MediaTech Con *CTPiX18 + VR NOW Con

Workshop on Artificial Intelligence with useful and practical examples
Artificial Intelligence can be useful in unburdening the process-heavy work in pre-production and making film budgets and schedules more efficient. In this workshop, we will offer a hands-on demonstration of AI software from RivetAI that makes pre-production planning more efficient, and also augments storytelling through script visualization and dialogue generation.
Pre-production:
The pre-production stage starts with a script breakdown. Natural Language Processing (NLP), trained on specific datasets, extracts all of the details pertinent to film producers, such as props and shooting locations. A grueling process that typically takes several weeks is cut down to a few minutes with 90% human-level accuracy. Once the elements in each scene are extracted, algorithms and rule-sets can be employed to estimate fairly detailed budget estimates for production. The scheduling process alone—figuring out cast and location availability, cost constraints, and even weather—can lead to millions or billions of combinations to find the optimal timing. This is where AI, compared to manual, heuristics-based ways, can achieve at least 10-15% fewer inefficiencies, translating to significant cost and time savings for productions.
Storytelling:
From a script, a graphical visualization depicting the characters, their interactions and sentiments can be generated. Algorithms are used to analyze character development in a given script and identify plot holes and find continuity gaps at a glance. This is especially valuable for TV series that run multiple seasons, or interactive story lines.
We will also demo how AI is generating its own character dialog by utilizing context and producing more meaningful interactions, including humorous exchanges. We will show how this was used in two recently produced short films where the scripts and dialogues were AI written. AI-generated dialogues brings certain randomness into the process and can help writers and producers explore new creative avenues.    

As content producers increasingly deliver more content to more markets in more languages and more formats, the spiralling complexity of workflows and scale of storage required is becoming a limitation to productivity. The Interoperable Master Format (IMF) promises to deliver significant efficiencies to content mastering, versioning and storage. The DPP and SMPTE recently published TPS 2121:2018 IMF Application ProRes (DPP), delivering an IMF specification tailored to the needs of broadcasters and online content providers, and the DPP is now working with producers, distributors and technology vendors to deliver successful implementations. Join Mark and Rowan to learn about the business benefits that IMF brings, the tools it provides to enable those benefits, and to reflect on where we are in the industry's journey to realising them.