If your New Year’s resolution is to watch more Canadian films, Telefilm has you covered.
Their See It All website will help you discover Canadian movies, new (2023) and old (1973).
You can search the database of over 3,400 by title, by new releases and by streaming platforms.
My take: I wish we could search by director or cast members too!
Jason Hellerman writes on No Film School that I Got My Black List Script Rated By AI … And This Is What It Scored.
Jason says, “An AI-driven program called Greenlight Coverage gives instant feedback on your script. You just upload it, and the AI software spits coverage back to you. It rates different parts of the script on a scale from 1-10 and then gives a synopsis, positive comments, and notes on what would make it better. The program even creates a cast list and movie comps, allowing you to have an AI question-and-answer session to ask specific questions about the script.”
His script Himbo that was on The Black List in 2022 and rated incredibly high by ScriptShadow scored 6/10 on Greenlight Coverage.
He concludes:
“The truth is, I could see a read like this coming from a human being. Is it the best coverage? No. But as someone who has tested many services out there, I felt it gave better coverage than some paid sites, which are hit-and-miss depending on the person who reads your script. I look at AI as a tool that some writers may decide to use. I was happy I tried this tool, and I honestly was surprised by the feedback of the coverage.”
My take: I also participated in the beta test of Greenlight Coverage and asked the creator Jack Zhang the following questions via email.
Michael Korican: For folks used to buying coverage for their scripts, what are the main features of Greenlight Coverage that set it apart?
Jack Zhang: The speed, accuracy, consistency as well as reliability. Also the ability to ask follow up questions that can provide guidance on how to pitch to investors and financiers, all the way to how to further develop certain characters. In the future, we will also include data from Greenlight Essentials.MK: Writers sometimes wait weeks if not longer for coverage. How fast is Greenlight Coverage?
JZ: 15 mins to 2 hours when they first upload their screenplay, depending on their subscribed package. The follow up questions are answered instantly.MK: In your testing of Greenlight Coverage, how have produced Hollywood scripts rated?
JZ: It’s a mixed bag; the universally critically acclaimed ones usually get a very high score 8.5 to 9+, like The Godfather, Shawshank, etc. The bad ones like The Room got 3/10. It really depends on the screenplay and the film.MK: Greenlight Coverage uses a neural network expert system; the coverage section is highly structured whereas the question section is open-ended. How is this done and what LLM does Greenlight Coverage use?
JZ: We are using large language models to power our back end and it is not one, but a few different ones as well as our proprietary model that was fine tuned based on industry veteran feedback.MK: Why should those folks who hate AI give Greenlight Coverage a try for free?
JZ: I totally see where they are coming from and personally I also agree that in such a creative industry, the human touch is 100% needed. This is just a tool to help give quick feedback and an unbiased opinion on the screenplay. It is useful as another input to the script, but not the end all and be all for it.
btw, not to brag but Greenlight Coverage gave my latest script, The Guerrilla Gardeners, 8/10. Wanna produce it?
Jason Hellerman reports on No Film School that Netflix Releases All Its Streaming Data for the First Time Ever.
He points out that this is a huge story because the “notoriously secretive Netflix has published all its streaming numbers for the public to see” for the first time.
Netflix will publish the What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report twice a year.
The report has four columns:
Some takeaways:
Here’s the Netflix media release.
Here’s their six-month 18,000+ row spreadsheet.
My take: the industry has always wanted more transparency from Netflix and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this report comes on the heels on the writer and actor strikes. I would love to see someone take this information and cross-reference it with genres, formats and actors. Will other streamers follow with their data?
Rosie Hilder writes on Creative Bloq all about How Oliver Murray made the 12-minute Now and Then, Last Beatles Song documentary.
Oliver Murray says,
“First of all, the most important thing for me was that it felt fresh and contemporary, so we started out by recording new audio interviews with the surviving members of the band, Sean Ono Lennon and Peter Jackson. It was important to record only audio because that’s my favourite way of getting intimate and conversational interview content.”
He adds,
“I took these interviews into the edit and made a kind of podcast cut of the story, which became our foundation for the timeline…. Interviews are always a big part of my process, and are where I start because more often than not the answers that you get to questions lead you somewhere you didn’t expect and change the course of the project, so I like to do those early. It’s always useful to start with audio because it’s also the most malleable and it’s possible to go back for pick up interviews. Archive footage or access (with a camera) to the people you’re talking to actually doing what they’re talking about is much harder to acquire.”
Rosie asks him, “What is your favourite part of the finished film?”
Oliver replies: The emotional climax of the film is definitely the moment where we get to hear John’s isolated vocal for the first time. It’s quite an emotional moment to hear him emerge from that scratchy demo.
My take: this confirms that sound is more important than picture, to me. I think it would have been nice to have the dates displayed on each film clip used because there are a lot, and they bounce around in time, from now and then.
Brian Hallett writing on ProVideo Coalition, was one of the first to report on The Brand New KODAK Super 8mm Film Camera.
Yes, this camera films on those boxy Super 8 cartridges, but it does so much more:
Here’s the full datasheet. And here’s their sizzle reel:
Curiously, Kodak first announced this camera in January 2016 at CES for “between $400 and $750.”
Funny, both the released camera and the prototype look an awful lot like the Logmar Humboldt S8.
Logmar’s next Super 8 camera, the Chatham S8, had a superior Latham loop mechanism that resulted in rock-steady registration, never seen before on Super 8. Check out this sample that actually looks like 16 mm footage:
Logmar’s latest C-mount Super 8 camera is the Gentoo GS8 that “uses standard Kodak 50 ft cartridges in combination with a re-usable spacer providing true pin registration.”
Oh, and by the way, the MSRP of Kodak’s “new” Super 8 camera is only $5,495 USD. That does include one cartridge of Super 8 film. No word on if that includes processing though.
My take: [shakes head] Kodak, Kodak, Kodak. You’re just trying to get this project off your books, right?
Ryan Morrison of Tom’s Guide, reveals I asked ChatGPT to create a Hallmark Christmas movie — and it went better than expected.
He begins:
“Part of my job is testing AI products to find out how well they work, what they can be used for and just how good they are at different tasks. So, inspired by my mom’s favorite genre of movie I decided to ask ChatGPT to write a Christmas story in the style of Hallmark.”
His ChatGPT 4 prompt? “Can you help me come up with the plot for a Hallmark-style Christmas movie?”
The resulting basic plot? “In ‘Christmas Carousel’, a New York architect discovers love and the value of tradition when she teams up with a local carousel restorer to save a cherished holiday attraction in a small town.”
There’s a more detailed plot, characters and even dialogue.
The AI even suggests filming in Cold Spring, New York State.
Oops! There is a real 2020 Hallmark movie called “A Christmas Carousel” with this plot: “When Lila is hired by the Royal Family of Ancadia to repair a carousel, she must work with the Prince to complete it by Christmas.”
My take: even though it appears ChatGPT 4 came extremely close to ripping off the title of an existing Hallmark movie, I like its plot better than the real one. Go figure.
Sarah Fielding of Engadget reports that YouTube’s first AI-generated music tools can clone artist voices and turn hums into melodies.
The YouTube technology is called Dream Track for Shorts.
The mock-up asks you for a text prompt and then writes lyrics, music and has a voice-cloned artist sing:
YouTube is also testing Music AI Tools:
This is all possible due to Google DeepMind’s Lyria, their most advanced AI music generation model to date.
Cleo Abram also explains the real issue with AI music: When do artists get paid?
My take: AI is just a tool — I use it occasionally and will be exploring it more in 2024. What we as a society really need to figure out is what everyone’s going to do, and how they’ll get (not earn) enough money to live, when AI and Robotics make paid work redundant.
Apple‘s October 30, 2023 Event closed with this end credit: “This event was shot on iPhone and edited on Mac.”
That would be filmed using the iPhone 15 Pro Max with the free Blackmagic Camera App and Apple Log. Plus edited in Premier Pro and then graded and finalized in Davinci Resolve.
michael tobin adds further insight and commentary:
My take: Of course, now Apple has to film everything they do like this!
The Beatles have just released their last single, Now and Then.
It appears as a free VEVO music video as well as these for-purchase products: various versions of vinyl and cassette.
“Now and Then” was a demo John Lennon recorded in The Dakota in the late 1970’s. The main reason it’s The Beatles’ last single is because until now it was too hard to separate John’s vocals from the piano notes. Technology to the rescue:
Want to know more? Check out this Parlogram documentary.
My take: I like this video most when it starts incorporating images from “Then” with footage from “Now” viz. 1:47, 1:55, etc. I would have liked to have seen much more of this technique used. This is truly the visualization of Now and Then — show us more!
Unfortunately, I’m not overly enamoured with the song itself; I find it middling and melancholic. I also don’t like:
As to “last singles” — I think they should give this treatment the last song the Beatles actually recorded together: The End. Although, after 60 years, perhaps it’s just time to move on.
Telefilm Canada has release two annual reports: Full Screen 2022-2023 Annual Report and PROGRAM RESULTS FROM SELF-IDENTIFICATION DATA COLLECTION Fiscal 2022-2023 – First Edition.
Some highlights:
“We guide filmmakers every step of the way: from training and mentoring at the beginning of their journey, to supporting them in development and production, from helping them promote their projects to partners and digital platforms, to supporting them in theatrical and festival releases.”
From the 2022-2023 self-identification data report:
My take: there’s lots to celebrate in these reports. I just wish we could see more Canadian films on cinema screens in Canada.