IBM's Watson sorted through over 100 film clips to create an algorithmically perfect movie trailer
Movie trailers are often a bit formulaic. In fact, since many of them are edited so predictably, it seems even a computer can put one together.
For the film "Morgan," which is due out in theaters on September 2, IBM's Watson made the first movie trailer ever edited by artificial intelligence.
To make the film, Watson analyzed the trailers of over 100 horror and thriller film trailers to understand what sounds, scenes, and emotions to incorporate. The system looked at musical scores, the emotions in certain scenes (indicated by people's faces, color grading, and the objects shown), and the traditional order and composition of scenes in movie trailers.
After that, the system chose the best 10 moments for a trailer to include. Because the machine couldn't edit the film directly, the team brought in an in-house filmmaker to stitch it together. IBM says that cut the time and labor involved in the trailer- making process down from 10-30 days to 24 hours.
Appropriately, the film, which is distributed by FOX and directed by Luke Scott (Ridley Scott's son), is about an artificial human. The being ends up learning and developing too quickly for her own good and lashes out against the researchers who kept her in captivity, creating a moral quandary.
- Business Insider, Clinton Nguyen
