There’s this term in the processed food industry for when something is quantifiably at its most delicious, but also–critically–still unsatisfying enough that you always crave more. It’s called the bliss point, and it’s what ensures that you always want another sip of that soft drink, or the crunch of that potato chip. It’s about maximizing the bliss of consumption so that you consume more.
Now, Disney Research has developed a neural network that seems to be chasing a similar idea–but for the world of movies. The system has been trained to watch an audience of theatergoers as they watch a film. It can track reactions like smiling and laughter on hundreds of faces in a dark theater, allowing Disney to quantify whether or not a film is working as intended on a granular scale. It’s easy to imagine such technology eventually reaching well beyond the movie theater, into the real world, where Disney parks could react to your mood with real-time Disney magic.
Disney’s researchers tested the system across 150 showings of several Disney films like The Jungle Book and Star Wars: The Force Awakens in movie theaters. Studios like Disney have used the reactions of test audiences to gauge early cuts of films for decades, often making changes to the edit or ending if the film wasn’t hitting as hoped. What’s different in this instance is the sheer amount of analysis Disney Research was able to produce with this methodology: 3,179 people generated 16 million points of data.
As Disney Research scientist Peter Carr put it to Phys.org: “It’s more data than a human is going to look through. That’s where computers come in–to summarize the data without losing important details.” Impressively, the neural net isn’t just capable of summarizing takeaways. Within just a few minutes of watching a filmgoer, it could predict their facial expressions throughout the rest of the film.
Disney is far from the only company working on big data in media. Snap, most notably, actually measures the shot-by-shot performance of its Snapchat Shows. That means the company can see if a certain 10-second blip is losing its audience’s attention. Such insights are actually shaping the way Snap produces content.
As AI allows media companies to take advantage of these insights in real time, one can imagine Disney not just changing the way a film is cut during the test market phase, but actually recutting content in real time for a viewer’s maximum pleasure. In past decades, the industry was dominated by an arms race of CGI–a competition between who could present audiences with the most stunning special effects. Now, we could be moving toward an age when AI is the crucial differentiator of media, an age where cameras lurk in movie theaters–or even our smartphones–and every entertainment company’s best weapon is its ability to reshape content, dynamically, to our liking.
Microsoft Research has used computer vision systems to measure facial and body language for a long time now. In one instance, its researchers actually programmed an elevator to know whether it should open or close for a person walking past. How? The system measured each person’s facial expression and body language. Disney Research claims its system can scale beyond people in a movie theater, and can even capture the intricacies of real-world movements, like trees blowing in the wind, with applications in animation. At the very least, one can imagine Disney bringing this technology into its parks, like the upcoming Star Wars world–customizing the space and the characters you interacted with to your liking. It’s easy to imagine sentiment-analysis cameras making their way into other consumer experiences, too, like vending machines or fast food restaurants.
As you take a bite of those new buffalo chicken fries, an AI could be watching, tallying your reaction with everyone else, ages 18-35. If you don’t mind how creepy it all is, camera-based AI might help the whole world find its bliss point, keeping us perpetually craving the next bite of life.
https://www.fastcodesign.com/90134144/disneys-next-movie-it-could-be-watching-you
Thank you for posting this, Katie. I stopped going to the theater two years ago. This is beyond creepy. Heaven only knows what has been going on without our knowledge.
Janet
Well Janet I got you beat…about ten years for me since last movie and I do not recall what it was. I tossed the TV eight years ago.
I tossed the TV, makeup and high heels in the summer of 2000. I cannot remember what year I woke up. To be honest, it took me several years to give up all the programming. I have David to thank for that.
I used to go to the dollar theater but outside of maybe 5 movies (I was dragged to all of them save for Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy) I have not seen a new release since The Blair Witch Project (they came on A&E pretending the movie was legit and it was full of shit, that was the end for me). I was done with TV in 2006.
I’ve been boycotting the anal obsessed Jew pricks since before I knew what the score is.
Road To Perdition and Dumb and Dumber’er (was dragged to both) also helped the process of ditching Hollyweird as well.
Yes, creepy is right, Janet, and movies are way too expensive anyway. Rather be home and watch a movie anyway. Don’t do tv either.
Mary, any chance we could talk or maybe email about income tax? I listened to you talk on the Militia Town Meeting, I think, and am very curious about it. I checked out the website but I am wondering about a few things.
You mean Katie and if she says yes then I can give you her email, she emailed me a list of Dentists in Mexico, Thank you again Katie 🙂
Whoops! Sorry, Katie.
Janet
Whew! thanks David …hahaha
Oh my god.
There’s two Rock’s here.
I have a bad gut feeling..
I’m going to get stoned here pretty soon.
I’m the pretty one.
Funny!
Son isn’t bad, either. Looks just like me.
So David, you got your looks from your mom, how bout Dad?
too funny
flee, no worries, it’s just Rock-in now.
good one Katie!
Puff puff give flee 😉
yep, around here we kinda let FLEEDOM ring………………………
Uhhhh…
You people are killin me.
Keep it up…and..
I’m going start the the tractor.
Pick up a boulder and drop it on my nuts.
For maximum efficiency.
I mean why waste time getting stoned in the nuts.. with Rocks.
Whether pretty or not…
They still hurt.
Now back to Disney….
I would still bang tinkerbell.
It’s just that I have become of age now.
I would have to rent all of the seven dwarfs penises.
Then have snow white web cam film it and black mail me threatening to post it on YouTube.
You’ll get a copyright strike and a boulder to the nuts.
You are too much, Flee.
For a while I’ve had a suspicion that there were cameras in movie theaters filming people, at least for surveillance purposes.
It’s bad enough that they were spying on people, apparently without their knowledge, with thermal cameras in a dark theater. It could be argued that those people had a reasonable expectation of privacy, or at least of more privacy than that. But the research topic itself is morally dubious. What if dictators start using this sort of monitoring on crowds when they give their speeches, and use the computers to single out those who don’t show the proper enthusiasm? (Even then, it’s questionable that emotional response can be truly discerned from facial expressions. Some people are simply less expressive of their emotions than others are. If you really want to know what people think of a movie, why not just take a damn poll afterwards?)
Anyway, no more movie theaters for me. And no more Disney anything! They’re involved in a lot of other disgusting, dehumanizing research. It’s too bad, really, because some of their older movies are classics.