Can AI write Better Screenplays

We wanted to explore AI (artificial intelligence) in filmmaking, specifically writing screenplays. We could not think of a better expert than an AI itself so that is exactly what we did. Here is a podcast about AI writing screenplays, written by AI, and read to you by an AI... Oh, yes we went deep down the rabbit hole. 

Thanks to tools by  https://ai-writer.com/, and https://www.descript.com/ for making this possible. 

As well if you need smart tools to help you process payroll, create/distribute call sheets, and manage your crew on your next production, check us out at :
https://topsheet.io/

Transcript

Real Caleb: 0:01

Okay, well, a disclaimer, we're very aware. We probably went too deep into this and, uh, Honestly, we're not sorry. This was a fun blog and piece of content to wrap her head around., we got really deep into the whole topic of AI. Because this is intriguing to us as a tech company, as filmmakers as creators. And, uh, we wanted to use as many tools at our disposal as possible. To kind of illustrate. Kind of more where we're at today with AI. So. To go even one step deeper. Everything you hear from this point on. Will be read to you. By an AI mimicking. Well, my voice. And it's pretty close. Now mind you. This AI. Is working off only about 10 to 15 minutes. Of my voice, meaning it was only able to train itself based on 10 to 15 minutes of me reading a script more or less. And from that point, It's mimicking me. As you know, I read more and input more, say an hour, two hours. It probably would start getting some of my inflections kind of how I sort of strangely talk and add. You know, uh, emphasis on weird words, it would probably start adding that in naturally. I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments, but, uh, Take it away ai

Caleb AI: 1:39

Thank you real Caleb, here is the blog... The world is changing rather fast, we have flying drones, electric self driving cars, and now even AI. At Topsheet we are no stranger to tech, in fact we have created a ton such as automated payroll, smart call sheets that fill a lot of themselves out and even update crew in real time, not to mention all of the start paperwork and back and forth emails we eliminated with our desktop and mobile apps. But, when it comes to AI(Artificial Inteligence) writing movie scripts for us, we have to stop and ask, is this a good thing? We struggled to figure out who to ask about this topic, who would be the best person to give us their opinion on machine learning and AI written screenplays, and then it hit us, why dont we ask an AI itself. So, that is just what we did, with the help of ai-writer we did just that. It took less than two minutes for the AI to research and write on this topic, much faster than any human could, as well the content had tons of sources, but the quality of the writing, I will let you be the judge, from this point on, every word was written by AI with no editing or assistance. Should Ai Be Writing Screenplays? In a 2016 paper published in Dr Mitchell and colleagues, Dr. Mitchell classified emotional arcs of 1,327 stories in Project Gutenberg Fiction and found that they were dominated by six basic forms. He told Ars that AI can generate ideas faster than humans, but that nuances are needed when it comes to assembling a story. In general, Dr. Mitchell says that applying the same tools to film scripts could find a smaller number of core forms in a story with less data to draw from. Many of the new stories are based on coherent elements and patterns, the so-called tropes, that have proven themselves in the past. This team enables scriptwriters, directors and producers to consider what the best tropes for a film are if they want to increase their chances of success at the box office. For the vast majority of those who want to break into the industry and sell spec scripts, it is best to focus on the story. When you get stuck on a project, you can feed in some information and it will generate a bit of a script to help you get past the write block. For Vaus, Weiss fed in the first lines of the script, which took longer to write than the production of a short film. Artificial intelligence is already trying its hand at various human creative endeavors- cooking, art, poetry, board games, and even surreal robots that write scripts for science fiction movies. The team plans to feed machine learning models to train artificial intelligence to write dialogues for unplayable characters in open world games. Overall, the field of narrative artificial intelligence is thriving, and over time it will produce more than just quirky Twitter bots, which will reach feature lengths in the future, says co-author Juan Merelo. Talent agencies harness machine-learning computers and use algorithms to sort through massive amounts of data to make recommendations and suggestions for marketing their stars. We've seen software used to generate scripts for everything from Seinfeld to Batman movies to Hallmark Channel originals, often with hilarious results. It's like a good gag, but one that takes the script from you to bring it to life. In the 1960s, films experimented with making something like westerns and cowboy stories. Back then, the formula for the masses was based on footage that worked well for these genres. According to media futurist and algorithmic filmmaker Alexis Kirke, we should get used to the idea that computers play a role in our creative endeavors, especially when it comes to writing film scripts. Many Silicon Valley technology companies, such as Netflix, Google, and the Hollywood studios, have been slow to adopt artificial intelligence and machine learning, at least on the screen. It is this plethora of use cases that has led the algorithm creators to question the release of the first version of AI, which was not trained to write scripts. Machine learning provides a trove of data on why certain movies and TV shows work and why others fail. But it is difficult for teams of people to sort out overwhelming amounts of information such as audience surveys and critical reviews to understand what makes a commercial or movie a hit. Feeding this information into a machine equipped with artificial intelligence programs and a vast database of successes can provide proactive suggestions. Artificial intelligence would have to work with a living person to bring a machine-written script to life. Ultimately, the end product would still have to be interpreted and manufactured by a human being. Just as a screenwriter visualizes and writes down many scenes, he understands his script and his director before handing it over to the film. At this point, the script- scene-by-scene breakdowns, notes on camera placement, camerawork and staging - is a draft. It is a blueprint for the production of the film. Students create movies using a tool derived from GPT-3 called Read and Write Screenplays. While Benjamin learns more, he gains the ability to emulate the structure of the script, but cannot recognize proper names because they are not as predictable as the words in the sentence. To solve this problem, Goodwin changed the character names in Benjamin's script from source material to a single letter. For this reason, the characters in the short version of the Benjamin screenplay are called H, H2 and C. In the original script, two different characters were named H and one of them renamed H2 to avoid confusion. The director Oscar Sharp and the AI researcher Ross Goodwin published a strange short film in July last year, Sunspring. Benjamin is nothing more than a scriptwriter on a sheet of paper using pencils, pencils and felt-tip pens, like a child filling out crazy libraries on the page. Incidentally, the Sunspring film is more than just a captivating experiment and could prove to be an amazing screenwriter. The bizarre short film Sunspring with Thomas Middleditch chronicles a cryptic love triangle between three people living in a bizarre futuristic office. Sunspring, the strangest short film of all, is a science fiction story written by an algorithm called Benjamin. Seeing a weekend film in 2021 is something different from previous years so we thought a second cover of"Sunspring" would be fine, a short film written with Thomas Middleditch and in conjunction with an algorithm. Ars was thrilled to host the online debut of Sunspring, a short sci-fi film that doesn't quite match what it seems to be. The film debuted at Ars on June 9, 2016, and our interview with the people behind it seems unchanged.

Real Caleb: 8:33

It's real Caleb again. And, uh, I wanted to follow up after this kind of more blog reading., of an AI giving its opinion and sort of like facts on AI writing screenplays. And just kind of give you like my general thoughts. I think. You know, experimenting with. Things such as AI writer and Descript using their overdub and even GTP-3, which is an open AI. Tool more or less. I kind of have a sense of where, where we're at with technology. I think the first surprise I have is. The technology is weirdly available. Like it is really easy to get a hold of, AI technology. To create content or to get information or, to even generate, specific things, whether it's images, words, so on and so forth. And it's really cheap actually. it's surprisingly cheap actually, to get. An AI to create your piece of content or whatever you're looking for. But I guess the one thing I would add is I think what AI is currently missing and why I would say, It's not necessarily. Going to replace writers and it's not going to replace creatives, in. And any, you know, short term manner at least. I think is because, currently where it's at today. It's kind of jumbled, right? As you could hear, like my. AI companion voice, it almost sounds like I have a dry throat the whole time and have very little expression. And very similarly with just kind of the continent itself, like that whole portion that you just heard was completely written by AI. It's more coherent than I thought it would be, but it's still like kind of disjointed where you find yourself like listening and saying, wait. Is this making sense? It sounds like it's making sense, but I don't actually know if this is actually making sense. It'll have like, you know, five sentences in a row that make complete sense. And then sort of move on to something else , with no. Warning at all. And so I think where we're at today, if you were an independent filmmaker or a filmmaker yourself, I think. I think you should use AI tools. I know that sounds completely different than what I was just saying, but I think you should be using AI tools as a good place to start. I find myself like reading. This blog or reading this content and wanting to edit it and wanting to add things and, oh, having an idea. And it more being a spring board rather than a finished piece. I wasn't actually going to put, this. end tag. On this piece of content. But I feel like it needs some sort of ending, it needs some sort of summary. It needs some sort of cohesion. If we're going to take all of this. Listening to an AI, talk about. AI writing screenplays. What are we going to get out of it? And I think my takeaway is we're really close to having really good content. Competitive content made by AI. But today, I think we can use that tool as a springboard. And goes further. And maybe generate content even faster. Due to this. So, if you're curious about AI and want to experiment further, you can create your own AI with TensorFlow, which is a Google tool. You can use. GTP three, which is open AIS. Platform. You will have to apply for its beta and they may not approve you. Or you can use tools like D scripts over dub to do voices like I have, or, use AI writer to create. Blog content or article content. And maybe get something out of that. There are a ton of tools out there. I think filmmakers should take advantage of versus being afraid of. We should look at what we can do with a piece Rather than fear. If it's going to replace us. All right. I hope every single one of you has a great day. Great night, wherever you're at. And, from all of us at top sheet. Super thankful for you listening. I'd love to hear some of your thoughts, comments, questions. Feel free to jump onto our blog at topsheet.io forward slash blog. And reach out to us. All right. Have a good one