https://twitter.com/heathercampbell/status/1705686070233571463
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Is it common sense to get a sound bar nowadays? I read an article recently that spoke to me cause its title was something like “why you have to turn subtitles on for everything you watch now” (Yes, yes, that’s me and my wife! Tell me!) and one of the points it made is that sound in TV shows & movies isn’t mixed for the shitty speakers that are in our super flat TVs, which makes it harder to hear.
I got a pretty cheap vizio soundbar at costco at least 10 years ago, I think it was like $90, and it sounds about 200x better than the built-in speakers in any of the TVs I’ve had it hooked up to in that time.
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I heard a weird explanation that essentially sound quality has gotten worse because sound technology has gotten better. Basically the premise is that with older technology, actors had to project their lines more and directors/sound editors had to be more conscious of how they were recording sound to create the end product they desired. Now, technology has gotten so good that actors deliver their lines more naturally and the directors spend less time worried about how the sound is recorded.
Interesting. Like pvn, I got a Vizio sound bar system from Costco that also had a subwoofer and two rear speakers that connected wirelessly mainly because I liked the subwoofer and surround sound. I hadn’t noticed a need to use subtitles. Maybe that is why. I really enjoy the surround sound, though. It’s fun even for football let alone movies.
You guys listen to your TV’s audio?
Looking for my source material again now, I realized it was in fact this YouTube video:
And yeah, they talk about the same thing here (recording technology improving & actors not needing to project their lines as much).
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lol, remember when these dipshit execs were like “we’ll just wait until they starve”? Excellent to watch them eat shit and pay up
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Not having speakers is a life leak, yes. Soundbar alone is better than what you have by 10x, a good speaker set (5.1) would probably be 2x that
AI can’t write? Are you sure? That’s contrary to a lot of what I read today about it. It seems like that’s one of the concessions they had to make. AI tooling is allowed to train off what they write and allowed to be used in the creative process. There was absolutely no stopping that, they had to cave to that. “AI can’t write” doesn’t even make sense.
I fear they made another shit ass, short-sighted deal like they did in 09 or whenever the last one was when the main issue they were negotiating over was streaming revenue. They did not do a very good job negotiating that.
sorry I’m sorta grunching the agreement, reading it now, I hope I’m wrong. They deserve more
Here’s what the link says about AI, fwiw:
Bullet #2 seems important here - writers can opt to use AI but they can’t be made to.
I think they are hiding behind legalese to make this palatable to members, I fear. The section that talks about this says this:
The Companies agree that because neither traditional AI nor GAI is a person,
neither is a ‘writer’ or ‘professional writer’ as defined in Articles 1.B.1.a.,
1.B.1.b., 1.C.1.a. and 1.C.1.b. of this MBA, and, therefore, written material
produced by traditional AI or GAI shall not be considered literary material under
this or any prior MBA
So, no material AI produces can be considered “literary.” That seems important in the next section:
Should a Company furnish a writer with written material produced by GAI which
has not been previously published or exploited, and instruct the writer to use the
GAI-produced material as the basis for writing literary material:
“1. The Company shall disclose to that writer that the written material was
produced by GAI.
“2. The GAI-produced written material shall not be considered assigned
material for purposes of determining the writer’s compensation.
“3. The GAI-produced written material shall not be considered source material
for purposes of determining writing credit.
“4. The GAI-produced written material shall not be the basis for disqualifying
a writer from eligibility for separated rights
I see in this section that indeed, AI generated material can’t be used to undermine writer credit, but it does absolutely seem like they’re going to be modifying AI-written content and that’s totally fine. “AI can’t write” in that context seems like a really, really twisty way of saying this.
So, like, if the human writer edits one comma of the text he gets a writing credit, AI can’t get writing credits. I’d guess that’s what someone actually means when they say “AI can’t write” but I’m still going through this
ETA: i see nothing in here that stops a studio from paying writers to train models to write scripts and then just never hiring a writer again. lol.
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Wes Anderson has four new short films on Netflix adapting Roald Dahl short stories (in order: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Swan, The Rat Catcher, and Poison), starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes, Rupert Friend, Dev Patel, and Ben Kingsley. They’re a fun watch if you like Anderson’s work, and the four come in at about 90 minutes combined.
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That’s a nuclear take. The idea that generative AI can’t write the same formulaic dog shit that’s plagued hollywood for 20 years is absurd. AI could absolutely write an entire big bang theory season and no one would notice. If this weren’t true - there’d have been almost nothing to strike about, other than streaming revenue, which they already negotiated for in 2009 and got the deal they had until now and also crowed then that it was a victory for labor rights.
Unfortunately this looks like yet another massive win for studios to me.
The WGA agreement prevents companies worth billions of dollars from handing a writer a piece of AI-gibberish and then only paying them to “rewrite” it.
Also as I said up thread I’m not sure anything in the agreement actually suggests this is true. If they edit it they get a writing credit. Just say that. Don’t suggest that studios aren’t going to produce a ton of scripts edited in precisely this way, because they will and the agreement seems drafted with that in mind specifically.
It can’t do it today. And I doubt it could do it 22 times in a row without needing a human to fix some of it. Someday computers may be able to create new stories from prompts from users, but it’s not to day and the WGA bought themselves a few more years before they’ll have to deal with it again.
Nothing in this agreement stops them from doing it though. Seriously if it exists I haven’t yet seen it, but people just keep repeating this. They can use AI to write to their hearts’ content, they can get human writers to edit AI written material. They can’t be forced to use chatGPT - ok - nothing stopping them from hiring a writer that will.
Look forward to the next 6+ month strike a few years down the line that also achieves nothing. Glad they got some small pay increases.
They can’t make humans re-write AI scripts. They can’t hire a human as a jr writer who just re-writes AI generated scripts. I believe they also have size limits on how small the writers room can be. I don’t think creativity is the same thing as playing chess so I think we’re still a long way off from computers being better enough at writing that you could get a passible series out of one. I don’t think there is a contractual way for them to ban not-hiring writers because of AI so they did the next best thing and said humans don’t have to have to accept AI written content as source.