5 ms·

Not so sure about post-production rendering, if anything movies are moving to real-time rendered CGI environments [1]. Unreal/Epic have been a big player in thi

Not so sure about post-production rendering, if anything movies are moving to real-time rendered CGI environments [1]. Unreal/Epic have been a big player in this space. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUnxzVOs3rk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUnxzVOs3rk

germinalphrase 5y ago
It’s unclear to me why that transition would mean that writers/directors/storytellers would win. Lower costs make creative risks more viable?
- echelon 5y ago
  Eventually teenage kids will be making Star Wars at home. Or Star Wars meets Scarface. GPUs will surpass 2010's Pixar. This, coupled with real time motion capture and photogrammetry, will enable more creativity than ever before from more people than have ever been involved. A democratization that even Disney won't be able to counter. But to directly answer your question, the process of writing moves off the text editor and directly into the production fold. Changes can be made dynamically or even in post. We'll see tools for graphical story arcs, character development radar charts, backstories, and more as these things all morph into real time activities.
  - germinalphrase 5y ago
    I believe it. That’s wonderful. Though I’m teaching now - in a previous life, I was a Local 600 2nd AC. The storytelling industry fascinates me, but I would love to see user generated, interactive fiction become prominent. All the better if talent can be the central stakeholder. Unreal/Epic got a shout out above. Can you point out anyone else who is working seriously in the space? That’s exciting.
    - echelon 5y ago
      > I was a Local 600 2nd AC That's awesome! I know a bunch of IATSE folks and they're all super cool. It's such a unique industry, and the excitement on set is totally palpable. > The storytelling industry fascinates me, but I would love to see user generated, interactive fiction I'm working on exactly this now! Collaborative motion capture and environmental control with audience participation. I haven't launched publicly yet, but used to demo my progress with a live audience on Twitch. They loved it, but I think I loved it even more. This workflow beats film by miles and opens up so many new and unique storytelling techniques that have never been explored. It's incredibly fun, too. I bought the domain name "storyteller.io" to launch with. I should be releasing two minor tangentially-related pieces this week: Twitch TTS for audience monetization and a 3D volumetric/voxel camera that can be injected directly into games. The motion capture, face animation, and interactive world pieces should follow early next quarter. (I need more people - I'm barely getting sleep and keep missing my own deadlines.) I've had a few people that heard my "this is the future" pitch tell me I should join YC, but I'm trying to release more stuff before the deadline. As a backup I have animated "deepfake as a service" versions of Garry Tan, Justin Kan, Alexis Ohanian, Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, and Palmer Luckey and was thinking of cold emailing them. You type something, and they say it in a video. As a service. It's stupid, but I think it'd get their attention. I want this because I'm a storyteller that hates film. Not the creatives and the excitement, just the mundane, repeatable work. And the projects that seem out of reach for budget and practical reasons.
      - germinalphrase 5y ago
        I wish you the best of luck, and will try to check in once in a while. Get some sleep.
      - rakejake 5y ago
        Great idea. In the near future, it may be possible to type a message and have your persona actually get on a call and say it.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - andi999 5y ago
    Could be true. Some of the last star wars feel like the storyline was made by teenagers.
  - goto11 5y ago
    > Eventually teenage kids will be making Star Wars at home. Perhaps, but the same was promised when camera and editing equipment became commodities. There are a few examples like the Blair Witch Project, or Tangerine, a great movie which was filmed with two iPhones. But in general successful movies are still expensively made by professional teams. The problem is: Even if the technical equipment is cheap, successful movies still require time and talent and lots of hard work.
    - SyzygistSix 5y ago
      I would bet if young people had the kinds of rents and the accompanying amount of slack time we had in the early 90s, paired with modern tech, tons of good movies and bands would be created. But they don't and the creativity of the young, in many fields, is being wasted.
      - jibe 5y ago
        There wasn’t more slack time in the 90s, but there wasn’t time wasted on social media either.
        SyzygistSix 5y ago
        Young people need to work a lot more hours to pay rent now and whether it is because sharing places is less popular or not, there are far less places to rent for groups. There are now far more 1 or 2 bedroom apartments and many larger houses have been divided. Practice spaces and studio spaces are also much, much more difficult to come by. In city after city, what used to be dirt cheap warehouses are now pricey condos and fancy apartments.
        echelon 5y ago
        As creative tools evolve (Instagram -> TikTok, Minecraft -> Roblox / VRChat marketplaces, Kickstarter -> Patreon subscriptions and communities, Twitch ...), there may be a wealth of new opportunities for young people to start making money being creative. There wasn't an easy way to build content and find an audience. Now there's an ever increasing opportunity. I think we're early in this game and only getting our first look at what's to come.
  - scarface74 5y ago
    You keep making this argument and it’s no more realistic than the “anyone can code” if you come up with a low code environment. We saw the results of the low code movement with impossible to maintain Access and FoxPro “applications” and the Excel spreadsheets with VB. I have all of the equipment I need to make a great movie or music video - a 4K camera, a computer, and movie and music editing software. I technical know how to use all of the software well enough to make videos and to mix music. But I don’t have the talent. You have people like Blumhouse , Tyler Perry, and Jordan Peele who whether you like their movies or not, know how to make successful low budget movies. Not every YouTuber can. We’ve seen democraticization of creating music, books, and movies. But still all of the money is being made by a relatively few. GPUs have already surpassed 2010s Pixar’s. The Intel Mac Pro and the M1 Pro Macs can already do amazing things - in the hands of the right people.
    - echelon 5y ago
      Isn't TikTok an early indication of the power of creative tooling being put in people's hands? Literally millions of people out there being creative on a daily basis. And we're so early in this game. Apple is just dumb hardware. It's not helping any more than a pencil. Yes, you can make art with it, but in my mind it's like programming with a hole punch. We can now build tools that translate the thoughts in your head directly into media. And even improve upon them. This wasn't possible just five years ago. Like I said before, let's come back in ten years and see.
      - scarface74 5y ago
        I think we are in violent agreement about how technology makes being creative easier. My contention is that it’s not technology that’s the limiting factor to being successful. I have the know how and equipment to edit videos. I can edit “well enough” for internal videos and demos for YouTube. You put those same tools in the hands of someone with talent, they can be amazing tools. Just like WordPress in my hands will still look like a table driven layout from the 2000s It’s hard to break into any media industry well enough to make it a sustainable business. It’s about how do you stand out in the crowd and get people to pay you money? It’s not better technology that’s going to make it easier to find “one thousand true fans” that will give you money and it takes a lot more than one thousand true fans to make it based on just advertising.
- s-lambert 5y ago
  It's not about costs, it's about getting tight feedback loops because you can see exactly what the camera is filming straight away instead of having to wait for the green screen -> post processing loop.
jowday 5y ago
In practice, for digital production backgrounds like the volume they actually set the part of the screens that intersect the camera frustum to a green screen in case they want to change anything in post. The main benefit you get from digital volumes like this is immersion for the actors and lighting conditions that match the CG environment.

germinalphrase 5y ago

It’s unclear to me why that transition would mean that writers/directors/storytellers would win. Lower costs make creative risks more viable?

echelon 5y ago
Eventually teenage kids will be making Star Wars at home. Or Star Wars meets Scarface. GPUs will surpass 2010's Pixar. This, coupled with real time motion capture and photogrammetry, will enable more creativity than ever before from more people than have ever been involved. A democratization that even Disney won't be able to counter. But to directly answer your question, the process of writing moves off the text editor and directly into the production fold. Changes can be made dynamically or even in post. We'll see tools for graphical story arcs, character development radar charts, backstories, and more as these things all morph into real time activities.
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  I believe it. That’s wonderful. Though I’m teaching now - in a previous life, I was a Local 600 2nd AC. The storytelling industry fascinates me, but I would love to see user generated, interactive fiction become prominent. All the better if talent can be the central stakeholder. Unreal/Epic got a shout out above. Can you point out anyone else who is working seriously in the space? That’s exciting.
  - echelon 5y ago
    > I was a Local 600 2nd AC That's awesome! I know a bunch of IATSE folks and they're all super cool. It's such a unique industry, and the excitement on set is totally palpable. > The storytelling industry fascinates me, but I would love to see user generated, interactive fiction I'm working on exactly this now! Collaborative motion capture and environmental control with audience participation. I haven't launched publicly yet, but used to demo my progress with a live audience on Twitch. They loved it, but I think I loved it even more. This workflow beats film by miles and opens up so many new and unique storytelling techniques that have never been explored. It's incredibly fun, too. I bought the domain name "storyteller.io" to launch with. I should be releasing two minor tangentially-related pieces this week: Twitch TTS for audience monetization and a 3D volumetric/voxel camera that can be injected directly into games. The motion capture, face animation, and interactive world pieces should follow early next quarter. (I need more people - I'm barely getting sleep and keep missing my own deadlines.) I've had a few people that heard my "this is the future" pitch tell me I should join YC, but I'm trying to release more stuff before the deadline. As a backup I have animated "deepfake as a service" versions of Garry Tan, Justin Kan, Alexis Ohanian, Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, and Palmer Luckey and was thinking of cold emailing them. You type something, and they say it in a video. As a service. It's stupid, but I think it'd get their attention. I want this because I'm a storyteller that hates film. Not the creatives and the excitement, just the mundane, repeatable work. And the projects that seem out of reach for budget and practical reasons.
    - germinalphrase 5y ago
      I wish you the best of luck, and will try to check in once in a while. Get some sleep.
    - rakejake 5y ago
      Great idea. In the near future, it may be possible to type a message and have your persona actually get on a call and say it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- andi999 5y ago
  Could be true. Some of the last star wars feel like the storyline was made by teenagers.
- goto11 5y ago
  > Eventually teenage kids will be making Star Wars at home. Perhaps, but the same was promised when camera and editing equipment became commodities. There are a few examples like the Blair Witch Project, or Tangerine, a great movie which was filmed with two iPhones. But in general successful movies are still expensively made by professional teams. The problem is: Even if the technical equipment is cheap, successful movies still require time and talent and lots of hard work.
  - SyzygistSix 5y ago
    I would bet if young people had the kinds of rents and the accompanying amount of slack time we had in the early 90s, paired with modern tech, tons of good movies and bands would be created. But they don't and the creativity of the young, in many fields, is being wasted.
    - jibe 5y ago
      There wasn’t more slack time in the 90s, but there wasn’t time wasted on social media either.
      - SyzygistSix 5y ago
        Young people need to work a lot more hours to pay rent now and whether it is because sharing places is less popular or not, there are far less places to rent for groups. There are now far more 1 or 2 bedroom apartments and many larger houses have been divided. Practice spaces and studio spaces are also much, much more difficult to come by. In city after city, what used to be dirt cheap warehouses are now pricey condos and fancy apartments.
        echelon 5y ago
        As creative tools evolve (Instagram -> TikTok, Minecraft -> Roblox / VRChat marketplaces, Kickstarter -> Patreon subscriptions and communities, Twitch ...), there may be a wealth of new opportunities for young people to start making money being creative. There wasn't an easy way to build content and find an audience. Now there's an ever increasing opportunity. I think we're early in this game and only getting our first look at what's to come.
- scarface74 5y ago
  You keep making this argument and it’s no more realistic than the “anyone can code” if you come up with a low code environment. We saw the results of the low code movement with impossible to maintain Access and FoxPro “applications” and the Excel spreadsheets with VB. I have all of the equipment I need to make a great movie or music video - a 4K camera, a computer, and movie and music editing software. I technical know how to use all of the software well enough to make videos and to mix music. But I don’t have the talent. You have people like Blumhouse , Tyler Perry, and Jordan Peele who whether you like their movies or not, know how to make successful low budget movies. Not every YouTuber can. We’ve seen democraticization of creating music, books, and movies. But still all of the money is being made by a relatively few. GPUs have already surpassed 2010s Pixar’s. The Intel Mac Pro and the M1 Pro Macs can already do amazing things - in the hands of the right people.
  - echelon 5y ago
    Isn't TikTok an early indication of the power of creative tooling being put in people's hands? Literally millions of people out there being creative on a daily basis. And we're so early in this game. Apple is just dumb hardware. It's not helping any more than a pencil. Yes, you can make art with it, but in my mind it's like programming with a hole punch. We can now build tools that translate the thoughts in your head directly into media. And even improve upon them. This wasn't possible just five years ago. Like I said before, let's come back in ten years and see.
    - scarface74 5y ago
      I think we are in violent agreement about how technology makes being creative easier. My contention is that it’s not technology that’s the limiting factor to being successful. I have the know how and equipment to edit videos. I can edit “well enough” for internal videos and demos for YouTube. You put those same tools in the hands of someone with talent, they can be amazing tools. Just like WordPress in my hands will still look like a table driven layout from the 2000s It’s hard to break into any media industry well enough to make it a sustainable business. It’s about how do you stand out in the crowd and get people to pay you money? It’s not better technology that’s going to make it easier to find “one thousand true fans” that will give you money and it takes a lot more than one thousand true fans to make it based on just advertising.
s-lambert 5y ago
It's not about costs, it's about getting tight feedback loops because you can see exactly what the camera is filming straight away instead of having to wait for the green screen -> post processing loop.

jowday 5y ago

In practice, for digital production backgrounds like the volume they actually set the part of the screens that intersect the camera frustum to a green screen in case they want to change anything in post. The main benefit you get from digital volumes like this is immersion for the actors and lighting conditions that match the CG environment.