Part 2
At noon the next day, Timur called me to his office. The previous day I farewelled my F12 so I called an air taxi, boarded, and we set off. Drizzle was throwing thin scratches on the windows of the cab; the wind was causing the car to shake slightly.
When I walked into his room, a young man in his twenties was excitedly telling Timur something. When the youngster, with straight blonde hair and green eyes, saw me, he stood up and went over to the side and waited for me to pick the seat I was going to sit in.
When Timur noticed that I was looking at the boy with curious eyes, he asked, “Have you met Doruhan?”
I reached out and shook Doruhan's hand and introduced myself by saying, “I'm Tunç.”
Timur seemed to be in a hurry, confirming in his seat, “Doruhan is the number one expert in Turkey on Abyss. Yes, Doruhan, please start from the beginning.”
Doruhan began telling after a brief pause.
“I have been following the company Magnetic Dreams, which launched Abyss, since its inception. Over the past three years, as you know, they've started dominating the market. I disagree with the view that Magnetic Dreams has released existing motion picture technologies under the Abyss brand by packaging them in a flashy format. I think there's a real revolution going on right now.”
"What you mean by pre-Abyss cinema technologies?” I asked.
“I mean the creation of new celebrities by leveraging the images of acclaimed celebrities, the facial expression of virtual artists, and video analytics. Although these technologies have been used for over a decade, they have been effective under the Abyss service umbrella.”
”I think the facial expressions that artificial intelligence produces don't work, they seem very simple to me," I objected.
“The old examples, yes, but today, artificial intelligence artısts are are as good as human actors. But the main difference arises from the extensive use of video analytics. By analyzing the viewing data of hundreds of thousands of videos, they have determined what kind of images attract people's attention. When this happens, the system can suggest impressive backgrounds, the correct camera angle, striking objects, and actions.”
“They create bizarre collages with no integrity of theme. It may be suitable for music videos and commercials but never for feature films,” I objected again.
“The new version has also learned the emotions that various objects, music, and backgrounds evoke in people. They've already made the breakthrough in the latest release, where they've also added the emotional dimension to work.”
Timur listened carefully to what Doruhan said, "What lessons can we draw in terms of the films we shoot?” he asked.
“The system has the ratings of all actors and actresses seen more than once by the audience. They also know the acclaim scores of almost every venue in the world. Moreover, they offer advice on camera angles, filters, and light, taking into account which genres the film belongs to. Because we don't have the database behind the system, we don't have a chance to take advantage of the system without paying,” Doruhan said.
"Anyone who has worked in the industry for several years can know what Doruhan said. I think the point is marketing. They created a monopoly on the distribution side and made Abyss a cover for that monopoly.”
”Excuse me, but Mr. Tunç, I disagree with you, " Doruhan said.
“You don't have to apologize for not disagreeing me, Doruhan, just explain why you didn't.”
"When we explain with the examples, the criteria used by Abyss are perceived as simple, but we are talking about thousands of intricate rules derived from millions of terabyte-sized data. There's no way a person could know these things.”
"I think Doruhan made an important point," Timur said.
“The US and China seem to be competing on a lot of issues, but they get along very well on the Abyss. Who could punish a business backed by the world's two biggest superpowers for being anti-competitive? How many percents of movie theaters have independent films in vision? I don't deny the fact that Abyss has helped producers and directors, but its contribution remains at a marginal level. And I'm not the first to notice that. Since it is difficult to resist this unjust order, everyone pretends to believe in the virtues of Abyss," I said.
“I never thought about that aspect of the issue,” Doruhan said after listening to my words squinting.
”The distribution is really critical," Timur said in a thoughtful voice.
"As a member of Abyss, filmmakers have access not only to movie theaters but also to digital platforms such as Holoflix, Inspiron, and Exaturk. No one talks about that.”
"I can arrange distribution via Inspiron and Exaturk as there is a revenue share dispute between them and Abyss. Movie theaters are also complaining about Abyss. I anticipate that by taking the initiative through the Producers Guild, we will be able to make some of them independent of Abyss,” Timur said. He was excited; he stood up and began to tour the room.
"We need to pin down a single film. When it's heard in the market, other producers will give up Abyss," I said. Doruhan was watching us with confused gazes.
“We can cut the budget, can't we?" asked Timur.
"I gave up a lot of scenes at the beginning, thinking about the cost. The number of characters is also minimal for such a film. Maybe we could cut it by ten percent,” I said.
"Brother, I have two children, if we are going to take a risk, we have to minimize it,” Timur said.
Timur intended to turn around and sit in his seat, then began to tour the room again, “I feel that we will not succeed, but what can we do, that's our job, we can't stop doing it,” he said in an excited voice.
Image Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/movie-reel-projector-film-cinema-918655/
Congratulations @muratkbesiroglu!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following category: