don Allen Stevenson joins the presentation at the 16-minute mark and runs through some of the ways AI tools can be used, essentially as a way to boost the ideation process. He says there are entire departments in animation that can benefit from using AI such as creating background characters, composing scenes, concept art, environment design, and reference modelling. Out Painting, a technique used in DALL-E 2, can extend and scale an image automatically in ways the artist may not have imagined.
He also explains how you can use Chat GPT-3 to generate better prompts. There are examples, too, of how these techniques can produce, rapidly, the virtual worlds which will populate the metaverse.
Even with AI-powered text-to-image tools like DALL-E 2, Midjourney and Craiyon still in their relative infancy, artificial intelligence and machine learning is already transforming the definition of art — including cinema — in ways no one could have ever predicted. Gain insights into AI’s potential impact on Media & Entertainment in NAB Amplify’s ongoing series of articles examining the latest trends and developments in AI art
Recent advances in tools using artificial intelligence point the way forward to populating the metaverse with digital content.
January 9, 2023
Posted
January 5, 2023
AI and the Rise/Role of the “Super Organizer”
TL;DR
As artificial intelligence enters the workplace, many hope the technology will displace rather than replace human jobs.
AI tools like speech-to-text engines could help scale the job of creators to do more, and more efficiently.
By the same token, rather than replacing current creative jobs, AI could create just as many roles for “Super Organizers” able to moderate and manage AIs.
As AI enters the workplace, including many creative processes, there are hopes that the technology will displace rather than replace jobs provided the overall work in question can scale.
If that sounds convoluted, well — it’s all just speculation for now. AI could just as easily wind up delivering mass unemployment as employers seek to automate efficiencies.
A more positive response to the same argument is that as AI breeds efficiencies it will help employers scale more quickly than they could before, in turn providing at least as much work for humans as before.
Except this time we will be managing the robots, as Dan Shipper writes in a blog post on behalf of time-management platform Akiflow.
“I think there’s a strong case to be made that rather than replacing individuals, recent advances in AI will empower them to make an impact on a scale matching some of the biggest businesses, research labs, and creative organizations of today,” he forecasts.
Take creators. Text-based large language models might replace the research assistant or co-writer role. “They’re happy to help look up facts and quotes, or to create an outline based on a simple idea. Of course, they’re not as good as a human at these tasks yet — but their rate of improvement is high enough that in a year or two I think we’ll be shocked that we ever wrote without them,” Shipper says.
Other AI tools will speed a writers’ ability to produce content for different formats — podcasts or mini-blogs, for example. Text-to-speech models like Murf are already able to turn essays into human-like narration.
AI-generated video is coming. Shipper highlights Runway as advancing rapidly in this space. It won’t be long before anyone can create high-quality, format-driven YouTube videos from an essay.
What this all means is that solo content creators can suddenly do more for less. Some content creators currently employ several people in a team to pump out content under their name. AI would cut the cost of this. But Shipper’s argument is that doing so would enable creators to create even more content, requiring the need from more AI supervision from actual humans.
This train of thought could be applied to startups of any kind. What many startups lack, he comments, are the means to quickly scale. They can’t afford to high lots of people who are at the end of the day the source of intelligence in the company which enables it to grow.
But employing AI bypasses that. Suddenly a company doesn’t need to employ a customer service team working in a depot when a sophisticated chatbot will do.
That kind of future sounds terrible, but the point that Shipper is making remains sound. “In a few years this will mean founders [of startups] will be able to scale a product to millions of users without requiring a huge team.”
He admits much of this is guesswork, notably the point that AI in the workforce won’t actually mean less people at work. He thinks skills like vision (imagination, inspiration), taste, and the ability to prioritize are always going to be “quite important” and in the wheelhouse of a human.
“In other words, you’re still going to have to have some idea what you want the model to do and not do. You also need to have some idea whether it’s doing the job well or not. I think this is true even of models that are self-improving — at some point, someone’s got to look at it and decide whether or not to keep it plugged in.”
This kind of AI “super organizers” role sounds deeply unfulfilling, menial almost, and the kind of job that an AI is probably better doing. An AI to manage the AIs.
That doesn’t mean things are just going to work out automatically. “These kinds of technology shifts can cause significant harm to people whose jobs and skillsets need to change dramatically. It will require good policy and regulation to catch up with the shift, and significant conversations at the societal level about how humans should function and relate to each other in concert with these tools.”
Those who succeed in rising above an AI apocalypse in the job market may be individuals who are already adept at using IT and computer programming. “That opportunity is distributed to anyone with an internet connection, a laptop, and a desire to play around with these models.”
With nearly half of all media and media tech companies incorporating artificial intelligence into their operations or product lines, AI and machine learning tools are rapidly transforming content creation, delivery and consumption. Find out what you need to know with these essential insights curated from the NAB Amplify archives:
TikTok has just been banned from all devices issued by the House of Representatives, as political pressure continues to build on the Chinese-owned social video app. Are its days numbered?
The app has become a political issue… not just in the US, but in China too.
In the West, TikTok’s Chinese ownership has stoked persistent and longstanding worries about its vulnerability to exploitation and manipulation by the Chinese government.
But in China, its success is considered a threat to the Communist party by offering alternate news and communication that the state there has taken considerable steps to control.
In a New York Times article “How TikTok Became a Diplomatic Crisis,” Alex Palmer profiles the fortunes of the Bytedance-owned phenomenon. “The company is caught in the middle between the old era and the new — too Chinese for America, too American for China,” he finds.
“Despite decades of trying, no Chinese company has ever conquered American society like TikTok,” Palmer adds. “It’s difficult to imagine a Russian or Iranian company — or, increasingly, even another Chinese company — pulling off a similar feat.
“TikTok is considered a Trojan horse — for Chinese influence, for spying, or possibly both. In China, meanwhile, a broad crackdown has sought to rein in high-flying tech companies and their founders, out of fear that, with their influence, independence and popularity, they were becoming alternative power bases to the Chinese Communist Party.”
How It Started, How It’s Going
ByteDance was founded in 2012 by 27-year-old Chinese programmer Zhang Yiming. It launched with an AI-driven news app that, in Zhang’s words, “let every user, at every moment, see their own front news page.”
Called “Toutiao,” it also contained the seeds of the algorithmic model that TikTok would later ride to global dominance. While other content platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, required users to manually accumulate friends and connections, whose posts then populated the user’s feed.
Toutiao, didn’t care whom you knew, only what you liked. Based on how a user reacted to a piece of content — reading the whole article or just a few sentences, pausing on a particular paragraph, swiping back up to read something again, leaving a comment — Toutiao’s underlying technology began to generate a picture of who the user was and what they wanted.
The app hit one million daily average users only four months after it started. By mid-2017, it had passed one million daily average users. Zhang had saturated the Chinese domestic market and sought international expansion by acquiring Musical.ly, which was already on the phones of millions of American teenagers. The $1bn deal in November 2017 also led to a rebranding to the more internationally friendly and neutral TikTok.
Ironically, TikTok’s success led to the first signs of Chinese government clampdown. In late 2017 ByteDance announced that it would hire 2,000 new “content reviewers,” with preference given to Communist party members. The company also shut down the gossipy Society section of its apps and created a new vertical called New Era, featuring state media coverage.
Data Security and Diplomacy
As detailed by Palmer, a new 2017 Cybersecurity Law and National Intelligence Law, required “Any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with state intelligence work in accordance with the law,”… and to “maintain the secrecy of all knowledge of state intelligence work.”
In 2021, two new laws on data security asserted the extraterritorial reach of the Chinese state over any data on Chinese citizens anywhere in the world.
“At the end of the day, the Chinese state holds all the cards,” Jordan Schneider, China analyst at the Rhodium Group, tells the paper. “Firms and their leadership have learned that pushing back too much on government demands can have severe consequences.”
TikTok itself is not available in China — users there must access a different ByteDance app, which follows Chinese government directives on censorship and propaganda.
US social media firms weren’t worried – at first. Palmer says, “Musical.ly had swept up a preteen audience and then stagnated; there was little reason to think TikTok would fare any differently. Besides, TikTok was not really a social network at all. The reason people wanted to be on Facebook, Snap or Instagram was because their friends were on it.”
ByteDance was also spending billions of dollars advertising TikTok on Facebook, Instagram, Snap and other social media platforms.
The Villain Era?
By mid-2019, TikTok had eclipsed 100 million daily average users worldwide, and minted its first bona fide superstar in the artist Lil Nas X, establishing TikTok as a launching pad for musical fame.
The pandemic drove the app’s popularity into overdrive. According to reporting in the Chinese business press, TikTok gained 110 million daily average users between March and April 2020 alone.
That success which shows no sign of slowing has prompted calls for the app to be banned.
According to a memo obtained by NBC News, reported in The Guardian, all lawmakers and staffers with House-issued mobile phones have been ordered to remove TikTok.
“House staff are NOT allowed to download the TikTok app on any House mobile devices,” NBC quoted the memo as saying. “If you have the TikTok app on your House mobile device, you will be contacted to remove it.”
In August the government issued a “cyber advisory” labelling TikTok a high-risk app due to its “lack of transparency in how it protects customer data”. It said TikTok, “actively harvests content for identifiable data” and stores some user data in China.
According to Reuters, at least 19 US states including Maryland, South Dakota, South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Alabama and Utah have partially blocked the app from state-managed devices over security concerns.
There are also concerns that TikTok could be used to funnel Chinese government propaganda, whether promoting content favorable to Beijing or by suppressing views deemed objectionable.
A half-way house agreement whereby US-based Oracle would oversee the app’s data, ensuring that the personal information of American users was stored only in the United States, has done little to assuage concerns.
Banning TikTok is not without precedent. The Indian government has banned it and dozens of other Chinese apps on national security grounds, following border clashes with China.
“Few lawmakers or regulators even understand TikTok. The app’s opacity has also offered a shield. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, TikTok does not share data with researchers or allow outsiders to study the platform.”
ALEX PALMER
In the US, any similar move “would require a strong and well-developed legal theory, taking into account First Amendment concerns and the distinction between objectionable publishers, which cannot be banned, and a foreign-owned platform,” says Palmer. “An outright ban, especially one targeting Chinese companies writ large, risks looking like Sinophobia.”
Washington also has Meta in its ears. According to emails viewed by The Washington Post, Mark Zuckerberg’s company has hired one of the biggest Republican consulting firms in the country to lead a nationwide public relations campaign against TikTok. The firm, Targeted Victory, has placed opinion columns and letters to the editor in regional newspapers, encouraged journalists and politicians to dig into TikTok and helped spread damaging news stories.
The overall aim is to “get the message out that while Meta is the current punching bag, TikTok is the real threat, especially as a foreign-owned app that is #1 in sharing data that young teens are using,” a director for the firm wrote in a February email.
If TikTok has escaped the scrutiny faced by other Chinese companies (or even other American social media giants), it is in part because the user base skews so young. According to the Pew Research Center, two-thirds of 13-to-17-year-olds in the US use TikTok.
Palmer says, “Few lawmakers or regulators even understand TikTok. The app’s opacity has also offered a shield. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, TikTok does not share data with researchers or allow outsiders to study the platform.”
Any element of “reds under the beds” paranoia has not been assuaged by the app itself. Forbes found that Chinese state media accounts were flourishing on TikTok, often by promoting attacks on specific US politicians and the state of American institutions in general. Forbes also reported that a team at ByteDance headquarters planned to use TikTok to track the location of specific American users — exactly the nightmare scenario that critics had warned about.
“Taken together, these stories have only amplified concerns that TikTok cannot be trusted with its power over American data and attention spans,” writes Palmer.
In a statement released after the Congress ban, TikTok said the move was a “political gesture that will do nothing to advance national security interests”.
Zhang Yiming himself has taken a back seat from his role of CEO, and reported to have spent most of his year in Singapore.
The Chinese government has also recently taken a stake in a ByteDance subsidiary. According to the NYT, though the size of the stake was small — just 1 percent, divided between the China Internet Investment Fund; China Media Group, controlled by the Communist Party’s propaganda department; and the Beijing municipal government’s investment arm — the implications were unavoidable.
“The Chinese government took one of three seats on the subsidiary’s board, wielding a level of influence incommensurate with its nominal stake. To turn a blind eye to the potential risks posed by a company like TikTok is to ignore the political, economic and social infrastructure of control that the Chinese government under Xi has spent more than a decade constructing.”
Technology and societal trends are changing the internet. Concerns over data privacy, misinformation and content moderation are happening in tandem with excitement about Web3 and blockchain possibilities. Learn more about the tech and trends driving humanity’s digital future with these hand-curated articles from the NAB Amplify archives:
Going after Google and Amazon, TikTok’s influence on the music industry, publishing, fashion, and Hollywood has only just begun.
January 3, 2023
Web3 Amplified: New Models for Fan Engagement
Watch this: Lori H. Schwartz in Conversation With Stephanie Pereira
TL;DR
Decentralization is a hallmark of Web3. Individuals, not companies, will own their own data and digital goods.
Web3 offers many opportunities for creators and brands to engage with their audiences and track fandom.
POAP tokens and play-to-earn models are practical ways to reward highly engaged fans with exclusive content or other perks.
In this episode of Web3 Amplified, Lori H. Schwartz chats with Stephanie Pereira about creating new models for fan engagement. They also discuss how the blockchain will change users’ experience of digital ownership and creators’ ability to monetize their content.
Pereira is vice president of operations at Tellie, which offers a no-code Web3 starter kit including tools for funding, community building, and storytelling. Before joining Tellie, Pereira was vice president of creator success at Rally, a Web3 resource for minting tokens and NFTs.
Beyond her Web3 experience, Pereira was director of New Museum’s NEW INC, where she co-founded extended reality studio and accelerator, ONX Studio; and was an early hire at Kickstarter, heading up creator outreach, international partnerships, and creator education.
Tellie’s Role in the Web3 Transition
At Tellie, ‟We think that people deserve to capture the value they’re creating,” Pereira explains.
However, she notes that the ‟current system,” which is centered on third-party platforms, such as TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, offers ‟incredibly exciting and powerful” opportunities for creators to have huge followings. But there’s a hitch: Web2’s social media companies don’t allow creators to own or control their audiences, which affects their bottom line.
‟I think the future of the creator economy hinges on responding to that problem,” Pereira says.
Tellie seeks to contribute to that solution via its toolkit, which creates both Web2 and Web3 websites. It utilizes ‟the traditional Web2 [tech] stack” and includes ‟easy copy+paste embed tools” to feature ‟any kind of content” online. But because it’s built on the blockchain — Tellie currently supports Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche (C-Chain), and Binance Smart Chain token — users ‟can mint and sell NFTs, and then you can also create token gated content or content that’s accessible only to people who either hold your NFT or social token,” Pereira explains.
What’s Different in Web3
‟I think that Web3 feels like a way to… shift paradigm and shift the narrative,” Pereira says.
One major feature of Web3 is decentralization.
In a Web2 internet, ‟your identity is really, truly spread across the web. Right? It might [be] on a number of social platforms [or] it might live within specific media content… that you create.” However, in Web3, creators host their content on the blockchain, which means their creations are ‟distributed and programmable” rather than tied to one website or platform.
In Web3, Pereira says, ‟Anywhere that you can connect a blockchain wallet, you can create access and opportunity for people.”
Blockchain Wallets
‟The wallet is critical” for Web3, Pereira says. (So understanding how it works is too.)
Today, in 2023, ‟You go to YouTube, you log in, and that’s how you sort of open the door to all the videos that you’ve watched, all the likes that you’ve done, like, all the subs that you have, all the comments that you’ve left,” Pereira says. ‟They’re all sort of accessed through that login.”
Web3 flips that script on its head. In the future, users will own their own data (what they’ve watched, liked, subscribed to and shared) and store that information in their wallet. So a hypothetical future visit to YouTube would require not a login but connecting your wallet, and that temporary access to your information will be how YouTube’s algorithm will decide which videos to show you.
In the interim, some companies are utilizing a custodial wallet model, which enables people to purchase NFTs or acquire POAPs without having their own wallet and learning a lot about crypto.
This is ideal for creators, Pereira says, because ‟[t]hey just need to sell the digital good, and then if the fan decides to take advantage of the blockchain aspects of the good they can, but they don’t have to if they don’t wish.”
POAPs
Here’s another term to know: POAP, which refers to a proof of participation token. These tokens can be used to unlock or access certain content or even real world merchandise.
A POAP might act like ‟a 21st century business card,” representing a person’s identity. It could be given out when you meet someone, Pereira suggests. And because you’ve collected this POAP and proven you have a relationship with this creator, you may be able to see content that’s gated or purchase a product that otherwise wouldn’t be available.
This is another instance of how Web3 is different. Pereira explains, ‟the relationships live between people rather than people intermediated by platforms.”
Play to Earn
‟The POAP idea is very closely related to an idea of play to earn.” Essentially, the more you engaged with a brand or a creator, you would start to ‟acquire tokens that represent your investment of time or what you’ve unlocked or specific activities.” This may or may not have an aspect that is gamified.
‟It’s actually a really, a powerful way to track fan participation and reward people for deeper engagement in a ecosystem,” Pereira says.
Pereira and Schwartz noted that the ‟Taylor Swift debacle” could have been avoided or at least mitigated with a more robust fan loyalty reward system.
‟I think the other really powerful use case [for play to earn] is around digital goods,” Pereira says.
Remember, ‟Things that you acquire in the metaverse can be bought and sold peer-to-peer rather than just directly platform to platform, and then also can live outside of that platform.”
Pereira notes that the ability to truly own your digital goods ‟really changes the narrative, this sort of closed-loop narrative that exists around gaming.”
But what happens when you do choose to move that digital object from Roblox to… Minecraft?
‟On the blockchain, the data is universal” and ‟universally acceptable,” Pereira explains. However, ‟how that data is rendered or treated is different” depending on the environment. The data, the input is constant, but how it’s interpreted varies.
To explain, Pereira uses the example of emoji. ‟Emoji are universally understood bits of data. But as we know, if you go on Twitter, your emoji looks very different than in your Gmail inbox. And that’s just because how they render that data looks different.”
Does Web3 offer the promise of a truly decentralized internet, or is it just another way for Big Tech to maintain its stranglehold on our personal data? Hand-picked from the NAB Amplify archives, here are the expert insights you need to understand Web3’s potential and stay ahead of the curve on the information superhighway:
Lori H. Schwartz continues our Web3 Amplified series, this time in conversation with Barbara Marshall. They dive into the technology that creatives will need in order to make the metaverse possible,
January 9, 2023
Posted
January 1, 2023
After Tests and Improvements, 5G Network Slicing Opens Up to Broadcasters
TL;DR
Network slicing is a capability of the 5G standard which is being tested and gradually rolled out. It enables operators to carve up their 5G network into slices that can be finely tuned to suit the needs of many customers.
5G Network slicing revenues will grow over 100 times by 2029 to reach more than $16 billion in revenue that that would otherwise not be generated.
Telstra, Ericsson and Qualcomm achieve new download speed benchmark of 7.3Gbps.
There are signs that operators will commercialize 5G network slicing over the next two years, finds the new 2022 “5G Network Slicing Operator Survey” from consultancy Heavy Reading. The emphasis initially will be on enterprise services, but broadcasters are also eager to use the technology to improve coverage of live events.
Network slicing is a mechanism to isolate a segment of the 5G network end to end in a local area for the specific requirements of a customer.
Rethink Technology Research predicts that network slicing will add revenues of $16.1 billion by 2029 over above what 5G infrastructures would have earned otherwise.
Its report further identified manufacturing as likely to generate the biggest slice of network slicing revenues by 2029 at 19% of the total, with energy/utilities and healthcare joint second on 15% each and M&E media/entertainment on 7%.
Yet “the surge” in revenues will not really begin until 2024 when there is substantial base of 5G Standalone infrastructure to build on.
Standalone (SA) represents the full 5G infrastructure including RAN (Radio Access Network) and Core, which is essential to unleash the full capability of network slices to enable differentiated services catering for multiple user groups and applications sharing the same physical network,” explains Rethink.
Broadcasters are keen to use 5G slicing to augment coverage and reduce the costs of outside broadcasts such as sports matches, mass public celebrations or news gathering. By their nature these are congested areas in which wireless bandwidth is in short supply and for which the only option until now has been expensive uplink by satellite.
Tests over the past couple of years among broadcasters and telco operators appear to confirm that the technology is on the verge of being viable for practical use.
TBS regional chief Karen Clark said the tests clearly demonstrated the effectiveness of 5G slicing for uplink of live, premium video feeds “to produce high bandwidth, low latency television from a congested venue, without the need for traditional wired infrastructure.”
Paramount (Australia and New Zealand) also partnered on the project. Its VP of technology, Dean Wadsworth, claimed the success of the trial “demonstrates that coverage of live events can be enriched with reliable links from roving crews, which can be more cost-effective.”
All parties point to exploring further opportunities in the near future.
Yet such event-based scenarios are deemed the lowest priority among telcos, as reflected in a Heavy Reading survey conducted last summer. Principal analyst Gabriel Brown suggests this may reflect the challenges with addressing demand that is short term/transient in nature with a relatively immature technology stack.
“Short term, network slice instances will have greater requirements on automation. Perhaps as slice management technology matures, this use case will rise higher on operator priority lists.”
A survey of staffers at telcos (or communications service providers) by Heavy Reading earlier this year found that the industry had a job to do to educate potential customers about the benefits of the tech.
Less than a third of respondents said “most customers understand the concept and see value in it,” which implies that two-thirds did not.
“Operators, and their vendor partners, will need to invest in customer education to demonstrate the value of network slicing,” advised Brown.
As an aside, Telstra and Ericsson partnering with Qualcomm Technologies just recorded a new 5G download peak speed benchmark of 7.3Gbps achieved at a Telstra live mobile site located at the Gold Coast, Queensland Australia.
This improved peak speed capability further will help Telstra to deliver network slicing. By adding improved peak speeds and capacity, Telstra says it can deliver more capable network slices to more customers.
Network slicing could potentially be used to reduce, control and uplift the video performance of major streaming services like Netflix and Google.
As Heavy Reading’s Brown explains, most of the traffic on broadband networks is generated by customer demand for services from OTT. Approximately 56% of global network traffic is generated by six companies, according to Sandvine.
“In mobile networks, it is logical to consider how network slicing may be able to improve the performance, efficiency, and user experience of the most in-demand services or enable new service experiences offered by these types of providers (e.g., virtual reality gaming, metaverse meetings, or similar).
“This is, however, a thorny topic, given issues related to net neutrality and because, in some markets, some telecoms are actively lobbying regulators to levy charges on OTT internet companies to carry traffic.”
Asked if they anticipate working with internet companies “to use network slices to deliver and monetize high volume OTT services,” Heavy Reading’s survey revealed that 40% of respondents say their company plans to do this, ahead of a more equivocal 31% that may do so, depending on the business case.
“Presumably, the thinking is that network slicing will provide a capability that improves the service, and the operator can somehow charge the OTT provider for this or monetize the customer via a revenue share,” surmises Brown. “In this analysis, it is tempting to ascribe this 40% result to wishful thinking by telecom respondents.
“An alternative analysis, therefore, is to be aware that what is normal in terms of telco and OTT working relationships today will not necessarily stay that way.”
As application performance requirements become more stringent, and as customer expectations increase and new services emerge, there will be a need to rethink and re-architect how telcos and internet companies interact. In mobile networks, 5G network slicing will potentially allow a closer working relationship that benefits customers.
6G may already be on the horizon, but there’s still a lot to understand about the benefits — and limitations — of 5G, which is rolling out across the US but has yet to reach peak saturation. Dive into these selections from the NAB Amplify archives to learn what, exactly, 5G is, how it differs from 4G, and — most importantly — how 5G will bolster the Media & Entertainment industry on the road ahead:
5G is set to generate $7 trillion in economic value by 2030, InterDigital reports, as it fuels a proliferation of connected devices.
January 12, 2023
Posted
January 1, 2023
What’s Slowing 6G Development? (Oh, Only Global Geopolitical Instability)
TL;DR
With the next generation of mobile technology always on the horizon, the telecom industry made moves last year to prepare for the arrival of 6G.
While 6G isn’t expected to hit the commercial market until roughly 2030, the race to get there has already been marked with billions of dollars in investments
There is a widening split along US-China lines that threatens international collaboration to set standards for 6G, worrying some analysts that the West will ultimately lose any East-West tech war
It may only be five years before the telecom industry ushers in the successor generation to 5G, but whether 6G ends up being a transformational technology, just an upgrade on 5G or even a thing – remains to a mystery.
According to Light Reading, which has been tracking developments, the industry is still trying to justify the investment in and hype around 5G, which has arguably found a more successful use case in fixed wireless access (FWA) than mobile so far, driven in part by the rush to home broadband during the COVID-19 pandemic.
There are also doubts creeping in among governments and the investment community about whether another ‘G’ is worth it. The arrival of a new mobile standard every decade or so is meant to be a stimulant to investment and to galvanize consumers to upgrade but fatigue may be setting in.
“The 5G experience has been a long-overdue wake-up call,” writes Iain Morris, LR’s International Editor. “It began with the usual publicity frenzy about new revenue-generating service opportunities (remember self-driving cars and robot surgeons?), few of which have materialized.
“Politicians joined in, telling voters 5G was an economic game-changer. Somewhere in this process, the realization struck that 5G was basically 4G on caffeine – a bit faster, a bit more cost-efficient, but (despite all the money spent) no great cause for excitement.”
Geopolitics is huge worry. Efforts to cut Huawei off from Western supply chains risk a fragmentation of the global standard, meaning there would not be a 6G but multiple 5G successors. China has responded by all but cutting out Ericsson and Nokia in the country.
Börje Ekholm, Ericsson’s CEO, admitted concern during an interview last year. “If the tech world is fragmented East and West then it is going to mean competition between two ecosystems,” he told Light Reading.
At the beginning of 2022, a Chinese research team achieved a breakthrough with an impressive peak wireless speed of 206 Gbit/s in the Terahertz band, expected to be one of the core spectrum bands for 6G.
The little-known Zijinshan Laboratory in Nanjing ran the test, backed by China Mobile and several other labs. “This only goes to remind us that the once obscure world of wireless lab trials is now a big deal in China,” says Light Reading contributing editor Robert Clark.
“6G is one of the half a dozen strategic technologies in which China has declared its ambitions to be a, if not the, world leader.”
China later condemned the US for forming “a small clique of allies in a frantic attempt to exclude and suppress China” from 6G development.
Specifically, it called out the Next G Alliance, the grouping of US carriers and big vendors including Qualcomm, Ericsson and Samsung. In March, the Alliance released a white paper that laid out its goals for the development of 6G.
“This is how we will define leadership in North America,” explained Susan Miller, CEO of ATIS, the trade association backing the effort in a Light Reading editorial. “The intent is to develop that leadership.”
The paper presents six “audacious” goals covering future global standards, deployments, products, operations and services in 6G. The alliance is attempting to address the development of the technology early, not only from a technological point of view but also from a regulatory, societal, environmental and geopolitical perspective.
But global standards body the ITU met last June in what is increasingly seen as a vain hope to benchmark a new international standard. Instead the tensions between China, has given weight to the concept of the splinternet – exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – wherein core tenets of a shared and interoperable Internet are no longer available around the world. Indeed, some major names in the US financial sector are already planning for a future that is trending away from globalization rather than toward it.
None of this is stopping companies from pouring billions into 6G investment in the hope that their patents will become part of a 6G standard. According to Mike Dano, European, American and Chinese companies are working furiously to patent technologies that could find their way into a 6G standard.
“Yes, there are 6G patents that have been issued and many more are pending in patent offices around the world,” Ed Fish, co-founder and managing director of patent-monitoring firm Tech+IP Capital, wrote in response to questions from Light Reading. “Some articles have spoken about Chinese companies having 35-40% of the 6G patents, but this is still very early days.”
Interestingly, some analysts suggest China should make a play for Korea as a partner (in 6G and other technologies) by slashing entry barriers for Korean business and investors and forming various kinds of collaborations. South Korea ‘won’ the race to 5G and is intent on launching 6G perhaps as early as 2028.
Japan also aims to lead the 6G race. In June, Japanese telco NTT Docomo announced 6G trials with Nokia and local vendors NEC and Fujitsu – the first such announcement by a major telco. NTT said it would begin indoor trials before March 2023 and outdoor trials over the following year.
“If they did fall behind China technologically, the countries buying the West’s less capable 6G might also fall behind economically,” says Iain Morris. “Selling products and services to countries that feel no loyalty toward either China or the US would be harder. Parts of Africa and Latin America would be major battlegrounds. But before any of that, the industry should probably work out if 6G is worth bothering with at all.”
Predicted use cases for 6G include sensing, deep learning and digital twinning technologies that will enable autonomous driving, robotics and the industrial metaverse, among other possibilities, according to industry experts.
‘Sensing’ is the idea of a haptics or multisensory interface with the internet and includes visions of brain-computer interfaces. Ericsson and the University of Surrey have notions of providing connectivity for the senses of taste, touch and smell.
“Whether far-fetched or realistic, much of this strays outside the boundaries of telecom,” says Light Reading in its wrap on the topic in December. “The industry struggles to imagine how networks can be improved other than by speeding them up, adding capacity, cutting latency, boosting energy efficiency and making them more autonomous – all of which is happening, to some degree, in 5G.
“It probably goes without saying that 6G will incorporate more virtualization and openness than 5G, allowing operators to run their radio systems in the cloud and build true multivendor networks. Operationally important? Possibly. A game-changer? Most certainly not.”
6G may already be on the horizon, but there’s still a lot to understand about the benefits — and limitations — of 5G, which is rolling out across the US but has yet to reach peak saturation. Dive into these selections from the NAB Amplify archives to learn what, exactly, 5G is, how it differs from 4G, and — most importantly — how 5G will bolster the Media & Entertainment industry on the road ahead:
Already progressing from early to mass adoption, 5G is enabling the transition from immersive services to metaverse experiences.
January 25, 2023
Posted
January 1, 2023
It’s All About the Video: 5G in 2023 (and 2028)
TL;DR
Ericsson predicts 91% of the North American market will have adopted 5G by 2028.
The company is betting that mobile subscriptions have started to level off, betting that the next six years will only add 800 million new subscriptions.
Advances in mobile technologies could quintuple data used by 2028.
