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This just makes me wonder if it would be possible for a modern streaming platform to make movies that personalize to a user. There's no fundamental reason you

This just makes me wonder if it would be possible for a modern streaming platform to make movies that personalize to a user. There's no fundamental reason you couldn't shoot a movie that plays different versions of a scene to different users.

htrp 4y ago
At that point you may as well shoot the movie in a custom PC rendering engine that lets you make all the decisions (aka a game) ....
- XorNot 4y ago
  Games generally don't let you make narrative decisions though - it is still rare and troubled that this implementation is attempted and executed. When they do, those decisions are still one of the more complex pieces of media humans ever create: an interaction of interpretation between the writers, artists and player interpretation as well as the technical limitations of the system. Story branch decisions in gaming are to some extent just an evaluation of what the writer's think of your world view - at least when it comes to consequences. Arguably they can only really be constructed as a trial between two opposing narrative voices - resolve questions of character via the wisdom of the crowd.
Gare 4y ago
Isn't the point of a (good) movie creating a shared cultural experience? Discussion and memes based on movies don't work quite well if everybody is watching a different movie.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  I had a long discussion on how ML/AI could be used in games to provide more personalized and realistic interactions. Which was countered by a convincing argument that this is not what players and the industry want. And how largely games have been focused on tightly controlled scripted gameplay that feels a lot like a movie. While an AI powered game would feel unfocused and likely nonsensical without any director oversight for the story. Similarly for a movie, perhaps we could personalize them, but would the result actually be desirable.
- rexpop 4y ago
  Isn't the point of a movie to provide studios with outsized economic rewards? "Shared cultural experiences" are just one way of economizing. Procedural generation might be another. Perhaps we'll see Web 4.0, ie the "procedural web," obliterate feature-length video content just as it's creeping over text and short videos.
- emerged 4y ago
  For me it is, I would find it deeply depressing to watch movies and be unable to discuss the experience with others because they got different characters and plot lines.
  - pas 4y ago
    Do people really talk about movies? It seems you do. Do you talk with your friends? Online? On some specific forum? With your significant other? I'm so surprised that there are memes from big hits, but no real talk about them. I mean there's relatively a lot of talk about how Harry Potter feels good but doesn't make sense, and of course lots of critiques, reviews, "reaction videos", but somehow it seems actual people stopped talking about movies with each other (beyond the very shallow have you seen it? yes/no. was it good? yes/no.) maybe I just miss when people talked too much about the Matrix? :D also I find it strange that it's still so hard to find good movies/books/series/games that I would like.... despite all the data, metadata, taxonomy, folksonomy (tags! unstructured data! big data! bad data, bad!) for example, IMDB knows what I like, Netflix too, yet the recommendations are pretty bad. let's take Mindhunter. "CSI done well", right? but I still haven't found something that is similar to it. (not that I looked very much.)
majormajor 4y ago
Sometimes I think Netflix is basically doing this, in a fashion, with their originals. Make 20 Ryan Reynolds movies, suggest them dynamically to different audiences... I think different versions of the same movie would completely break word of mouth, though.

htrp 4y ago

At that point you may as well shoot the movie in a custom PC rendering engine that lets you make all the decisions (aka a game) ....

XorNot 4y ago
Games generally don't let you make narrative decisions though - it is still rare and troubled that this implementation is attempted and executed. When they do, those decisions are still one of the more complex pieces of media humans ever create: an interaction of interpretation between the writers, artists and player interpretation as well as the technical limitations of the system. Story branch decisions in gaming are to some extent just an evaluation of what the writer's think of your world view - at least when it comes to consequences. Arguably they can only really be constructed as a trial between two opposing narrative voices - resolve questions of character via the wisdom of the crowd.

Gare 4y ago

Isn't the point of a (good) movie creating a shared cultural experience? Discussion and memes based on movies don't work quite well if everybody is watching a different movie.

Gigachad 4y ago
I had a long discussion on how ML/AI could be used in games to provide more personalized and realistic interactions. Which was countered by a convincing argument that this is not what players and the industry want. And how largely games have been focused on tightly controlled scripted gameplay that feels a lot like a movie. While an AI powered game would feel unfocused and likely nonsensical without any director oversight for the story. Similarly for a movie, perhaps we could personalize them, but would the result actually be desirable.
rexpop 4y ago
Isn't the point of a movie to provide studios with outsized economic rewards? "Shared cultural experiences" are just one way of economizing. Procedural generation might be another. Perhaps we'll see Web 4.0, ie the "procedural web," obliterate feature-length video content just as it's creeping over text and short videos.
emerged 4y ago
For me it is, I would find it deeply depressing to watch movies and be unable to discuss the experience with others because they got different characters and plot lines.
- pas 4y ago
  Do people really talk about movies? It seems you do. Do you talk with your friends? Online? On some specific forum? With your significant other? I'm so surprised that there are memes from big hits, but no real talk about them. I mean there's relatively a lot of talk about how Harry Potter feels good but doesn't make sense, and of course lots of critiques, reviews, "reaction videos", but somehow it seems actual people stopped talking about movies with each other (beyond the very shallow have you seen it? yes/no. was it good? yes/no.) maybe I just miss when people talked too much about the Matrix? :D also I find it strange that it's still so hard to find good movies/books/series/games that I would like.... despite all the data, metadata, taxonomy, folksonomy (tags! unstructured data! big data! bad data, bad!) for example, IMDB knows what I like, Netflix too, yet the recommendations are pretty bad. let's take Mindhunter. "CSI done well", right? but I still haven't found something that is similar to it. (not that I looked very much.)

majormajor 4y ago

Sometimes I think Netflix is basically doing this, in a fashion, with their originals. Make 20 Ryan Reynolds movies, suggest them dynamically to different audiences... I think different versions of the same movie would completely break word of mouth, though.