#Datawood & Tyler Perry
Extra Doubts Fire
#Datawood (data and code made film) - actually could be a beautiful new beginning partnership I believe.
Creator Tyler Perry made big waves in Variety Thursday, saying what we know, and may not be ready or want to say: "Is #AI a threat to Film Business?" ("If not, I just don’t see how we survive.”)
Perry is in the process of building his new USD800m production studio which would include a new backlot, 12 new sound-stages, all the equipment, obligations, many people and lives, budgets and expected natural headaches and unexpected costs.
His stated reason was that he had viewed creations from #Sora, OpenAI's text to video generation engine. It made him pause because of his artistic observation of what is essentially being done through data + code without the need for so much physical, geography, payroll, design, sets, on and on.
Having myself worked in supporting Legal roles with several leading film companies as an attorney, I can say that most of us outside of the movie business have no idea at all - all that goes into filmmaking. I didn't before that.
We see it on the finished screen, and think mostly just that someone dressed up actors and filmed it.
We don't learn about the unending (seemingly impossible) stress and work that goes into the beautiful works of art on film which literally move our hearts and transform our thought and often our very lives. We don't know the cost.
Each completed movie is a miracle.
We don't know about funding and producing, bonding and bonding requirements, union restrictions, location requirements, weather delays, insurance obligations and obligations, tax credit requirements, cost of the film alone (and today more so the digital equipment) and most have no concept of editing and post-production. And I haven't even mentioned marketing film sales rights distribution et al.
I was an extra in the movie Mrs. Doubtfire, think it was in 1993. A friend who I had
made on set (I was in the pool scene) thought it would be "fun" (since we were not being filmed that day and were "on hold") to put on our non swim clothes and go sit instead at a table in background of the "restaurant scene" which was being filmed that day.
[Anyone in film blood pressure rising right now just reading that.]
And so, we did. After about three takes, people with headphones and other equipment were talking to the people operating the camera. There was a buzz and a delay. Then they started pointing our way repeatedly and almost arguing.
We got scared when one very frustrated-looking (actually very quite angry) PA walked right at us over to where my "clever" friend and I were sitting.
With a clipboard in his hands, and headphones or something half-off his head, he demanded, "Are you (name)? Are you (name)?"
He was angry. When he found out who we were he shouted, "Yeah" back at the camera and related mini-crowd there.
A guy by the camera, and the PA were very upset along the lines of:
"Are you an IDIOT?!" (was at that moment)
"WHO TOLD YOU TO GO THERE???" ('No one, we just wanted to.')
"Do you know ANYTHING AT ALL about CONTINUITY???!!!" (didn’t)
"DO YOU KNOW THIS FILM COSTS 100 THOUSAND A REEL???!!!" (didn’t and wow)
"W ARE YOU DOING?" (didn’t realize)
We got (rightly) balled out in front people on set including my fellow extras.
I was grateful to not be taken off the film set immediately and arrested. I was amazed to not have been fired. We were told to “get the hell out of the scene and back to our place.” The only thing which saved me and my “friend” (it WAS his idea) was our extreme ignorance. (Ah, the joy of the dumbness of youngness!)
The Production team was most professional, and generous and let us go with a warning. One of the PA’s (“Production Assistant”) I assume later came over to our pool location where we are embarrassed (and still scared) and in a moment of great education and grace took the time to explain to us two knuckleheads about film production, continuity, and more.
"That other scene was seconds after yours. If you are in both it is a mistake and we have to throw out both scenes. Have to get actors back to re-do them or cut them. Film costs 100 thousand per can. You are costing us a lot of money."
[To the talented team of Mrs. Doubtfire from back then, I sincerely apologize for my young and dumb mistake. I sincerely thank you for your generosity.]
I thought of this embarrassing story immediately hearing the #TylerPerry statements. He is wise to think and investigate, and also to talk about the issues involved and to advocate. It is right and also the best business of film and in the best interest of art to do so.
#TylerPerry understands most well the costs and the many risks and the needs, and the miracle of filmmaking.
Yet I think #AI and data-generated film can be a net positive as additive to the film business and art as more can be accomplished.
Yet, who is needed to put together these beautiful works of art which move minds and hearts? The skilled filmmaker.
It is a beautiful new way to partner, to grow and expand, and it will be exciting to see an even more new level of “impossible” come to life, from nothing. In #Datawood, where data and code will augment and amplify the art of film and things will evolve, developers will join hands with the greatest filmmakers who can only understand the whole process, all that is involved, the output, the "eye" (so many intangibles).
[Even though much of film has transitioned from hard film, the type we spoiled, to digital, most of the art and technique remains the same. How many of us know about mis en scene? How many programmers?]
Learn from my extra work disaster. Non-film people do not know what they do not know. I'm still amazed at how organized film sets are and how observant everyone is (how did they pick us out in that crowd? how did they know we didn’t fit there? how observant.) Data and code professionals should join hands with the Film community now for technology's, and for art’s sake.
