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  1. #141
    Merely a Setback Kaleredar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SpaghettiMonk View Post
    It's very relevant that the money was guaranteed. I don't understand what you mean by "reasonably compensated", as if the writer has some inherent right to the profits coming from the star wars name.

    And accounting is always going to be shady. At every single public company, it's commonplace to do everything they can to limit how much they spend. So if you create a scenario where the writer of a star wars movie is guaranteed residuals, lots of writers will be willing to work on it because it's a riskless windfall (all star wars movies will get residuals) and that means that the actual pay is probably going to be much lower. But then, the studio will manipulate accounting to limit the value of residuals, and you end up with nothing. Just take cash up front.
    The writers of shows like Friends have made waaaaaaaay more money from residuals than they EVER would have been offered upfront.
    “Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow
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  2. #142
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    And to repeat a point; AI can't do this. Not "isn't capable of doing this yet"; is fundamentally incapable of ever achieving this. It requires actual intelligence and understanding of concepts, and AI tools do not have any such thing and no means by which to achieve that; calling them "AI" in the first place is unfortunate, because it's not actual intelligence. An ant has equivalent or better "intelligence" than these tools, and I'm probably underselling most ants here.

    If you're working up "levels of intelligence", generative AI systems aren't on that list anywhere.

    They're not the equivalent of futuristic androids or SkyNet or what have you. They're an earlier iteration on a Star Trek style computer system, where you can ask it a question in plain English and it can answer, within limits. Sure, you could tell such a system "play me happy music" and it will search its archives for music people considered "happy", but it can't tell you why it makes them happy other than by comparison, and then it's just a guess based on common correlations, not any understanding of what "happy" means or feels like.

    And those missing bits are the core of good writing. Computers literally can't understand it. They can repeat it, but that's not the same thing.
    It doesn't have to be good writing, it just has to be good enough, and folks will shell out $$$ for it.

    Once the AI tool gets good enough, all that will be required is someone willing to put together a list of parameters, requirements, plot twists etc... for a novel or movie or whatever and the generator will spit out something that they can sell.

    I wouldn't be surprised if warner brothers wasn't already training a romantic comedy ai, action movie ai and a horror movie ai for spitting out various scripts.

  3. #143
    Merely a Setback Kaleredar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by pahbi View Post
    It doesn't have to be good writing, it just has to be good enough, and folks will shell out $$$ for it.

    Once the AI tool gets good enough, all that will be required is someone willing to put together a list of parameters, requirements, plot twists etc... for a novel or movie or whatever and the generator will spit out something that they can sell.

    I wouldn't be surprised if warner brothers wasn't already training a romantic comedy ai, action movie ai and a horror movie ai for spitting out various scripts.
    And like I said once it becomes so banally predictable no one will care about it anymore. Especially when they want you to pay money for it. People will always be looking for the next, innovative thing. AI effectively being a creatively regressive tool flies in direct contrast to that.

    People were "impressed" by AI art for a few months. But it's become old hat as quickly as it arose.
    “Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow
    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    Kaleredar is right...
    Words to live by.

  4. #144
    Quote Originally Posted by SpaghettiMonk View Post
    It's very relevant that the money was guaranteed. I don't understand what you mean by "reasonably compensated", as if the writer has some inherent right to the profits coming from the star wars name.

    And accounting is always going to be shady. At every single public company, it's commonplace to do everything they can to limit how much they spend. So if you create a scenario where the writer of a star wars movie is guaranteed residuals, lots of writers will be willing to work on it because it's a riskless windfall (all star wars movies will get residuals) and that means that the actual pay is probably going to be much lower. But then, the studio will manipulate accounting to limit the value of residuals, and you end up with nothing. Just take cash up front.
    They have the rights to it if they're hired to work on Star Wars. It should be considered a plum assignment.

    We're seeing a strike because the studios are historically shady. They'll fuck you on residuals. They'll fuck you on money up front. There's lots of people who're doing the little work and they're not being paid enough.

  5. #145
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by pahbi View Post
    It doesn't have to be good writing, it just has to be good enough, and folks will shell out $$$ for it.

    Once the AI tool gets good enough, all that will be required is someone willing to put together a list of parameters, requirements, plot twists etc... for a novel or movie or whatever and the generator will spit out something that they can sell.

    I wouldn't be surprised if warner brothers wasn't already training a romantic comedy ai, action movie ai and a horror movie ai for spitting out various scripts.
    Script/novel formulas have been around for, like, a century. Harlequin novels are probably the most famous iteration. Plus, if you use AI to flood the market with AI-written material, supply and demand craters the value of that material, and now nobody's buying.

    AI isn't gonna functionally replace actual writers moving forward. Some studios will mess with it, it won't work, and they'll realize it's as much a boondoggle bit of bullshit as Theranos or NFTs.


  6. #146
    Quote Originally Posted by Chilela View Post
    And I think this circles back to how "quality" is defined. The closest thing to an objective metric of success is how much money something makes, while actually defining "good" or "bad" writing is much more difficult to pinpoint, simply due to the differences in perception of the masses.
    And I think this circles back to how "quality" is defined
    Quality
    The closest thing to an objective metric of success is how much money something makes
    quanity

    Like i said it is easy. If you make a sequel or base it on something and you do not follow the previous "lore" or facts
    When you have plot holes a 5 year old can spot, lines that do not flow in a scene. Or movies where most of the scenes can be predicted from the get go etc. it is easy to spot bad writing in that case . So between good and bad writing ( or great/epic and poor/superbad its easy).
    I do think between bad, decent, kinda and good its harder.

    And i think what you are talking about sounds more like if a movie is succesful. A movie can be great looking live avatar, but still have a bad script. It does not mean that the writing is good.
    And a movie can be fun, but badly written. My opinion is : if i leave the cinema and think: i have not wasted time and money. They movie was good enough.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gorsameth View Post
    If you put crap in, crap comes out.

    With better pay more people would be willing to become writers. With more writers come more good writers (in absolute terms, if not relative)
    With crap pay you only get people who are truly passionate (who can be great but there are only so many of them) and those who are shit but can't get a better job with their English literature degree.
    Yes and no. I agree pay more and it might get better.
    But even the well paid ones. Like derek and colin, still suck. So that argument does not fly for all of them.

  7. #147
    Like i said it is easy. If you make a sequel or base it on something and you do not follow the previous "lore" or facts
    When you have plot holes a 5 year old can spot, lines that do not flow in a scene. Or movies where most of the scenes can be predicted from the get go etc. it is easy to spot bad writing in that case . So between good and bad writing ( or great/epic and poor/superbad its easy).
    I do think between bad, decent, kinda and good its harder.
    This is all subjective BS.

  8. #148
    Merely a Setback Kaleredar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by baskev View Post
    Like i said it is easy. If you make a sequel or base it on something and you do not follow the previous "lore" or facts
    When you have plot holes a 5 year old can spot, lines that do not flow in a scene. Or movies where most of the scenes can be predicted from the get go etc. it is easy to spot bad writing in that case . So between good and bad writing ( or great/epic and poor/superbad its easy).
    I do think between bad, decent, kinda and good its harder.
    If it's so easy to write good stuff... where's your Oscar for best original screenplay?

    Like, do you think these AI script prompts are going to be written like "Star Wars sequel, +the good parts of the EU, +White male protagonist, +Lightsaber fights, +the parts of the prequels I liked, -woke politics, -Kathleen Kennedy" with the "If going to make bad = don't" modifier on them, or something?

    And i think what you are talking about sounds more like if a movie is succesful. A movie can be great looking live avatar, but still have a bad script. It does not mean that the writing is good.
    And a movie can be fun, but badly written. My opinion is : if i leave the cinema and think: i have not wasted time and money. They movie was good enough.

    Yes and no. I agree pay more and it might get better.
    But even the well paid ones. Like derek and colin, still suck. So that argument does not fly for all of them.
    And Studios are interested in making money. And if they have their druthers they're going to use AI to pump out generic, safe, predictable films that they think are likely to turn a profit. Until the bottom drops out of that because all they're doing is producing pablum.
    “Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow
    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
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  9. #149
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kaleredar View Post
    And Studios are interested in making money. And if they have their druthers they're going to use AI to pump out generic, safe, predictable films that they think are likely to turn a profit. Until the bottom drops out of that because all they're doing is producing pablum.
    Also, if you want to blame anyone for the pablum being successful, blame the audience. The studios are feeding a demand, if the demand is for samey bullshit, that's the audience's fault.


  10. #150
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    Also, if you want to blame anyone for the pablum being successful, blame the audience. The studios are feeding a demand, if the demand is for samey bullshit, that's the audience's fault.
    nah blame the capitalists who have pushed this 'fandom' nonsense onto everything. They are afraid of the future, afraid to make anything new and can only cannibalize the past.

  11. #151
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jonnysensible View Post
    nah blame the capitalists who have pushed this 'fandom' nonsense onto everything. They are afraid of the future, afraid to make anything new and can only cannibalize the past.
    You know me; every opportunity to blame a capitalist.

    But, Everything Everywhere All At Once made a total of $140m at the box office, and it's probably the best film I've seen in a decade. Wildly imaginative and important.

    Fast X has made $67 million just in its opening weekend, for crazy stunts and Vin Diesel grunting "it's about family" (I haven't seen it, but that's every F&F film to date). It's definitely gonna make more money than EEAAO.

    And that's the fault of the audiences, not the studios. We can blame studio heads for bullshit in making the film, and for bullshit in how staff who worked on those films are compensated, and the wonders of Hollywood accounting, but not for audience engagement. That's on the audience itself, 100%.


  12. #152
    Quote Originally Posted by jonnysensible View Post
    nah blame the capitalists who have pushed this 'fandom' nonsense onto everything. They are afraid of the future, afraid to make anything new and can only cannibalize the past.
    So long as people are coming to see these movies and they are box office successes while original stories do poorly you can't blame anyone but the people who still go to watch them.

    If no one wanted these movies they wouldn't be getting these numbers.
    It ignores such insignificant forces as time, entropy, and death

  13. #153
    Quote Originally Posted by jonnysensible View Post
    nah blame the capitalists who have pushed this 'fandom' nonsense onto everything. They are afraid of the future, afraid to make anything new and can only cannibalize the past.
    General audiences like these films and franchises. Familiarity is a big consumer motivator in any product category.

  14. #154
    Quote Originally Posted by Orby View Post
    They most certainly would considering AI basically steals existing ideas to create its own narrative. Only instead of a knife you'll get a spoon or some shit, or it'll find someone's fan fiction and use that lol. AI cannot create original works, it can only manipulate and adapt. Its a collage of ideas and works warped together to produce something.
    If this is your mindset, then no human alive can create original works. We all pirate ideas and concepts from our surroundings and just add spin to them. Even when a thought is truly an original thought, the likelihood it's been thought by someone else before (even though the person thinking about it now has never seen, heard, or been made aware of it's existence) is so large that the idea of "original thought" might as well be dead.

  15. #155
    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    General audiences like these films and franchises. Familiarity is a big consumer motivator in any product category.


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  16. #156
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    You know me; every opportunity to blame a capitalist.

    But, Everything Everywhere All At Once made a total of $140m at the box office, and it's probably the best film I've seen in a decade. Wildly imaginative and important.

    Fast X has made $67 million just in its opening weekend, for crazy stunts and Vin Diesel grunting "it's about family" (I haven't seen it, but that's every F&F film to date). It's definitely gonna make more money than EEAAO.

    And that's the fault of the audiences, not the studios. We can blame studio heads for bullshit in making the film, and for bullshit in how staff who worked on those films are compensated, and the wonders of Hollywood accounting, but not for audience engagement. That's on the audience itself, 100%.
    I think its a shared blame - ofc its only my experience to go off of but :

    I only heard of EEAAO because someone in a discord channel mentioned it about winning tons of awards. That was literally the first time I even heard of the movie, and it was only on the acronym, I only looked it up cause I had no idea what it stood for. That was almost.. what 9 months after it released?

    I knew about Fast X about 4 minutes after announcement. I have (and do not want) to see any of the Fast/Furious movies, they dont interest me, but marketing is so high on it, I knew about it almost instantly. Studios choose to market stuff the way they do for whatever reason and audiences eat whatever they are given. Movies I would have seen in the theater, I had 0 clue about until much.. much later, while movies I would never want to see I know long before they are released.

  17. #157
    Quote Originally Posted by Nilinor View Post
    I think its a shared blame - ofc its only my experience to go off of but :

    I only heard of EEAAO because someone in a discord channel mentioned it about winning tons of awards. That was literally the first time I even heard of the movie, and it was only on the acronym, I only looked it up cause I had no idea what it stood for. That was almost.. what 9 months after it released?

    I knew about Fast X about 4 minutes after announcement. I have (and do not want) to see any of the Fast/Furious movies, they dont interest me, but marketing is so high on it, I knew about it almost instantly. Studios choose to market stuff the way they do for whatever reason and audiences eat whatever they are given. Movies I would have seen in the theater, I had 0 clue about until much.. much later, while movies I would never want to see I know long before they are released.
    Ehhh this seems more like an issue of, you're in the bubbles where marketing agencies thought Fast X fans would be most likely to exist, and not in the bubbles where EEAAO marketing occurred. Because I heard about EEAAO many times in many different channels.

    Seems more of an issue of the demographic you're rooted in.
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  18. #158
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    And that's the fault of the audiences, not the studios. We can blame studio heads for bullshit in making the film, and for bullshit in how staff who worked on those films are compensated, and the wonders of Hollywood accounting, but not for audience engagement. That's on the audience itself, 100%.
    It goes both ways. There's obviously variables unique to both sides, but the state of the audience is also influenced by what the studios have done.

    For example, studios have a huuuuuge influence when it comes to advertising and accessibility of movies when it comes to theaters (and streaming services to some degree). The short version is that if a studio wants to push certain films over others that don't come from their studio (such as independent films), they will pressure movie theaters to not carry certain movies else they'll pull their movies from their theaters. This also extends to streaming services, although the process is slightly different as the medium is slightly different, but the concept is the same. Such behavior extends to advertising, where they'll low key threaten platforms to pull their massive advertising big bucks if there are competing movies in the way.

    When it comes to the audiences... it's a complicated topic. If anything can be said that won't get into a pages long response, I think it's fair to say that there's been a drought of good content as a whole to where people will consume mediocre content and treat it like a masterpiece. Doesn't meant there hasn't been good content, there's been some really good gems out there. Also doesn't meant there hasn't been trash content since content was a thing. However, the volume of trash content is so high nowadays that it's harder to find good content in a sea of garbage. The end result is that when your average person finds something that's even semi-palatable (even if it's not really good) in a sea of garbage, they'll consume the content readily. There appears to be a shift occuring where the average person is starting to notice such trends as these, but the masses will tend to lag behind what individuals will notice much further in advance.

    When it comes to the strike... both sides are being ridiculous here. I can understand you want to demand too much in order to reach a middle ground in negotiations, but I'd say the writers are demanding way too much from a weaker bargaining position. This is why the AI topic is coming up: it's because the writing quality on average is so terrible right now that using AI to supplement and replace part of your writing team seems like a good trade-off. Of course AI won't completely erase writers, but it would separate the wheat from the chaffe. However, there's sooooo many writers in the WGA that they don't want their abilities to affect their employment (I think something around only 10-12% of the writers in the WGA are actually working at any given time). There are writers out there who aren't concerned about AI (aka, they're the good writers) as they know they'll be in demand regardless of what happens with the WGA. Furthermore, the job of a writer in a place like Hollywood has always been this way: if you're a writer selling scripts or writing for a show, you've always know it's a temporary gig with a large influx of cash... basically, it was never your main job or you always had another job (hence the trope of actors/writers being waiters trying to make it big).

    If I had to point towards what the main issue it, it's the influx of new writers who are young and ignorant of the world. It's not only reflected in their writing but also in what they're complaining about. Demanding things like mandatory minimum of 6-12 writers for a show and guaranteed employment for a certain length of time is silly when it comes to what they're actually doing, and it shows their immature mentality when approaching the situation. If they were more focused on things like getting screwed out of residuals and the other abuses they actually endure, one could take them more seriously. In fact, I think the strike would be settled much faster if they appeared to be even a bit more serious about this instead of coming off like children before and after the strike occurred.

    Another issue is the streaming services (and the movie studios to some degree) and how it affects the writing situation. Basically, we're on the trailing end of the streaming service content boom, where places like Netflix were throwing money at everyone to create content. Now that the streaming services are losing more and more money, those jobs are drying up. While that in and of itself isn't the issue, when it comes to ratings and actual numbers games these streaming services and studios, it affects the writers in predatory ways. For example, I'm sure people have noticed that the metrics to tout a streaming show/series as 'successful' has to ridiculous levels, where we're using metrics like minutes watched... but actual viewing numbers that actually matter are kept secret, even from the content creators in many cases (because it'd likely show how terrible a lot of their shows are doing). The end result is that the streaming services and studios end up screwing content creators, actors, and writers out of residuals from two angles: the first is that they can just underpay them because they can just make up whatever numbers they want (in some cases they won't get residuals at all because of this), and the second is that legitimate content creators and writers who want to improve content in response to their audience are hamstrung because the streamers/studios won't give them the feedback they need.

    Now, there's a lot more aspects to this, but I'm already getting long. The long and short of it is that both sides are in the wrong, there is no good side. Good individuals maybe, but as a group they're both in the wrong.
    Last edited by exochaft; 2023-05-22 at 05:04 PM.
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  19. #159
    Quote Originally Posted by vizzle View Post
    Ehhh this seems more like an issue of, you're in the bubbles where marketing agencies thought Fast X fans would be most likely to exist, and not in the bubbles where EEAAO marketing occurred. Because I heard about EEAAO many times in many different channels.

    Seems more of an issue of the demographic you're rooted in.
    EEAAO had relatively little marketing. They’re only gonna spend so much on a 25m movie. A few targeted marketing campaigns can’t be compared to Fast X marketing which was big and wide. Fast X marketing is literally Everything Everywhere All At Once.

    I only heard of EEAAO because of MMOC. A few people posted enthusiastic reviews. It had Michelle Yeoh in it and that was just enough information for me to go see it in the theatre.

  20. #160
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaleredar View Post
    If it's so easy to write good stuff... where's your Oscar for best original screenplay?
    Its not. But if i am not good at being a hearth surgeon i would not demand a raise if i kill many patients.
    And there is a oscar for best original screenplay like you hinted at. So there are good writers.
    And like i said several times in this thread. I do also think there are good writers/great writers.
    Sadly also some very bad ones that get several scripts.

    And i am not talking about things i feel like are wrong.
    I am talking about things that can be measseured. Like if you leave plotholes in a movie a todler could spot. If a cast member needs to correct you and you call them a to die hard of a fan ( like with the witcher), or wednesday's writers who did not even get the basics on wednesday characther.
    If i am a car mechanic and i instead of fixing the tire, use superglue to do it. i am a bad mechanic.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kaleredar View Post
    Like, do you think these AI script prompts are going to be written like "Star Wars sequel, +the good parts of the EU, +White male protagonist, +Lightsaber fights, +the parts of the prequels I liked, -woke politics, -Kathleen Kennedy" with the "If going to make bad = don't" modifier on them, or something?
    nope, and i never said that. I do not care if its a man , women or droid who is the next focus.
    again you are saying things here i never said. i do not like the idea of AI movie scripts.
    And i did not talk about politics. you do here.


    Quote Originally Posted by Kaleredar View Post
    And Studios are interested in making money. And if they have their druthers they're going to use AI to pump out generic, safe, predictable films that they think are likely to turn a profit. Until the bottom drops out of that because all they're doing is producing pablum.
    again i never said i liked Ai writing movies. You are filling in things here i never ever said!

    And i do think they deserve more money. I am just pointing out, there are some bad writers that should not payed more. Like in many proffesions you see weak, bad, under performers that bring down the hard good workers. thats all i am talking about.


    My god, what are you on. Half the stuff you are talking about i did not say. Or did not even mention.

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