AI is Box-Office poison
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https://blenderdumbass.org/articles/ai_is_box-office_poison : 👁 1
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by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
Why do people go to cinema? A billion dollar question, isn't it? Well, if you ask the Austrian School of Economics you will see that people tend to buy things they value more than the money they need to spend to buy that very thing. ↩ Reply
If you say just need a spoon, you may not need anything but the cheapest plastic disposable one. But sometimes you might need a spoon constantly. Or need a spoon that wont melt. And that's when you will spend money on a metal one. But then you may realize that the cheaper type of metal spoons could have a very nasty metalic taste to it, so next time, because you value the enjoyment from the food, you may opt for a higher-end brand. Or in some cases, when status is involved, you may even buy actual silver-ware, which gonna cost you a lot, but be both very nice and will make you look good among your peers. ↩ Reply
It is all subjective. One person will always just have plastic spoons. Another will not use anything but the most amazing silver-ware. People value different things differently for different reasons. People hold different opinions. And therefor people will always disagree what worth spending the money on. ↩ Reply
With a cinema ticket, we have an even larger problem. They all cost the same. It doesn't matter if you are going to see a Steven Spielberg movie or a Tommy Wiseau film, they both gonna have the exact same ticket price. ↩ Reply
The trick is, to make it feel, to the audience member, that paying this ticket price worth it. ↩ Reply
Quentin Tarantino told a story, multiple times, about his first experience with James Cameron's Aliens. I will try to retell it using my memory. But please go and try to find him actually telling it himself. It is quite a story. In any case... He and his friend went to the cinema, I believe, on the opening night. There was hype around the movie. They had to stay in a "human-centipede" line of people, for like 2 hours, to get into the cinema. James Cameron himself was there. ↩ Reply
The critics said the movie was fantastic. People knew it was a follow-up not just to Alien by Ridley Scott, but also to The Terminator. The anticipation was through the roof. And yet, then the movie started and didn't just meet the expectation. It exceeded them. Critics? They didn't know what they were talking about. This movie was so much better than what critics wrote about it. Nobody, not a single sole in that "human-centipede" line, had any remote idea, of how good the movie actually was. ↩ Reply
That is when the ticket price is nothing compared to the value you get from the film itself. That is the kind of thing, that makes paying the ticket price, a no-brainer . And then if it delivers, or even better exceed your expectations, this is when you, as the consumer, is satisfied. This cements the relationship. From now on, a new movie of a similar type, from the same people, or in the same franchise, becomes a no-brainer too. ↩ Reply
Why do people watch Tom Cruise films? Well, you have 3 layers of value ( that is greater than the ticket price ): You have a crazy motherfucker risking his own life for your entertainment ( Tom Cruise doing his own stunts ) for a lot of people this thing alone is enough to justify paying for the damn ticket; then the movie is usually a part of a franchise ( Mission Impossible, Top Gun ). And previous installments of those franchises were received greatly by the audiences. Therefore there is an expectation of the next movie to be good too. That makes it easier to justify paying the ticket price; And then thirdly, most of the time, Tom Cruise films are well written and well directed. Which exceeds your expectations. That makes you happy that you bough the ticket. Gives you an ungodly amount of dopamine. And reinforces the loop. ↩ Reply
Any big franchise operates on this factor. But franchises are not necessarily big. Or not necessarily sequel-based. Take the Tarantino filmography. This is a franchise. Those aren't sequels, or spinoffs*. But they all share the same fundamental thing. They are written and directed by the same guy. A guy who proves time and time again that he can deliver good cinema. And lately, with the whole "I gonna only make 10 movies" thing, the films have an added value. There will be only so many movies by this guy. And those movies are in cinema for not very long. And they are designed to be seen with an audience. So you just HAVE TO go and see it in cinema. ↩ Reply
With the Avatar franchise, for example, it is again, James Cameron, doing his magic. But it also because James Cameron likes to talk, in great detail, about how hard his movies are to make. Watch any making-of of any James Cameron movie and you start to understand that there was an insane amount of effort in every single shot, in every single frame, of everything you see. ↩ Reply
It is not even about CGI vs no-CGI. A lot of people like to point at Christopher Nolan who took the crown of the box office god between Avatar 1 and 2. And Nolan likes to shoot on film and do as much as possible practically. So every production in Hollywood jumped on the band-wagon, trying to claim how they don't use any CGI. Or any green-screens. ( Kind of like everybody jumped on 3D when the first Avatar came out. ) It got to a point where promotional "making-of" material for Greta Gerwig's Barbie had the green-screens removed. So they could claim they didn't use CGI. Directors like to tell "but people can always tell". Well, so what? ↩ Reply
How is CGI bad, but Avatar 2 still makes a bazillion dollars? How is CGI bad, but people go and watch Pixar films or the new Minions in droves? ↩ Reply
Okay... there is an argument to be made, that the standard computer animated films, like the kind Pixar is famous for, are falling off lately. They wore off their novelty factor, or something. This is why we see films like Spiderverse films that are technically the same old CGI, but that have a very stylized layer of very complex 3D and 2D magic added on top of it, to make it look and feel unique. And then everybody else jumped on the band-wagon... ↩ Reply
Anime is very popular. It was always popular. And you know why? Pretty much every single person on this planet used a pencil, or a pen, at some point. A lot of us as kids drew stuff. We tried tracing our favorite cartoon characters to the notebooks in school. We drew stick figures. ↩ Reply
We can comprehend the mechanics of drawing. When we see a very well drawn image. We immediately comprehend the complexity of making this sort of thing. ↩ Reply
Add to that that Anime is also designed to hack our dopamine system better than any other drawn animation, by making everything slightly too cute and slightly too sexy, and you get yourself a potent mix, creating some of the strongest fan-bases. ↩ Reply
Good acting is valued by people too. Marvel cinematic universe. A billion dollar franchise. Extremely good visual effects. But everybody were talking about Robert Downy Jr. saving the scene, or being a terrific actor in general. Why? ↩ Reply
Well, all of us had at least one moment in our life when we had to lie, when we had to pretend, when we had to act. Watching someone doing it good, like Robert Downy Jr. makes you comprehend how hard it would have been to do it yourself. Comprehending how hard it is, makes you value it. And if you value it you want to pay the ticket price. ↩ Reply
Most people don't understand CGI. Most people never touched Blender. So if you have a CGI heavy film, you must do what James Cameron is doing. You must make a lot of fuss about how the CGI was very fucking hard. It also benefits you if you have the best CGI or the hardest CGI to date. But not everyone does it like James Cameron. ↩ Reply
Gemini Man for example. It had a full CGI human character that has half a movie of screen-time. In a film that is 120 frames per second in 3D. Technically it is suped-duper impressive. I know how hard it is to make a human character with CGI. I know how difficult it would be to make all of it in 120 FPS. And I know how brain-fucking filming in 3D can be. I payed the ticket-price. Most other people saw a weirdly smooth movie with sub-par writing and okay acting. While one of the characters looks weirdly uncanny. Most people didn't pay the ticket price. People saw gimmicks they cannot understand. In a movie that without those gimmicks they wouldn't like. The stuff they can understand was not very good. ↩ Reply
Tarantino and Nolan, for example, can survive on writing alone. Writing is understandable. Everyone, at one point, told a story. Good writing is therefor impressive, because you comprehend how hard it could be. ↩ Reply
But Tarantino films are usually well acted. And Nolan films use practical effects. Practical effect that people can somewhat comprehend. James Cameron films, while having amazing CGI and a lot of fuss about how hard they are, additionally also have good writing. ↩ Reply
Michael Bay movies work so well because he blows up a bunch of cars. Everybody knows what a car feels like. Everybody knows how hard it would be to flip one. Watching it lose gravity and get tossed around every 2 seconds from the shier Bayhem! of it all makes you so overwhelmed, you want to go see it again and again. ↩ Reply
Today I understand how complex something like Transformers is on a technical side. Therefor I enjoy way more than other people. But even as a kid, in 2007, I was utterly overwhelmed by the maximalist film-making of Michael Bay. And that is why he is a box-office juggernaut. ↩ Reply
Now here is another thing about Transformers. Michael Bay does the James Cameron's "CGI is hard" thing without actually trying, with Transformers. Even without knowing how CGI works, you at least know that it is some form of drawing. You can think of it as drawing. Or designing. Or something. And those transforming machines are so fucking detailed that your brain literally gives up trying to comprehend it. One transformation, from one trailer of the first Transformers movie is enough to sell the damn ticket. ↩ Reply
Michael Bay is also, coincidentally, a wonderful film-maker. He has a stunning sense of flow and tension. And his images are gorgeous. But while those things are felt, on some sub-conscious level, they are not usually comprehended, because people never tried to make a movie. Film-makers respect the hell out of Michael Bay. While anybody else doesn't get what the fuss is all about. ↩ Reply
A lot of big movies are like that. Most people get this feeling that people go see those films, while the films don't really deserve any attention, or something. It's all just CGI sludge, or just pretty images, or whatever. This in-turn creates the modern cinema-goer type of hipster, who will absolutely never watch anything popular. ↩ Reply
Marvel? Oh... that's just CGI bullshit. Michael Bay? What the fuck? Explosions for the sake of explosions. Nicolas Winding Refn? With a film that failed in the box office for being too artsy? Sign me on. ↩ Reply
To make a person buy the ticket, the movie must be special in one way or another. At the very least the person should be able to comprehend how hard it is to make this movie. Be it good acting, or good writing, or just good art. When they can comprehend that something must have been hard to do, they know that you have put the effort into the movie. They know that you cared. And therefor there is value in it. A value, that is hopefully larger than the ticket price. ↩ Reply
On the other hand if you actively show them that you don't care, they will not want to pay the price. ↩ Reply
Imagine a film comes out and all of its visual effects are AI-slop. You will be like "Why the fuck would I pay to see this?!" You will think that the money could be spent somewhere else instead. You could buy a new set of silver-ware or something. ↩ Reply
Happy Hacking!!! ↩ Reply
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