Category: Books, chapters, articles

Adam Nixon (2025) No-Budget Feature Filmmaking in the Digital Era Cinema in Ones and Zeroes

During November, I visited several colleagues at various universities in England and while travelling by train, I read Adam Nixon’s book. Prestigious British universities and no-budget filmmaking – you may wonder why I would connect the two, but I will show you that there is a connection.

Nixon’s book is one filmmaker’s reflection on how filmmaking has changed and a report on the possibilities of film with virtually no budget. His perspective fascinates me. He is able to think about audiovisual culture in a very broad sense. In the preface, he prepares the reader for the fact that the best film of the present day may not be the work of a professional crew, let alone a film studio. We may already be living in an era where the best films are made on TikTok.

“Imagine an unknown artist is producing the best film of the current era right now. They are creating it outside centers of power, using a cheap camera with little expense. Cineastes are waiting to discover it. The question is, where will they find it? Will it debut on TikTok, Instagram, or at one of the thousands of fringe film festivals that dot the globe? The anticipation of this discovery keeps the cinema world exciting and ever evolving.” (p. viii)

Nixon’s experience as a film school teacher shows how the situation and function of schools in my field have changed. Whereas in the past they were places where students could access the best filming technology, today everyone has a 4K camera in their pocket. Access to technology alone does not make it easier to make a film. (Let’s leave sound aside.) This attitude is very similar to what my colleague from Olomouc, Tomáš Jirsa, says—students don’t go to school because of the availability of technology and don’t expect us to teach them how to use it. They have other reasons.

Nixon’s perspective shed a completely different light on what I saw at the workplaces I visited. Paolo Russo at Oxford Brookes University showed me around the campus, showed me the facilities, and we briefly discussed the technology available to their students. With Murray Smith at the University of Kent, we discussed his recent experience with interdisciplinary research and its applicability in teaching. Ceylin Ertekin from the London School of Economics showed me around their eye-tracking lab. Deborah Klika from the University of Greenwich gave me a tour of their studios, including virtual production. And everywhere I went, I thought to myself that it would take us a very long time to catch up in Czech film and humanities departments in general.

Nixon’s book puts this into a different perspective. Thanks to smartphones, we all have a camera in our pocket (in new iPhones, even with an eye tracker). Thanks to TikTok and YouTube, we all have access to a global audience. The democratization of technology may have completely redrawn the field in which we operate. The best Hollywood producers are suddenly meeting amateurs, and gatekeepers are losing power.

Don’t get me wrong. I still think technology is essential. The fact that Royal Holloway and the University of Greenwich have virtual production studios means that they have enormous opportunities in terms of research. The excellent sound technology at Oxford Brookes University offers unparalleled opportunities for their students, even if they use it to shoot on their phones. But if we stick to the educational dimension and student expectations, Nixon is probably right and access to the latest technology is not essential. After all, the best films are already being made for TikTok.

For me, Nixon’s book is mainly an inspiration to rethink what film studies are for and what their place is in today’s education system.

December 11, 2025

film schools, Teaching, technology, tiktok
There’s nothing on TV

Imagine this situation: You come home from work in the evening. You’re tired, so all you can manage is to watch a movie. You can’t find anything to watch on Netflix, so you turn on the new AI platform, which creates a movie tailored to your current needs. It chats with you for a while, finds out your mood and preferences, and after a moment, creates a movie just for you.

Do you like that idea? I quite do. However, according to Mark Zilberman, we will have to wait at least another ten years for this to happen.

In a published pre-print article, he claims that with current computing capacity, 100 graphics cards would be needed to generate 30 frames per second.

“Modern diffusion-based image models for high-resolution images (e.g., 1024×1024 px, 30–50 diffusion steps) require on the order of 50–100 TFLOPS to generate a single frame.

– For real-time video (30 fps, 3600 seconds) the total number of frames is 108,000.

– Naive estimate without optimizations: 100 TFLOPS × 30 fps ≈ 3,000 TFLOPS (3 PFLOPS) of sustained compute. This is equivalent to hundreds of top-tier GPUs such as the NVIDIA H100.”

I cannot myself verify whether Mark’s calculations are correct. When I consulted Perplexity, it found several errors in Mark’s argument. These were mainly: a) overestimation of the processing power of graphics cards, b) simplification of the video generation process, c) omission of the possibilities for optimizing the video generation process. However, the result is the same, and even according to Perplexity, home video generation (i.e., on a single graphics card) can be expected only in the second half of the 2030s.

If that day were today, I would have the fourth installment of Naked Gun with Leslie Nielsen generated.

October 16, 2025

ai, film
Film Archives as an Unforeseen Ally of Generative AI

In recent weeks, the boom in generative AI models has begun to shift from text and images to video. Anyone can create an eight-second video using Google’s Veo model. Open AI has announced the launch (currently only in North America and by invitation) of a video platform running on the Sora 2 model. In addition, other platforms are emerging that enable the generation of special forms of content, such as micro dramas.

In our family, video generation has become part of our daily bedtime routine. Every evening, the children simply dictate to me what they want their fairy tale to be about. Gemini first prepares the text for me, and after I finish reading it, we generate the video. I consider this to be one of the greatest advantages of generative AI, as the quality of the fairy tales does not depend on how tired I am.

The problem, of course, is that eight-second videos created in two minutes enchant us now, but in a moment we will consider them the norm and they will no longer be enough for us. And if I understand correctly, the problem for developers is still to keep the characters looking consistent between shots, or to ensure that the resulting videos follow basic cinematic continuity rules. This is not surprising, because AI must first learn to tell stories like filmmakers in order to match them, and it took filmmakers decades to do so. And developers could be helped by a traditional institution well known to film historians – the archive – with its tried and tested rules of film storytelling.

I realized this in connection with The Development of Generative Artificial Intelligence from a Copyright Perspective from May 2025, which was brought to my attention by my friend and lawyer Miroslav Obernauer. The creation of a license for training generative AI is being considered. This would solve the problem of the need to train AI on existing works on the one hand and copyright protection on the other.

And this is where there is room for film archives to become centers for training AI, in addition to their role of preservation, restoration, and dissemination.

Take, for example, the Národní filmový archiv in Prague. Archivists care for hundreds of films made in Czechoslovakia – films that could be used to train generative AI. And their collections include thousands more films from other countries around the world.

Of course, I don’t know if this will happen. But I like the idea that an institution such as an archive, which – let’s be honest – is not one of the driving forces behind the digital revolution and does not exactly come across as cool to the public, could find a new role and become integral part of the creation of modern technologies.

October 6, 2025

ai, archive, artificial-intelligence, cinematic continuity, film archive, technology
Micro-dramas are huge

“In 2024, the market size of micro short dramas in China surpassed that of movie box office for the first time.”

This is one of the most interesting conclusion from the “2024 Micro-Short Drama Industry White Paper.” It came as a shock when Peter Krämer, a huge fan of Asian series, sent me the report’s findings a few months ago.

I was familiar with TikTok and vertical videos, but I had no idea that an entire industry of micro-dramas existed. This is a phenomenon that has clearly not yet reached my bubble. Either none of my friends watch them, or they just don’t talk about it. It’s safe to assume, though, that sooner or later, micro-dramas will become a hot topic in Europe and the US as well.

When you look at popular micro-dramas made for Western audiences, you probably wouldn’t consider them competition for the film industry. They give me a similar feeling to the Latin American soap operas my grandmother used to watch. But given the numbers, it would be a mistake to be condescending:

“DataEye Research Institute predicts that the market size of micro short dramas in China will reach 50.4 billion yuan in 2024, exceed 68 billion yuan in 2025, and break through 100 billion yuan in 2027.”

For those who have never heard of them, micro-dramas are series designed for mobile phones. They are often, but not always, in a vertical format. The individual episodes are only a few minutes long, and a series can have dozens of them. You can watch them on TikTok or on specialized platforms like Shortmax, ReelShort, or Dramabox. According to the report, popular themes of micro-dramas are: revenge, romance, urban life, family, ancient costume, sweet romance, fantasy, and time travel.

Tomorrow I’m heading to the Screenwriting Research Network conference. I’m curious if my colleagues will be familiar with micro-dramas, and if I’ll find someone there who has had a chance to write a screenplay for one.

My thanks to my dear colleague Xu Hang for her consultation on this topic.

September 15, 2025

china, film-industry, micro-dramas, Vertical video
Bára Erben (2025) The Body in the Film

A few years ago, when I joined Palacký University as an assistant professor, I started to include more and more cognitive theories in my teaching. After five years I have to say that I feel a positive response from the students. Every year there are several of them who want to explore film audiences and their perception of cinema. And this semester, the best student thesis so far was submitted: The Body in the Film (original title: Tělo ve filmu).

I’ve selected a few of the most compelling findings from the thesis, which I’d like to briefly share here. They offer fascinating insights into how composition, gender, and viewer attention interact.

Gendered perception of male nudity: In a scene featuring male masturbation from the film Její tělo, male viewers paid significantly less attention to the nude male body than female viewers did (pp. 25–26).

Gendered perception of nudity in centre and periphery: During the ritual sex scene in Midsommer, women focused primarily on the central action of the narrative, while men’s attention was often drawn to exposed female genitalia (pp. 27–28).

Fluctuating focus in Chyby: When nudity is shown, viewers’ attention shifts back and forth between the characters’ faces and the exposed female breasts. These shifts are driven by changes in dramatic tension and the unfolding dialogue – especially while revealing the characters’ past (pp. 27–28).

Focused attention in Poor Things: A combination of lens choice, actor movement, and color palette effectively guides viewers to concentrate solely on the actors, largely ignoring the surrounding space (pp. 29–30).

Visual suppression in Její tělo: In a visually distinct static shot from the film Její tělo, careful use of composition, low lighting, and actor performance causes viewers to almost completely disregard a striking neon-blue sign and a red light source in the background—even though they are visually prominent (pp. 31–32).

Gendered gaze dynamics: Across various scenes, the analysis found that male viewers tended to fixate longer on sexualized body parts, while female viewers perceived scenes more holistically—often focusing on the emotional and relational dynamics between characters.

Involuntary attention: One of the most striking findings is that viewers look at nudity even when they consciously try not to. Their gaze reveals an unconscious attention pattern that contradicts their self-reports (p. 54).

July 7, 2025

art, eye-tracking, film, movies, nudity
Which screen is actually the second?

It’s evening. I’m not going out, but I don’t feel like reading, so I’m watching a movie on an unnamed streaming platform. When choosing, I prefer movies I’ve already seen. Why? So I don’t feel guilty about looking at my phone every now and then.

A not insignificant number of viewers are reportedly thinking along similar lines to this scenario. They watch a film unfocused, or while doing something else. In another post I addressed casual viewing and today I want to look at the changing ways of viewing audiovisual content from the perspective of watching multiple screens simultaneously.

There are several interesting studies on the topic in which researchers have looked at the viewing practice of watching multiple screens simultaneously.

Holmes, Josephson, and Carney. 2012. Visual attention to television programs with a second-screen application. In Proceedings of the Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (ETRA ’12). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 397–400.

Brown, Evans, Jay, Glancy, Jones, and Harper. 2014. HCI over multiple screens. In CHI ’14 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’14). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 665–674.

Lohmüller, Eiermann, Zeitlhöfler, and Wolff. 2019. Attention Guidance in Second Screen Applications. In Proceedings of Mensch und Computer 2019 (MuC ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 179–187.

All of the studies are impressive because they experimentally test how viewers behave. They use an eye-tracker (mobile or stationary) and think about setting to resemble a living room as much as possible and a laboratory as little as possible. In other words, they make sure that the experiment reflects the natural environment.

The results are then very compelling and show that viewers are primarily watching TV and paying less attention to the tablet/phone (by a ratio of 2:1 to 5:1).

The problem is that all these experiments are formulated from start to finish in such a way that it is clearly established which screen is “first” and which is “second”. Even the choice of what is played on the second screen is only complementary to what is played on the first screen. For all three studies, this approach is understandable. Their intent was to offer data to make multi-screen viewing consistent, which could then be used by media companies to develop applications. But if we are interested in the relationship between audiovisual and spectator behaviour, we necessarily feel that something has been left out. They left aside the fact that there is a competition for our attention in the media market.

I don’t know anyone who would say they watched TikTok last night and occasionally glanced at what was happening on Netflix. That’s not how we talk about leisure time. Statistics, meanwhile, show that the average U.S. adult in 2024 watched Netflix for only 3.7 minutes longer per day than TikTok (62.1 vs 58.4 minutes). Is that enough of a difference to determine which screen is hierarchically first and second? I’d say no.

It may well be that the attention paid to movies and TikTok is different when the division between first and second screen is abolished. And it’s also quite possible that some movies are less successful at attracting attention (though studies suggest that this is not the case).

I would like to build on the three studies mentioned and think about how to implement experiments in a way that reflects the battle of the screens. To start with, users will need to break the hierarchy of the first and second screens and let them be free.

February 24, 2025

attention, movies, tiktok, two-screens
David Chalmers (2022) Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy

I decided to mix my reading about TikTok, social networks and cognitive psychology with a few philosophical books. In the case of Chalmers in particular, I initially felt that I might not be too far off thematically since he addressed the topic of virtual reality in his last book. Well, I was a bit mistaken. Chalmers has very different interests than I do, and he clearly tends to address problems of ontology, epistemology and ethics. In the context of TikTok, especially in the context of the current debate about whether or not to ban it, I found only one passage explicitly related. But I want to comment briefly on the rest of the book too.

First of all, it’s absolutely brilliantly written. In fact, I can well enough imagine that if this was what teaching philosophy in high schools was like, philosophy would have a very different reputation. Chalmers not only displays a deep erudition in Western philosophy, but also makes excursions into the non-Western philosophical tradition and especially into pop culture (especially science fiction literature, but also films such as The Matrix, The Thirteenth Floor, The Truman Show or series such as Star Trek: The Next Generation). Thinking about and through virtual reality (at least in the form of thought experiments) then leads him to rethink many philosophical concepts. Some of these – Plato’s Theory of Forms or the theistic conception of the world – are rather bizarre in the tradition of naturalised analytic philosophy. Chalmers approaches all of them with an open mind and is willing to grant them some persuasiveness in the context of his argument. If one of the functions of philosophy is to open minds and develop critical thinking, here it succeeds perfectly.

But now to the chapter on Value, where I find several points to consider in the case of the current discussion of TikTok. Recall that a few weeks ago it looked like TikTok was going to be banned in the US, then it didn’t even run for half a day before the new US President decided that things might be quite different. The case is summarized on wikipedia. What I found most interesting about the discussion was how the arguments for the ban were layered. We could see a diverse range of opinions covering national security, data protection, but also the dangers of TikTok for child users. I’m not competent to judge the extent to which TikTok can endanger America or damage the minds of children, and I don’t get the impression that there is a consensus on this. Let’s leave aside the legal, political and social dimension of the debate and think about whether TikTok has any value to the individual. Specifically, then, I will consider four possible values that Chalmers considers in the context of virtual reality.

In the chapter, Chalmers works with four traditional approaches to what it means that something is good for someone: hedonism, desire-satisfaction, social, and objective-list. Let’s look at what these approaches tell us about TikTok.

First, hedonism, which can simply be understood to mean that a thing is good if it brings more pleasure than pain. This is a bit of a problem with TikTok in particular. It brings satisfaction to its users which can result in addiction in 5.9 % of users. but for some individuals this can lead to a destructive, daily interaction with an app that satisfies them but potentially develops mental illness in some users as suggested by meta analysis.

Second in line is desire-satisfaction, or the approach that argues that a good life is one that brings about the fulfillment of our desires. Here we do not get simple hormonal satisfaction in the brain causing addiction to TikTok, which would again be contrary to a good and worthwhile life. Desire-satisfaction is probably the most advocated approach to value, promoted by the users themselves. Certainly not all of them, but a significant portion of them. Desire-satisfaction is implicitly present in all the motivational self-help videos, investment videos and exercise videos that are on TIkTok. I can’t judge whether this approach to values is correct, but TikTok, and by extension other social networks, are the venues through which desire-satisfaction spreads. And it only spreads because it finds a response from users who are willing to spend money on manuals, consultants and coaches to help them achieve financial independence, mental stability and a beautiful body.

The social perspective argues that the value lies in connecting with other people. Although social networks are often criticized for distancing people and creating moats in society, they are undoubtedly a tool that allows each of us to be in touch with family and friends at almost any time. For example, I can stop typing now and ask my wife Kristýna how many of her friends she has communicated with on social media today. The question is whether TikTok, which is primarily for sharing videos, offers social value. Here, though, it may just be a generational issue. While I wouldn’t be able to use videos to communicate operationally because I would be thinking through the angle, composition, and exact script of what I’m saying, some of my students already talk about making videos online as something natural. So at the very least, I don’t want to deny TikTok a social dimension. On the other hand social interaction is via TikTok and not with TikTok. Interaction with app and deep scrolling are understood as destructive practices.

And finally, the objective-list, which is the most subjective of all approaches. Even if we agree that the values are knowledge, friendship, and fulfillment (as Chalmers writes), we can never agree on whether TikTok helps us towards or away from those values. Whether TikTok serves an educational function is disputed (are student questionnaires a relevant method when we consider, that they may be already addicted to TikTok?), and whether the friendships on TikTok are real is also hard to agree on. I, for one, may be convinced that TikTok does not belong in the hands of children, but that does not mean that contact with TikTok will automatically damage their brains. In doing so, I feel that the current discussion about banning TikTok is being conducted on a moral level through the most vague objective-list approach to values.

In conclusion, let me just summarize that from an individual perspective, TikTok does not strike me as a fundamentally immoral application. Of course it has risks, of course its use can be dangerous for certain groups, but we could probably say that about all social networks or tools in general (guns, cars, staircases). I hope the political and social arguments of the proponents of banning TikTok are more convincing.

And if we look away from TikTok and look at short videos in general, their value is no less than that of other forms of audiovisual (information, advertising, communication, entertainment, or even art…). The problem is obviously in the platforms and may remind us of the critical perception of Hollywood. But this means that banning one platform won’t solve anything, because people will find another, as happened with the migration of Americans to Red Note.

February 11, 2025

David Chalmers, philosophy, social-media, tiktok, values
Will Talvin (2025) Casual Viewing: Why Netflix looks like that. n+1, issue 49.

I read an article today that is closely related to an idea for an experiment I had. Adam Ganz pointed me to the text and some of the ideas from the article were mentioned by my colleague Šimon Kulík.

The author of the article tries to argue that most of the movies on Netflix look like “garbage”, but that no one really cares because viewers only half-watch Netflix (have it running in the background) or don’t watch it at all.

There are two passages in the article that I find noteworthy. First, a summary of observations on the style and narrative of movies on Netflix. It would certainly be worth examining these further and validating them through formal analysis.

The other notable idea of the article – expressed only implicitly – is that Netflix is not where it is because of its work with data. That has only come with time. Netflix’s greatest asset is that it can exploit human nature and weaknesses. If in the beginning it was irresistible to rent a DVD without having to return it by the next day (or else one paid a fine), today it is convenient to play Netflix in the background while doing something else.

But I don’t think this necessarily makes Netflix movies look like “garbage” as the article suggests. Certainly that’s one possibility, if we look at the matter from the filmmakers’ point of view. But what if we look at Netflix from the viewers’ point of view?

In the past, I’ve repeatedly asked my students how they watch movies, and they’ve admitted to turning on Netflix while watching TikTok. (This two-screen viewing should be the subject of the experiment mentioned at the beginning of this blog.)

From the perspective of the Casual Viewing article, the cinematic quality of movies on Netflix is deteriorating because viewers aren’t paying attention to them anyway. But then how is it possible that they pay attention to even more garbage on TikTok? (Personally, I wouldn’t say it’s garbage, but if we apply the same criteria to videos on TikTok as we do to Netflix, the conclusion is clear.) How is it possible that we are turning away from low-quality movies on streaming platforms to even lower-quality videos on social media? This kind of viewer behavior doesn’t make sense to me.

A possible reason is that viewers choose to watch audiovisual content on two screens in parallel for other reasons. The reason may be our desire to absorb information easily, it may be different types of viewing (a background story on TV and a different type of information on a phone). Or there may be other reasons. But I would be careful about saying that Netflix may be deteriorating in quality just because no one is watching it. In fact, we may be witnessing Netflix and TikTok succeeding in exposing our weakness without us even realizing it.

January 15, 2025

movies, netflix, streaming, two-screens
D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye, Jing Zeng, Patrik Wikström (2022) TikTok. Creativity and Culture in Short Video

Reading this book made me think of all my academic colleagues who are prejudiced against social networks and TikTok in particular. Without bias, in a descriptive, even rigorous way, and with respect to different contexts, a phenomenon that touches the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world is presented here. Thanks to the authors, the reader can gain fundamental information and understand how TikTok works through concrete examples.

The book’s chapters cover the historical development of short videos on the Internet, TikTok’s infrastructure as a platform, communities, activism, economic model, governance, and finally, they consider the future of TikTok as a creative platform. The research then takes as its source interviews with short video creators and community members.

However, I was most interested in what the authors of the book had to say about the formal aspect of the videos and about TikTok users. There wasn’t a lot, but that’s understandable because that wasn’t their goal either. I could summarize the essential thesis for a successful video form as follows:

– emphasis on the music element

– platform supported practices: Duet, Stich, Use this Sound, effects and filters

– more showing than telling

– repetition of some successful formal practices (face zoom, panoramic shot)

As I wrote, it’s not much and not fundamentally revelatory, but I still find these insights refreshing. At least because the authors have avoided the traditionally repeated claim that TikTok is fast, which I don’t think is true (I’ll discuss that another time).

One of the main theses of the book (its starting point rather than its conclusion) is the understanding of TikTok as a music platform. Despite the book’s focus on short videos, the music component is clearly a priority for the authors. On the one hand, this is understandable, as TikTok has a predecessor in Musica.ly and the Duet and Use this Sound features clearly indicate a relationship to music. On the other hand, however, this misses out on understanding the phenomenon of short videos in their complexity. This is similar to film theorists focusing only on the visual component (as they did and still do). Especially from an audience perspective, I can imagine watching TikTok videos without sound. Why else would the videos have subtitles with transcripts of monologues and dialogue?

A notable observation in this context is the reminder of the Quibi platform, which was supposed to be a competitor to TikTok more connected to the American audiovisual industry. Quibi ended up being a huge failure and losing a lot of money, which the authors of the book justify by saying that short videos are not just about audiovisual content that is short. Short videos are mainly about cultural practice, creative expression and social interaction (p. 192). In other words, it is not about Hollywood studios and TV stations trying to push their content onto TikTok. If the traditional audiovisual industry sees TikTok as competition, it will have to transform and adapt its output. It’s not enough to just shorten the footage and crop the frame. Inspiration from TikTok needs to look different.

The authors of the book sum up the magic of TikTok’s success with the words “spreadable, templatable, imitable” (p. 192). Elsewhere in the book, they write about replicability (p. 18) and repeatedly refer to memes (p. 163: TikTok is described as a “meme machine”). These are, in my opinion, the main reasons for TikTok’s success in proving to be an extremely effective tool for spreading viral videos. But this is not an evolutionist conception of memetics, as described, for example, by Daniel Dennett in his book From Bacteria to Bach and Back (I will also discuss this another time). Kaye, Zeng and Wikström keep their feet on the ground and describe the memetic principle of TikTok as more of a community process of group creation, but one that still has its authors and recipients. Perhaps if we could get away from this schematic model of communication, we could understand what TikTok and short videos really entail.

January 9, 2025

book, tiktok