Category Archives: Cool Tech

Bot storytellers coming soon.

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Benjamin Hoguet on CMF Trends wonders ‘How can chatbots be used to tell stories?‘

Chatbots, or bots, give the impression of a personalized online experience. Interacting with a bot replicates a real world one-on-one exchange, depending on the quality of the AI programming. Just ask Siri, the most famous bot, “How many Apple Store geniuses does it take to screw in a lightbulb?’ or ‘Is Santa real?’ or ‘Tell me a story.”

According to Hoguet:

“It’s the democratization of chatbots that is revolutionary because today anyone can create his or her own chatbot and upload it to a Facebook page, for example.”

He recommends two tools, ChatFuel or PullString.

“‘Narrative chatbots’ are only just beginning to appear. A lot of them set themselves apart only by their capacity to show us what not to do, but that’s the advantage of pioneering projects: to help develop codes and a grammar for those who will follow in their footsteps. Conversing with fictional characters is today’s predominant use of narrative bots.”

Hoguet envisions “the eventual arrival of bot stores. Just like app stores, they will definitely contribute to elevating chatbots to the level of full-fledged distribution platforms.”

My take: this is worth noticing because the top four messaging apps (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and Viber) have surpassed the top four social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram) in monthly users, according to Business Insider UK. For instance, imagine if Tom Thomson’s tweets were a (messenger) dialogue rather than a (Twitter) broadcast.

VR stats from England

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Charlotte Rogers of Marketing Week in the UK has reported a raft of VR statistics that are very interesting.

Very nice graphs show:

  • Consumer Sentiments on Virtual Reality
  • What Experiences Would You Like to Have When Using Virtual Reality?
  • What Sorts of Places Would You Like to Get Virtuality Reality Content Related to Your Interests From?

In terms of winning content, the survey points to new, unique experiences as being the most diserable:

“The ability to travel to different cities proves the most popular VR application at 56%, followed by being in the crowd at a concert (52%) and fantasy scenarios, such as flying or walking on water (45%).”

See the original Ipsos MORI media release and raw data.

My take: I just don’t know. Is VR/360 a technology in search of it’s killer app? Or — ? I can’t help but remember the trailer for The Matrix — I think we’ve seen this movie before.

The state of VR to date, in one page

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Janessa Nichole White of VR Dribble offers the best summary of Virtual Reality to date.

She summarizes:

  • VR revenue projections
  • VR market demographics
  • VR hardware sales
  • Content that doesn’t work in VR
  • Content that works in VR
  • VR gadgets
  • Privacy and data tracking in VR

Regarding content that works in VR, she lists:

  • Stationary and interactive puzzle games
  • Horror
  • On-rails vehicle
  • Using 1-to-1 motion controls
  • Using head as a cursor
  • Teleporting from place-to-place
  • Travel and music experiences
  • Social engagement
  • 1st person story segments

She closes with:

“The vernacular hasn’t been created. There are many obstacles in building a VR game or story. The hardware still has room to improve. Despite all of the above, it sure is an exciting time to be alive.”

My take: if you think 360 is just a fad, check out Say Lou Lou‘s Blue on Blue music video for a perfect example of the plasticity of cinema — in four dimensions. It will blow your mind.

 

360 is not VR, but still cool

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VR. 360. The next big thing? The same thing?

No, they’re quite different. Blame Apple’s Quicktime VR for mixing up the two. (Released in 1994, QTVR was essentially a single frame from any of today’s 360 videos, not truly a virtual reality environment.)

Raindance‘s Baptiste Charles-Aubert makes a pointed distinction: ‘360 is immersive as opposed to VR which is interactive‘:

“In a Virtual Reality setting, the viewer/player leads. With 360, as filmmakers, we need to keep control over the narrative and push it forward. That’s what happens with 360. The viewer is experiencing a story happening around him and not to him. The physical location then matters even more in 360.”

One neat example of 360 documentary filmmaking is a series of Paul McCartney ‘interviews’ by Jaunt.

Their 360 technology is impressive, with no discernible ‘stitching‘.

My take: If the selfie is the painted self-portrait digitized, what is the equivalent documentary or narrative film? Will it utilize VR or 360? Or are those technologies reserved for something else? The modern, introspective equivalent of album liner notes, perhaps?

A film festival for every film

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With something like over 3,000 active film festivals around the world, there’s a film festival for every type of film.

And now, there’s even one dedicated to drone filming: FRiFF.

Filmmakers looking for validation from juries can search for suitable festivals on Withoutabox or FilmFreeway.

Just be sure festival exposure is a component of your overall distribution and marketing strategy.

My take: that’s it — I’m going to start my own film festival. Coming to cyberspace soon! Even if Robert Redford once said there are too many film festivals….

Lytro reveals revolutionary studio camera

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Although you’ll never be able to afford one, Lytro introduced its Lytro Cinema Camera at NAB on April 19, 2016.

This is a huge studio camera with a foot-and-a-half-wide lens tethered to its own server farm. It captures “755 RAW Megapixels” at 300 fps in up to 16 stops of dynamic range.

That’s about 15 times more resolution than a full-frame DSLR at 50MP.

It doesn’t actually record images though. It captures the “light field” — the lightscape of reflected light rays in front of the lens. Behind the front lens, an array of microlenses allows Lytro to “capture a light field, compute the ray angles and then replicate that light field in a virtual space.”

In other words, this camera captures a virtual hologram of the scene in front of it.

With this computational model, Lytro can, after capture, i.e. “in post”:

  • refocus and change depth of field
  • adjust frame rate and shutter angle
  • pull a key based on depth and not green screen
  • stabilize camera movement based on actual movement in space
  • natively create 3D footage from one shot
  • as a DI, output optimal deliverables for any format

Watch the No Film School interview and video.

My take: With its Cinema Camera, Lytro has displaced image capture with lightscape hologram capture. If I was a Hollywood producer, I’d use this camera on 3D shoots and to simplify keys for composite work. And — to fix those pesky out-of-focus shots. But wait! There’s more! They’re also promising a Light Field VR Camera called Lytro Immerge.

Kodak announces a new Super 8 camera

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At CES 2016 in Las Vegas last week, Kodak stunned the world by announcing it is making a new Super 8 camera for release this fall.

After emerging from bankruptcy two years ago, Kodak decided to go all in on film, even though film represents only 10% of its business.

Hollywood filmmakers, many who grew up shooting Super 8, convinced Kodak to bring back the narrow-gauge format.

Kodak believes Super 8 can join the Maker Movement and ride the analogue trend.

Check out the camera specs.

My take: I’m also one of the filmmakers who got their start shooting Super 8. I have two concerns with Kodak’s new camera. While the viewfinder and SD card are appreciated, what were they thinking with the microphone? Super 8 cameras are typically noisy! My other concern is with the jitter inherent in Super 8. Logmar of Denmark has solved this — but their camera costs ten times as much. What I do think is brilliant is Kodak getting back into the film processing business and combining it with film scanning. That combination is the real news here and could make more people consider shooting on Super 8. But only if your pockets are very deep or your shot list is (super) short.

The Most Technologically Advanced Book Ever Published

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Chuck Salter writes in FastCoDesign about a publishing company that continues to innovate in the personal book field.

First came ‘The Girl Who Lost Her Name’ and ‘The Boy Who Lost His Name’. Now comes ‘The Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home’.

“This time, a lost boy or girl navigates his or her way from outer space back home. Spoiler alert: to the reader’s actual home. The wayward space ship swoops into his or her city and arrives in the child’s neighborhood. The image, the book’s big reveal, incorporates the corresponding satellite photos. That degree of personalization required even more algorithms and developers than Lost My Name’s first book, along with help from NASA, Microsoft, satellite makers, and other unlikely children’s book partners.”

The creators are Lost My Name of East London. What a wondrous book and a steal at $30.

My take: I love this concept and the marvellous execution! (The new book does remind me slightly of Arcade Fire‘s Chrome Experiment, The Wilderness Downtown, which may or may not be still working.) Now imagine this in the video realm. I see no reason, with the state of CGI, digital production and online streaming, that my likeness could not be inserted into productions and animated, for my entertainment only. Maybe not in real-time initially and probably not voice. But imagine your own channel on Netflix, starring or co-starring you! That might be fun.

To 4K or not to 4K

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Near the beginning of your indie film project, you need to determine the video format you will be shooting.

Will it be 4K, or 2K, or — gasp — even 1080p?

This chart shows those display resolutions and many more.

More and more cameras shoot 4K so why even debate it?

There are some very good reasons not to shoot in 4K. Mentorless has three:

“#1 – Nobody Can Tell the Difference
#2 – It Will Stretch Your Budget And Take More Time
#3 – The Delivery Side Can’t Hold Its Part of the Contract (Yet)”

On the other hand, the main reasons touted to shoot in 4K are to allow for digital cropping, stabilization and zooming in post-production and to ‘future-proof’ your production, in anticipation of the day when everyone has 4K TVs and no caps on their Internet data.

My take: I like to shoot fast, so I’m partial to smaller form factors; 1080p is fine for me, for now. But the new DJI Osmo really caught my eye. The 4K footage is amazing and incredibly smooth for such a small camera.

Strides in VR filmmaking

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Discovery has launched a new project: Discovery VR.

Although there are only 10 VR videos on the site right now, you can control each of them for a full 360 degrees with your mouse.

There’s diving with sharks, skateboarding in San Francisco and a surfing lesson.

I found that changing the control setting to Mouse Grab from the default Mouse Movement gave me more natural movement.

In addition to the website, there’s an app for iPhones and Android devices. Create a VR headset with Google Cardboard or Samsung Gear VR.

The company behind the magic is Littlstar.

My take: I remember the initial release of QuickTime VR in 1994 which gave me my first glimpses of ‘virtual reality’. GameSpot has an interesting history of VR. I think the application to narrative film will be fascinating. For instance, see Intimate Strangers : Chapter 1 — camera placement and mise en scene become very important. I like the way the ‘dream’ is projected onto the ceiling above the woman. A tip for VR directors, place the camera just to one side of the ‘line’ and let the viewer pan from one actor to the other and back.