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- Taylor Swift's Theatrical Juggernaut
Aloha Hollywood tech nerds!
In this week’s post:
🎤 Taylor Swift’s Theatrical Juggernaut
🤖 AI Apocalypto
🍿 Kernels: 3 links worth making popcorn for
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Taylor Swift’s Theatrical Juggernaut
She came, she saw, she conquered: Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour definitely did not have an unlucky Friday the 13th opening weekend; the film brought in almost $100 million domestically. As I wrote a few newsletters back, the unique distribution deal she made with theaters directly stands to net Ms. Swift & Co. big bucks, and no studio or distributor involved to siphon any of it for themselves.
Swifties didn’t hold back in their theater screenings, with many getting up and dancing and singing throughout the film’s 3 hour runtime.
@theblacktriggerrepubgirl It was lit!!! Thanks, @Taylor Swift @Taylor Nation #fyp #foryou #tay #taylorswift #concert #amc #amctheaters #movie #show #live #singing #... See more
Writing in Slate, Sam Adams finds much to celebrate, and not just for attendance-hungry theaters:
The Eras Tour’s significance isn’t solely or even primarily about box office, as much as theaters are grateful for the windfall. It’s about expanding the whole idea of what can happen inside a movie theater.
As The Eras Tour became one of the highest-grossing concert film of all time, The New York Times took a look behind the scenes to ask: how do you make a great concert film? The answer is: a ton of work!
The secret… is having the time and means to shoot it like a proper movie. That means hiring upward of 40 camera operators; shooting over multiple nights; deploying drones, Spidercams and GoPros; and setting aside a separate dress rehearsal day, when the artist plays without a crowd to shoot extra footage, like close-ups that might not have been possible during the live show. All of the footage is assembled in the editing room “with the precision of a four-minute music video” to create the illusion that what you’re seeing was unfolding in real time… The actual sound of music being played live in an arena can’t merely be taped: “just a recording of the room would be useless…” Instead, dozens of microphones — sometimes more than 100 for larger sites — record the vocals, instruments and crowd on separate tracks, and a rerecording mixer carefully blends them together, adding reverb and echo to simulate the sound of the space.
This is all the more impressive knowing Swift shot the movie just 2 months ago during her August swing in Los Angeles. The things you can do on a Taylor Swift budget! I can’t even finish my 20 year old student films.
AI Apocalypto
I try to be even-keeled and openminded about AI news. I’m not a relentless doomer on the topic but I’m also not a mindlessly grifting booster (related side note: whenever you see someone on your LinkedIn or Twitter feed claiming to be an “AI expert,” scroll back a year on their history and see what they were talking about then. I’ll take a guess: NFTs and cryptocurrency!).
With that in mind, below are a few little bits and pieces on the dark side of AI + entertainment.
Marvel keeps getting caught using AI in artwork - the writers might be protected by their recently-signed deal with the AMPTP, but clearly the studios are not going to shy away from implementing AI wherever and whenever they can save a buck. Using AI to create your TV show’s opening titles and then claiming it’s appropriate because it matches the show’s shape-shifting themes is downright intelligence-insulting. Just tell the truth: it was cheaper than paying someone!
AI deepfakes don’t just harm celebrities, but also consumers - a great piece from Variety on the increasing dangers to consumers of celebrity AI deepfakes. According to the article: “Among scams originating on social media in the first half of 2023, the most money lost went to investment and romance scammers.”
This includes well-known manga artist Chikae Ide, who lost $500,000 to a Mark Ruffalo deepfake romance scam. Marvel strikes again!
In response, a bipartisan group of US Senators are working on NO FAKES, a bill that would “prevent a person from producing or distributing an unauthorized AI-generated replica of an individual to perform in an audiovisual or sound recording without the consent of the individual being replicated.”
Would this fix the issue? IMO probably not! With the significant First Amendment carveouts required I don’t know how effective it would actually be in practice. We can’t even fix our decades-long robocall problem!
I think that’s enough AI depression for today, I have to get on the phone with my new girlfriend Scarlett Johansson. She’s stuck in an airport in Nigeria and needs cash fast!
Kernels (3 links worth making popcorn for)
Here’s a round-up of cool links about Hollywood and technology:
Totally Killer’s costume designer on how she recreated the 1980s. (link)
Here comes the content contraction! (link)
Meta makes another bet on the metaverse with new VR headsets. (link)