In the Future, your Audience will Edit your Movie
Everything that I tell about how I came to realise the title of this post is entirely relevant to the future of filmmaking. This is not just a readable intro. Every step matters. So read carefully.
A couple of days ago, YouTube recommended me to watch a video about editing by a YouTuber called This Guy Edits. I’m currently editing an episode of Silent Eye so… “don’t mind if I do”. I watched the video, but didn’t find it too mind blowing. More mildly interesting.
However, I did watch the entire video. I only clicked away as he started the sponsored message at the end. Then I watched a couple of other unrelated videos and forgot about him.
Then, next day YouTube throws another video into my recommends, by the same guy. This one promised to reveal how he maximizes his YouTube videos performance by working YouTube’s algorithms. Using the many metrics provided by YouTube in the creator dashboard, This Guy Edits tells how he keeps adapting the title and thumbnail until he gets the perfect combination and views rocket.
As someone with a keen interest in social media for marketing purposes, I’m sold. Plus there’s something about the thumbnail that grabs me. So I watched the video and this time the information presented was somewhat more revelatory. Although I’m already aware of half of what he says, I’m not an expert so there’s still stuff to learn.
The video ended and I went to sleep. Then, the next morning, I was thinking about this video again. It seemed to me one element of the way he moulds his videos to maximise the power of YouTube’s algorithms is very relevant to the future of filmmaking.
The new relationship between audience and creator
At one point, he talks about analysing the moments in the video when audience retention drops. He then goes to those points in the video and edits them from his movie. Lo and behold, audience retention improves and the video gets a huge boost from YouTube.
So, this morning, an idea suddenly struck me: his audience now edits his movie.
Bear in mind this Youtuber is an editor himself. In this video, he tells us how YouTube now shows you audience retention in real time. Which means you can almost instantly get feedback on how gripping your video is.
I know what you’re thinking. “So what? It’s YouTube owned by the faceless mega-corp Google. Of course they do hideous things to their creators and viewers. It’s full of trash videos, with a few useful tutorials and reviews here and there. What’s that got to do with me, an aspiring auteur?”
Everything.
Yes, YouTube’s algorithms have absolutely everything to do with your quest to become the next Martin Scorsese. And here’s why…
Talking of Martin Scorsese, he’s been in the news recently, opening up a very relevant debate over the current state of cinema. Martin says the current crop of superhero films are not only bad, he wouldn’t even class them as cinema.
But Martin’s claim is that these movies are not works of art. Rather, they’re finely tuned products created not by maverick genius auteurs like himself, but by marketing teams and focus groups. While I do have some sympathy for that point of view, but isn’t this criticism utterly futile in the face of the growing dominance of streaming media distribution technology?
If you think films created by focus groups are bad, wait until they’re created by Netflix algorithms. Focus groups will seem like some quaint pastime conducted by ancient humans. Like someone driving a Tesla now musing about the days when folks used to get about by horse and cart.
But Simon, YouTube isn’t Netflix
Look, all streaming platforms have statistics to measure the success or failure of their content (yes, it’s all content now). Well, that’s one of the great advantages of streaming over other methods of distribution. Is a multi-billion dollar organisation going to utilise every metric at it’s disposal? Uh, yes. Obviously.
One of the most important stats for any show or movie is going to be audience retention. Why? Same reason YouTube wants the most addictive, audience grabbing videos to be pushed to the front: to stop audiences flicking over to Netflix, Facebook, Amazon Prime and so on.
And the battle of the streaming giants is only about to begin. At the moment Netflix is still pretty dominant. But wait until it has to compete with Disney, Apple and a bunch of others.
The billions invested into the giant streamer are to create market dominance. To become the Facebook or Google of TV streaming, as it were. So if a technology gives Netflix an audience-retaining edge over their rivals, you can bet they’ll use it. In fact, the situation is more stark than that. They will have to use it or end up the Netscape of video streaming platforms.
“That’s the nature of modern film franchises: market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted and remodified until they’re ready for consumption.” Martin Scorsese
But wait… I’m not sure exactly what you’re saying
I’m saying that if a small YouTuber can generate 1000s more viewers for his channel by some ruthless algorithm-driven cutting, why wouldn’t Netflix or Disney do the same? Actually, what I’m saying is, they won’t have a choice. They’ll have to let the algorithm cut the film simply because if they don’t they’ll lose millions of viewers to their rivals.
And this is just the beginning. Right now, small YouTuber can access the stats in real-time and make some cuts. How long before this becomes an automated feature of YouTube? How long before there’s an “Optimize for Audience Retention” button? All you do is click the button and YouTube will edit your movie in real-time, cutting any parts which show decreased audience retention.
So, not only will there be live stats in real-time, but YouTube will react in real-time to edit your movie even as it’s being watched. And tell me, which starving creator amongst us could resist hitting that optimisation button?
The thing about Artificial Intelligence
Right now, there’s talk of AI writing screenplays, directing films, writing poetry or books. But we only think of a robot-like mind holed up in it’s robot artist’s garrot (aka a giant Google data center). Rather, it seems likely AI will work more successfully in combination with live watchers and readers.
I mean, not just to edit a movie. What about books? And what about advertising? If this optimisation button gets little YouTubers more views, what about Walmart’s latest multimillion dollar ad campaign?
What if adverts adjust themselves in real-time? A cut here, a tweak there, a brightening filter to the actor’s smiles to make them a little more smiley. All depending on the live audience’s instant reaction to the advert.
Imagine digital books which can reword themselves at points where readers drop off. Even as one reader closes the book, another opens it to find that long winded passage is now much much shorter. Except they’ll never know it was ever longer. And because the pace of that passage has now been “fixed” to generate better retention, the new reader reads further into the book…
AI and Audience creating together
In other words, the algorithm feeds the stats to the AI, which then rewrites the book or makes a new edit in the movie. So, in a sense, the audience is editing the video, book or song by showing their loss of interest. They are in some way creating the work and they’re not even gonna get a credit!
I know this all sounds like science fiction. And perhaps it will never advance past editing, or AI will never be able to replace a human editor either. This is all true. But even so, we are already at the point where an audience’s reaction causes edits in a filmmakers work. And this guy is a professional editor himself, taking notes from his untrained audience, who are at the same time mostly unaware of their influence.
The is a far more symbiotic relationship than ever before. We’ve had test screenings and focus groups before, but this is in a whole new game and the results could be explosive. Potentially, machines will be able to write and create entertainment which is more perfectly tuned to “give us what we want” than ever before.
Mass entertainment will not just be consumed by the crowd, it will be created by the crowd too. In collaboration with an originating artist, some artificial intelligence and a river of real-time stats.
Science Fiction?
OK, I am a SciFi writer and filmmaker, so I have a tendency to imagine the crazy possible futures. But many of these things are already happening. AI is already working with us right now, for example helping us make photo with our smartphones we find more appealing.
To add the idea AI might help edit and shape our movies isn’t a giant speculative leap, rather a logical progression.
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