AI and marketing in focus at Audiovisual Days

The Audiovisual Days (previously known as Västsvenska Filmdagarna) was the ninth such occasion, and the fact that the forum is needed is clear:

'We see major changes in the film and TV industry with a major need for everyone who works with motion pictures and audiovisual media to continue to develop their field of expertise and expand understanding with respect to what the new changes entail.says Gunnar Eriksson, project developer at Film&TV at Lindholmen Science Park.

'It also means that your own network becomes all the more important. The need to be able to receive help from specialists and unique expertise have always been available in the industry, but now this has also begun to spread to new areas of expertise, not lastly within new technology

AI is a new challenge for the film of the future

On Thursday a.m., Göteborg Film Festival presented a full programme with a focus on today and the future. In addition to a preview of what the upcoming film festival will have to offer, the key point was Nostradamus, where Johanna Koljonen gave us insight into the outlook for the future looks within the film and TV industry in the coming years. The lecture was based on the research that was conducted in the Nostradamus project with the annual theme: 'Relevance in a New Reality See the presentation here

The topic of Artificial Intelligence was one of the most challenging subjects to predict, and it is clear that AI is also starting to take up a place in the future film and TV industry. This was something that was discussed in a conversation with two companies that work with applying AI in their projects as an element of their business. 

We met with Michiel Ruellens, CTO at Scriptbook (Brussels), who has developed an AI tool for script analysis, and Matilda Kong, CEO and founder of the Swedish analytics company Ceretai that works with making norms and stereotypes visible with the help of AI. 

On Thursday afternoon, we were given an exclusive lecture on marketing of films, an area of interest for many of the participants. Mattias Noschis, founder of the Berlin-based film communication agency AlphaPanda, provided insight into why it has become increasingly important for filmmakers to become involved with the market group and how to reach them. He covered the topic from the perspective of a producer within both fiction and documentary film projects. See Alphapanda's presentation here

Writers' room as a way to create together

Something else that has changed the production landscape recently is the more active utilisation of the writers' room, i.e. where multiple scriptwriters develop an idea together. 

Manusfabriken led a discussion during the a.m. about how to create an optimal writers' room - and how several writers can create a TV series together. A special guest was screenwriter and editor Jesper Harrie, who has worked on Solsidan, Bonusfamilen and most recently Fartblinda, among other projects.

How are our major TV series created? How do screenwriters work when they write a collaborative project? How do you preserve the vision when you have 'multiple cooks'? The advantages of this format, as well as the challenges of collaborating in this creative phase were discussed in a panel where screenwriters Karin Aspenström, Niclas Ekström and Kjersti Ugelstad participated.

All participants in the panel were in agreement that a better writers' room is prerequisite for Swedish TV drama to be able to compete with international series.  

'We must have a better dialog between the various professions, particularly direction and writing,' said Jesper Harrie. See the discussion here

Half a day with VR and the technology of the future

Film of today and the future is no longer linear and the possibilities for how to tell a story have expanded dramatically. For this reason, Friday's focus was on the new technologies for audiovisual narrative: VR, AR and MR. 

We had the opportunity to meet the creators behind the work in the project Narrative VR Lab, which presented its VR/AR pilots. Among other things, we were able to see the work with the 360 production REGRETS, by Niklas Rydén, the AR production CURIOUS X, by Ismaila Jallow and the VR production SKINNING/TRUE MEST/16:9fulltimetexture, by Nicole Neidert. Read more about the project 

During the a.m., we also experienced how you can work with tools from the gaming industry in order to develop films. Steven Ekbrand, lecturer in MEN (Media, Aesthetics and Narrative) at Skövde University, demonstrated how to use this to create a previs of your film in development, create animated films or render finished backgrounds and worlds for your scenes. 

The days concluded with a deep lecture in virtual creation by Mike Golembewski, from British Anagram, on the topic of 'Creating the virtual'. 

Mike took a deep dive in the questions of when, where and how to use VR - what type of experiences and narratives are best suited for VR and why? How does the choice of technology influence our narrative? As content creators, how can we best work with the technology that serves as a foundation for our work so that it supports our topic instead of 'getting in the way' of our narratives?

'It has really been inspiring to be here for these days. The participants' enthusiasm, the breadth of the subjects that we have examined and not lastly the joy of getting to talk to each other. We will take that with us for next year!' concludes Gunnar Eriksson.

See all the presentations for Thursday here