Connections

By Tobias Queisser, Co-Founder, CEO, Cinelytic –

It’s Monday evening at 7 p.m. and a senior executive at a movie studio has asked for a cross-divisional green light analysis of a potential new project by morning. Traditionally, running such a model would be time consuming, because it requires combining various data sets (which often reside in different studio departments) and the coordination of staff to run a manual analysis.

This process often takes days and is very much a stop-and-go approach until all of the project elements are in place.

Data availability has rapidly evolved over the past decade due to the fact that technology now allows for data to be digitally recorded and transported. This improved availability of data, and recent advances in cloud technology and artificial intelligence- and machine learning-based analytics (AI/ML), have enabled a new type of workflow. A one-stop shop solution — combining industry-leading data and proprietary analytics — with an easy-to-use, cloud-based project management system, allows studios and independents to reduce an executive’s time spent on low-value, repetitive tasks.

This new way of working increases team productivity and improves workflow, freeing executives to focus on value- added tasks like generating actionable insights for packaging, green-lighting, marketing and distribution decisions, in real time. Processes that often took days are now executable in minutes and seconds.

The role of various technologies

Cloud. No longer limited to email, text and phone, Cinelytic’s multi-user platforms house data, analytics and project management all in one place, securely and readily available and sharable 24-7. From talent and comparable title search engines, analysis and insight, to predictive forecasts and financial outputs, the power of cloud-based technologies allows for multiple team members to run and access these insights from anywhere in real time. This is a quantum leap ahead of the systems that are currently in place today.

Data. There is more data available today than has ever existed before, yet it is often “siloed” within studio departments or spread out over a variety of sources. Cinelytic aggregates and combines data from industry leading sources such as Gracenote’s Studio- System, IMDb, Variety Insight and others. Those partnerships eliminate the need for a user or analyst to spend considerable time locating data and determining the viability and credibility of that data before starting with the task at hand.

Real-time prediction. Most systems today require manual data input of static sets that do not interact with each other. Thus, the usefulness of the data is limited to the expertise and time availability of the operator. The power of data expands exponentially when it is analyzed and correlated against other data sets in real time. AI/ML-based predictive analytics process and evaluate data in seconds and can detect patterns that would otherwise be impossible for a human to see. Placed in an easy-to-use interface, this advanced form of analytics enables executives to operate highly complex calculations with ease.

Using Cinelytic, that senior level executive no longer needs to wait overnight for staff to run that cross-divisional analysis they requested at 7 p.m.

They can react in real time to changes in the packaging process and present a Cinelytic analysis of the project for a team meeting that same night. The results are accurate, easy to analyze and can be accessed by other executives and system users anywhere in the world.

The system not only aids studio executives, but independent producers, sales agents and financiers from across the spectrum of the film industry.

To sum up, a one-stop system such as Cinelytic, which combines cloud, data and ML/AI technologies, allows each user to access and share very valuable insights in real time, enabling workflows that are faster and smarter than before. It is important that such a system is designed by industry experts that understand not only the benefits but also the limitations of an industry as specific and creatively driven as the entertainment industry.

Decision support systems such as Cinelytic are most powerful when combined with the creative instinct and the industry experience of entertainment professionals.

From our client experiences, we know that our technology can improve workflow speed by 10 times, and greatly improve content success by helping to create a better understanding of the business case and value of each TV/film project early on.

——————————–

Click here to translate this article
Click here to download the complete .PDF version of this article
Click here to download the entire Spring/Summer 2018 M&E Journal