| ▲ | phaedrus044 13 hours ago |
| This has been almost 2.5 years in the making. The question we started off with was - if there are scales and raagas for music, is there something similar for storytelling. What goes well after what beat. That took us through a journey. Building Quanten Pulse, which led to Quanten Arc (real data, that led to a model), which then allowed us to create a benchmark database of more than 400 films. So if you breakdown 400 hollywood blockbusters, and break them scene by scene, map emotions and durations, and character arcs, what is the patterns that you see - and if you step back, do you see clusters of patterns that resonate well. Most people in hollywood write stories in two structures - predominantly. It is either Save the Cat, or the Heroes journey. But what if you don't want to save cats or go on the journey? (imagine if someone telling a musician, you have two scales - thats it). We took a peek into the 400 and found 15 different narrative structures that work well. I have a feeling as we expand - into regional cinema, and different formats, we will find more. Tell me what you think : https://arc.quanten.co/archetype PS: While we started with Hollywood, we are starting to do this analysis for Bollywood films too (though finding scripts has been difficult) |
|
| ▲ | Balgair 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Great stuff! I think. First, it's hard to read, it needs a white background with black text and larger font. Second, I know this is aimed at English speaking south Asian/Indian readers, so it's like stepping into a strange new world for me. I do a lot of story structure work and it's really fun to learn about this totally new universe of story structure. I wonder what the cross over will be like when you do 'western' film and media. Third, have you tried translating these monosyllable words (ga, ma, pa, etc) into English? I know that it may not be really possible, as I think you're borrowing from Indian musical traditions that evolved totally separately. But it would be nice to a westerner (eventually!) to have something to work from to try to understand it all. Fourth, it's really dense reading here too. You might want to have a way to tie this to something that the user has already seen as an intro. Just loading us up with data and reading is hard. Maybe try to dissect a film or show or book first? Like maybe have a little button there that we can use to click into something and see what is going on in like a really popular Bollywood film (I have no idea about south Asian media, sorry!)? Then walk the user through how you're dissecting that film. Maybe have some diagrams too. Fifth, why do this? I'm interested in why you all wanted to do this project at all. Is there an 'About' page or something? Great work! |
|
| ▲ | netdevphoenix 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Since you asked us to tell you what we think: How do you deal with emotions that only exist (as their own concepts) in certain cultures (saudade in Portugal, hygge in Scandinavia)? |
| |
| ▲ | david-gpu 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | I find this notion discombobulating every time it pops up. Just because a particular nuance of an emotion doesn't have its own precise word in the local language, it doesn't mean that the locals don't experience it. Emotions are universal. Even if some hypothetical language has a particular term for an emotion that in English would fall somewhere between "guilt" and "shame", it doesn't mean that English-speakers don't often experience it; they simply lack a term with the exact nuance, because it rarely matters that much, and we can express the idea with the help of a longer sentence. | | |
| ▲ | lioeters 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Emotions are not only biological stimulii but a culturally conditioned experience. When people say a culture has words for certain emotions that don't exist in other cultures - it means a person's culture, including language, shapes their experience of the world and themselves. As one lives with various cultures and languages, it becomes clear that people experience and express the world very differently. Some experiences are universal, others are cultural, and they are all uniquely personal. There's a limit to what can be translated. Outside of that limitation is a whole unknown expanse of "dark matter" that are lost in translation, no matter how many words or longer sentences you use. For deeply cultural or personal experiences, some things are not only impossible to translate, they are impossible to communicate. | |
| ▲ | shermantanktop 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If one’s goal is universal appeal, sure. If one’s goal is to capture a very specific time and place and culture, that exact nuance with that name could be very important. Proust spent hundreds of pages in trying to do this sort of thing. | |
| ▲ | netdevphoenix 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Emotions are universal. they simply lack a term with the exact nuance You are mistaking culture for language here. That's mistake number one. Mistake number two is assuming that a language is merely a purely biological response you can easily map to. Emotions as we conceptualise them, exist in a sociocultural context. You say emotions are universal but, are they? Have you ever experienced what an edo period Samurai was going through after failing his lord? Ever experienced the feeling of passing your rite of passage in an amazonian tribe. No. You can surely interpret those situations through your own lens and experience feelings about your interpretation but that doesn't mean you are feeling what they are feeling. You could have your own interpretation of what falling from a high altitude feels like. It doesn't mean that is going to match the emotion of someone who has actually jumped. Mistake three is assuming that your own cultural context (which you have ignored) has the same emotional interpretation of a situation as any other context. A situation that in a cultural context might elicit feelings of belonging, in another might elicit feelings of entrapment, anxiety or lack of freedom. The very idea that everyone experiences the same emotions is itself a cultural byproduct of a culture that often sees itself as the mirror of the world rather than as an additional perspective of it. | | |
| ▲ | david-gpu 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I am only going to address the last point, because I believe is a summary of your whole critique. > The very idea that everyone experiences the same emotions is itself a cultural byproduct of a culture that often sees itself as the mirror of the world I was raised by people from different regions, who spoke a common language. When I was a child, we moved to another region that spoke a different language. By that time I had already became bilingual and multicultural. Then, I learned English. Yeah, not my first language, nor my second. Eventually, I married a foreigner from a completely different culture to mine. We moved to a third country, then a fourth. We currently live in what is arguably the most cosmopolitan city in the world, with over 50% of foreign-born residents. And no, I have never lived in the US, although I've had coworkers there. Does this help clarify how much I conflate language and culture, or how much my thinking is "a cultural byproduct of a culture that often sees itself as the mirror of the world "?. Or is it possible that my thinking is shaped precisely by the variety of languages, cultures and nations I've been exposed to? | |
| ▲ | phaedrus044 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | To be fair with you, I have only mapped English Films as of now. I havent had much finding enough Indian film scripts (and am interested in Japanese / Korean films over time), but i do know that the way stories are told - there is a big difference between the way stories are told in europe vs how they are told in Hollywood (even they are both in english). Not pitching, but giving some context here : The first product we built is an audience analytics platform. We use near eye headsets while audiences are watching films during test screenings, to collect occulometric and biometric data to map engagement. Emotions are a messy thing to map and rely on. For eg, there was a film that we were testing, and three of the 50 audience members had a totally off-beat engagement signal compared to the rest of the audiences - and this was a scene in the park. So after the film was done, I had flagged the moderator to ask those three audience members what happened in the scene. So he casually brought up what parks meant to them. And one of them said, it was a weekend routine to spend time in the park with his mother whom he lost recently - so the minute he saw that park shot, thats all he could think of, and had nothing to do with the film. So if you really base a narrative structure on emotions, we will have to baseline every single person on earth for all of their experiences, and wade through that - and it would be impossible to produce a mass media outcome. Stories hinge on emotion (absolutely) but beyond that it is also a journey, where the audience participates, pays attention, and engages - we see this with occulometric and biometric data. And to truly engage, audiences must understand the words being spoken - i could watch a portuguese film without subtitles and as much as i could guess maybe 10% of the narrative, i wouldnt have a clue whats going on - let alone participate in it. Our system currently cannot accomodate for languages other than english (we are doing some tests with German, French, Spanish and Hindi - but i wouldnt rank the confidence levels on those to be high enough yet). Beta, at best. Thank you for asking that very crucial question. I appreciate it. |
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | mdre 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Seems like a cool idea but it's kinda hard to tell without seeing a whole movie or two fully broken down into those scale steps. Maybe it's there behind a paywall. |
| |
|
| ▲ | PunchTornado 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Cool. I would go into the european or auteur films. Also Asian films like wkw. |
| |
| ▲ | phaedrus044 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yep, that's definitely on the list. The only issue that I am battling with is how to take something as a positive signal to build these patterns on. Because if i take the entire universe of films, there is probably every variation of arcs. But some have worked / resonated with audiences and some haven't. The way European Cinema has been funded (predominantly through governments) mean that they do the film circuit and then disappear - and the filmmakers are off to make the next film grant. How do i find the signal to identify whats a good film or not. There was this snide remark that someone in hollywood made where they said, they make movies whereas Europe makes (art) cinema. I havent figured out how to resolve that yet. But yes to korean, japanese films - that's very much on the list. | | |
| ▲ | mmooss 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is all very interesting and I appreciate your commitment to serious research. > How do i find the signal to identify whats a good film or not. What is your the definition of 'good'? Without having that, answering the question of a signal is impossible, of course. Popularity is not necessarily a signal of resonance. It's arguably a consequence of distribution; marketing; appeal to the population of potential movie goers, often thought to be males in their late teens and early 20s going in groups; non-challenging content; etc. Many films considered 'great' have not been popular, which of course is true in many artforms. Also, what matters more in your measurement, a film that resonates a little for many, or one that resonates a lot for few? (Sorry if these questions are answered on the website; it's not loading for me.) | | |
| ▲ | phaedrus044 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | I apologise. I had to push a quick update on the site since some folks had readability issues. Please do try again - hopefully its working. So curiosity aside, I do keep reminding me what problem am I solving and for whom? Auteurs don't care for anyone's opinions and they don't need the tools nor will pay for it. I definitely do want to study "great" films - not just popular, but films that are timeliness. The next thing on my agenda is to benchmark the WGA 101 Best Screenplays of the 21st century and after that benchmark the WGA 101 Best Screenplays of all time (which starts with Casablanca). Even if there are no users for it, I'd be curious to find out how things have evolved and what stands out. But as a nimble startups, don't think auteurs and art house filmmakers would be customers. And they shouldnt - they should do what they do, and go with their gut. |
|
|
|
