epagogix
mari mets examines epagogix' s approach in tallin' s aripaev business newspaper .
epagogix interviewed by dave fanning - one of ireland' s leading broadcast journalists .
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bbc focus on epagogix and
the top five automated talent spotters
...
epagogix' s nick meaney invited to opine on' anticipatory shipping' in marketing magazine .
la science du
blockbuster
- an overview of epagogix in montreal' s le soleil .
the daily telegraph' s tom rowley paints a colourful picture of epagogix' s operations and influence .
moviearb - - a new film investment vehicle - - is using epagogix to provide key forecasting information .
flopbusters! britain' s famous sun newspaper gives a uniquely succinct take on epagogix' s value proposition .
' this is an incredibly valuable tool' - watch a video of malcolm gladwell describing epagogix’s unique abilities .
09 feb 2007: q & a with nick meaney, epagogix’s ceo timed to coincide with the opening of the berlin film festival, the german financial times speaks to epagogix’s nick meaney about movies and methodologies, rather than the business angle you might expect. read the full article (german - epagogix article on page 2 )
jennifer nille of brussel' s l' echo looks at epagogix and some of the misconceptions around its process .
ira basen of canada' s the globe and mail notes epagogix' s accuracy and usefulness for studios ...
epagogix reported on
in business
- bbc radio 4’s industry innovations programme (mp3 11. 4 mb) .
16 nov 2006: per il botto al botteghino c' è un software malandrino marco de martino provides a summary overview of epagogix’s methodology for the news website urltoken. please note that the article incorrectly identifies the origins of epagogix’s services and wrongly attributes the initial development of epagogix’s methodology to the usa, rather than the uk. read the full article (italian )
richard curran of ireland' s rte
the business
discusses the failings of some film' formulas' with epagogix .
epagogix is a privately - held uk company, with representation in the usa. epagogix brings together expertise in risk, finance, artificial intelligence and film analysis to create innovative tools and solutions for the hard decisions that senior company directors need to make .
jeremy rifkin makes a bold assertion and contextualizes epagogix' s role in the evolving business world in the zero marginal cost society .
the irish times' karlin lillington gives a comprehensive overview of where epagogix sits in providing management information and creative assistance to studio clients .
the profit impact will be known only after the film is released. confidentiality agreements bar disclosure of specific films and studios working with epagogix. but richard furlin, a movie financier with moviearb, says he’ll back a film only if it' s been vetted by epagogix .
the noted julio sanchez christo show on latin america' s w radio highlights epagogix' s approach to improving the commercial prospects of films .
malcolm gladwell’s groundbreaking analysis of the impact and implications of epagogix’s approach translated into the german language by switzerland’s neue zurcher zeitung, nzz online .
boyd farrow writes in united airlines hemispheres magazine about the in - roads made into the creative industries by epagogix and other evidenced - based methodologies .
28 mar 2014: algoritm ennustab hollywoodis edu mari mets examines epagogix' s approach in tallin' s aripaev business newspaper. read the full article
epagogix’s primary focus is on the film and tv sectors. we work with major hollywood studios, and with independents. we have expertise and impeccable contacts in the field of movie fund - raising. increasingly epagogix is invited to assist companies in making critical decisions in other data - rich areas .
luke dormehl, noted' futurist' writer discusses epagogix and his book the formula on steve wright' s popular afternoon show on bbc radio 2 .
noted science writer tom whipple takes a light - hearted and reductive look at epagogix and other users of advanced algorithms in the economist' s intelligent life .
epagogix helps studios to identify, enhance and deliver on - screen success, and guides investors in the creation of winning film and television - related investments .
04 jan 2008: the appliance of science - a uk - centric look at epagogix screen international' s rachel nouchi looks at epagogix from a sceptical british production perspective - while noting that the bulk of this uk company' s business and reputation is focused on north america. read the full article (english )
epagogix are
super crunchers
asserts professor ian ayres in his acclaimed new book on why thinking - by - numbers is the new way to be smart .
takes an in - depth look at hollywood and interviews nick meaney and sean verity, members of epagogix' s team about the potential impact of their services .
epagogix' s origins lie in a conviction that more attention needs to be paid to the biggest risks a studio faces: namely that large amounts of shareholder capital are invested into films that fail to make a sufficient return. epagogix forecasts the financial prospects of a film, and the studio then determines how that fits with the budget .
in his random house - published book the formula, luke dormehl places epagogix in the context of other forward - looking sectors that make complex decisions based on quantified evidence .
hedge fund and investment managers work with epagogix, determining highly targeted, non market - correlated risk / reward strategies for asset allocation, and developing fund - raising vehicles .
furlin believes recommendations from epagogix have boosted revenues of some movies he' s financed by more than one - third. but there’s resistance in hollywood to using big data .
30 jan 2014: expert analysis and predictive algorithims epagogix' s nick meaney invited to opine on' anticipatory shipping' in marketing magazine. read the full article (english )
23 aug 2011: when algorithms rule the world bbc technology reporter jane wakefield looks at the
weapon of choice
in negotiating consumer and business decisions - the algorithm, and highlights epagogix' s role in helping executives make' tough decisons'. the article focuses mostly on the binary uses of epagogix' s forecasts (shall we make the movie or not ?), rather than on epagogix' s ability to work with studios to enhance the box office prospects of a given script. read the full article (english )
the wall street journal' s christophor steiner on epagogix and other
powerful new computer programs [ that ] are doing tasks once reserved for composers, writers and policy - makers
.
epagogix' s approach helps management of this most critical financial risk by delivering accurate predictive analysis of the box office value of individual film scripts, and by identifying and quantifying how and where to improve their commercial value. if requested, epagogix sensitively bridges the gap between the financial and creative aspects of film production by providing quantified insights and advice to those responsible for script development .
marketing magazine examines attitudes and opportunities in the marketing sector around evidence - based decision - making - using epagogix as an example of how creatives and analysts work together for the benefit of all .
02 jan 2014: the geeks who are directing hollywood the daily telegraph' s tom rowley paints a colourful picture of epagogix' s operations and influence. read the full article (english )
02 apr 2009: actuaries should explore alternative approaches to data mining [ such as that used by epagogix ], advises prof ian ayers insurance urltoken reports that in a keynote address to us actuaries, ian ayres, the noted author of
super crunchers
advised actuaries to consider non - traditional approaches to predictive analysis - citing epagogix as an example of this process. read the full article (english )
feb 2014: happy endings boyd farrow writes in united airlines hemispheres magazine about the in - roads made into the creative industries by epagogix and other evidenced - based methodologies. read the full article (english )
keynote speaker at the casualty actuarial society seminar in huntingdon beach, ca, usa. nick meaney, founding ceo of epagogix ltd tells the story of how this small british company developed from a ...
10 aug 2013 :
the writer is king
richard curran of ireland' s rte
the business
discusses the failings of some film' formulas' with epagogix. listen to the broadcast (english )
31 oct 2007: motley fool applauds super crunching business approach jack uldrich strongly recommends ian ayres' super crunchers in the much - cited motley fool investor - advisor website, stating that epagogix and others are part of the
rapidly maturing field of data mining [ that ] is transforming the commercial marketplace .
uldrich opines that epagogix' s fact - driven findings approach has the potential to
revolutionize hollywood
. full review now offline
02 aug 2011: film financing - - a risk managed approach using epagogix to provide key forecasting information, moviearb, a private equity - style vehicle will invest in slates of 10 movies to be widely - distributed in the usa. epagogix will help to determine whether appropriate box office hurdles can be met or surpassed, and will provide quantified script suggestions to enhance the box office potential of selected projects. read the full article (english )
hollywood is an intensely risky business... there is certainly an openness to what [ epagogix ] is talking about ...
says variety' s steven gaydos in an interview with bbc radio 5 live .
peter körte, the well - respected cultural editor of the frankfurter allgemeine sonntagszeiting takes an in - depth look at hollywood and interviews nick meaney and sean verity, members of epagogix’s team about the potential impact of their services .
12 apr 2014: the formula on bbc radio 2 luke dormehl, noted' futurist' writer discusses epagogix and his book the formula on steve wright' s popular afternoon show on bbc radio 2. listen here (english )
stacey vanek smith of the usa' s npr marketplace talks to epagogix' s nick meaney, and to film financiers about the utility, efficiency and necessity of evidenced - based decision - making in hollywood movie - making and investing .
19 nov 2006: how hollywood' s power elite lost the plot mark hooper, of the independent believes that the business of movie - making is undergoing a major shift, and sees that epagogix is ‘setting hollywood a - buzz’ .
in the epagogix secret formula, it seemed, locale matters a great deal. “you know, there’s a big difference between city and countryside, ” mr. pink said. “it can have a huge effect on a movie’s ability to draw
24 dec 2006: die 200 - millonen - dollar - formel malcolm gladwell’s groundbreaking analysis of the impact and implications of epagogix’s approach translated into the german language by switzerland’s neue zurcher zeitung, nzz online. read the full article (german )
13 jul 2007: how to make a blockbuster... nobody knows everything - the computers are there for what the people don' t know epagogix' s complex computer programmes are fed by expert industry data, and enhanced by objective outsider analysis of' insider' hollywood knowledge. phil hoad, the guardian' s film expert explains the challenges hollywood faces in creating summer blockbusters, and how epagogix helps to pick and finesse winning scripts. read the full article (english )
malcolm gladwell, noted author of' blink' and' the tipping point' aims his pen at epagogix... what if you built a machine to predict hit movies? ...' it was incredible [ the accuracy of epagogix' s forecasts ]... it was like someone saying to you' we’re going to show you how to count cards in vegas'. - senior warner brothers executive quoted by malcolm gladwell in the new yorker magazine, oct 16th 2006 .
apr 2013: how algorithms are doing a number on you noted science writer tom whipple takes a light - hearted and reductive look at epagogix and other users of advanced algorithms in the economist' s intelligent life. read the full article (english )
04 jan 2013: la formule magique à hollywood jennifer nille of brussel' s l' echo looks at epagogix and some of the misconceptions around its process. link to the full article (french) link to hard copy (french and english )
is there a formula to predict oscar winners? deutsche welle radio’s matthew lawton asks epagogix’s nick meaney this timely question and investigates other aspects of the' artistic' versus the' commercial' imperatives of film - making (mp3 3. 43 mb) .
27 feb 2016: fading stars - from the economist gady epstein of the economist examines the extent to which' stars' can impact us and international box office - reviewing epagogix' s objective analysis of the issue. read the full article (english )
nov 2009: the (x + y) / z = hit factor bbc focus, the science - technology - future magazine examines technology' s use in the creative arena. the article' s talentspotter. exe lists epagogix as one of the top five
automated talent spotters
and briefly indicates how epagogix also identifies
turkeys
. the column also takes a quick view of cantor fitzgerald' s new hollywood stock exchange. read the full article (english) see the original article (english )
his company, epagogix, occupies scruffy offices plastered with film posters in the attic of a business park in south london. we sit around a coffee table, surrounded by a dozen staff, who are silently watching films, their ears covered by headphones .
18 aug 2012: automotons get creative the wall street journal' s christophor steiner on epagogix and other
powerful new computer programs [ that ] are doing tasks once reserved for composers, writers and policy - makers
. read the full article (english )
epagogix also identifies and refines the creative improvements that can be made to a script and quantifies the positive box office impact that such changes will make. the independent, a british national newspaper sets the context well... read the full article (english )
13 jun 2013: blockbusters and bombs in this live broadcast, epagogix tells mark whittaker of the bbc world service' s business matters how they can accurately predict which films will be box office blockbusters and which will be bombs. listen to the broadcast (english )
a few months ago, dick copaken agreed to lift the cloud of unknowing surrounding epagogix, at least in part. he laid down three conditions: the meeting was to be in london, mr. pink and mr. brown would continue to be known only as mr. pink and mr. brown, and no mention was to be made of the team’s current projects. after much discussion, an agreement was reached. epagogix would analyze the 2005 movie “the interpreter, ” which was directed by sydney pollack and starred sean penn and nicole kidman. “the interpreter” had a complicated history, having gone through countless revisions, and there was a feeling that it could have done much better at the box office. if ever there was an ideal case study for the alleged wizardry of epagogix, this was it .
epagogix analysts read a script and place a value on all of the plot points, everything from love scenes to car chases to quirky sidekicks .
and they score them according to a directory, in the way a teacher might score a test ,
says meaney .
may 2013: what marketers can learn from hollywood marketing magazine examines attitudes and opportunities in the marketing sector around evidence - based decision - making - using epagogix as an example of how creatives and analysts work together for the benefit of all. read the full article (english )
06 aug 2013: hi ho! ... uh oh? the bbc world service' s world business report asks nick meaney for epagogix' s view on the stumbles of some recent intended hollywood blockbusters. listen to the broadcast (english) link to site (english )
we use a computer enhanced algorithm that has the data of many, many, many movies, which have been analyzed by my colleagues and broken down ,
says nick meaney, ceo and co - founder of epagogix, a consulting firm that works with the entertainment industry .
apr 2014: the formula: how algorithms solve all our problems … and create more in his random house - published book the formula, luke dormehl places epagogix in the context of other forward - looking sectors that make complex decisions based on quantified evidence. publishers' website (english )
08 jan 2014: the success of films may be based on algorithms that measure aspects of the script the noted julio sanchez christo show on latin america' s w radio highlights epagogix' s approach to improving the commercial prospects of films. listen to the interview (english and spanish )
of course, the rules are never hard and fast, says epagogix’s meaney. all of the elements interact with each other in a unique way in each film, which is what makes this stuff so tricky. even big explosions, the hollywood blockbuster staple, aren’t always a plus .
09 jan 2014: hollywood’s best friend at the box office just might be an algorithm the irish times' karlin lillington gives a comprehensive overview of where epagogix sits in providing management information and creative assistance to studio clients. read the full article (english) read the newspaper version (english )
jan 2014: the internet of things noted economic and social theorist jeremy rifkin makes a bold assertion and contextualizes epagogix' s role in the evolving business world in the zero marginal cost society, published by macmillan :
a similar software prog developed by epagogix analyses movie scripts to project box office hits for the film industry. its success in identifying winners has made algorithm assessment standard fare in the industry. in future these types of algorithms will eliminate the need to hire pricey marketing agencies to conduct focus group encounters and other marketing research activities ...
publishers' website (english )
28 aug 2007: risky business part ii - this time it' s critical financial risk sorry - nothing to do with tom cruise' s famous debut - bbc radio 5 live' s phil williams talks to epagogix' s nick meaney and to variety executive editor steven gaydos, who believes that the
single biggest fear in hollywood is risk
, with huge amounts of money being' bet' on individual projects - - which goes some way to explaining the industry' s openness towards epagogix' s abilities. listen to the broadcast (english - mp3 sound file 8. 29 mb )
27 aug 2007: who you gonna call? ... flopbusters! in the sun newspaper, virginia wheeler succinctly states epagogix' s value to investors and studios who want to avoid the expensive mistakes of developing films that cost more to make than they earn. read the full article (english )
16 oct 2006: what if you built a machine to predict hit movies? writing in the new yorker magazine, malcolm gladwell, the noted author of ‘blink’ and ‘tipping point’ reflects on thought - provoking meetings with epagogix' s dick copaken, and takes an in - depth look at why different people like different kinds of film, examining hollywood' s approach to balancing subjective creative vision with objective audience tastes and investor requirements. he examines the historic context and application of rules and systems, neural networks, and talks to epagogix’s staff about their innovative methods, modelled against a specific sample movie. read the full article (english )
14 aug 2007: freakonomics - attack of the super crunchers the new york times' melissa lafsky reviews professor ian ayres' acclaimed new book super crunchers, in which epagogix is heavily featured as one of those companies that is ahead of the curve in using data to enhance or displace intuition. . full article now offline
25 mar 2012: one of the great unseen drivers of our world antony funnell, the presenter of the australian broadcasting corporation' s
future tense
talks to some of those who use advanced algorithms to make better decisions in various sectors. his guests include epagogix ceo nick meaney. listen to the broadcast (english )
25 aug 2007: la science du
blockbuster
. transposing risk principles to cinema marc allard, of montreal' s le soleil talks to nick meaney and examines the risk environment in hollywood, and how epagogix applies the intense objectivity of its process and neural network to address and lessen those risks. full article now offline
epagogix works confidentially with the senior management of major film studios, large independents and other media companies, assisting with the selection and development of scripts by identifying likely successes and probable' turkeys'; helping to quantify a script / project' s commercial success; and advising on enhancements to the box office / audience share potential .
nov 2007: the mathematics of hollywood thomas bunnell, editor of luxury lifestyle magazine, boom, takes an initially sceptical look at epagogix' s approach to helping hollywood identify the scripts where it should spend its valuable capital and talent, and comes away willing to be convinced. read the full article (p 47) (english )
the epagogix revise of “the interpreter” starts with an upbeat silvia broome walking into the united nations, flirting with the security guard. the two men plotting the assassination later see her and chase her through the labyrinthine cor - ridors of what could only be the u. n. building. the ambiguous threats to broome’s life are now explicit. at one point in the epagogix version, a villain pushes broome’s vespa off one of manhattan’s iconic east river bridges. she hangs on to her motorbike for dear life, as it swings precariously over the edge of the parapet. tobin keller, in a police helicopter, swoops into view: “as she clings to tobin’s muscular body while the two of them are hoisted
copaken then approached another hollywood studio. he was given nine unreleased movies to analyze. mr. pink, mr. brown, and mr. bootstraps worked only from the script—without reference to the stars or the director or the marketing budget or the producer. on three of the films—two of which were low - budget—the epagogix estimates were way off. on the remaining
13 mar 2013: when number crunching met the creative industry keynote speaker at the casualty actuarial society seminar in huntingdon beach, ca, usa. nick meaney, founding ceo of epagogix ltd tells the story of how this small british company developed from a risk management background to become a noted advisor to the hollywood film industry. read the full article (english )
those scores are fed into the computer algorithm, which then calculates how much the movie will make at the box office, plus or minus about 10 percent. epagogix will also recommend script changes to make a movie more marketable and profitable, like setting it in a different place. or scaling back a character’s role, a recommendation that thrilled one studio executive .
another example: a vendor called epagogix has software that can predict the success of a movie based on attributes contained within a movie' s script, such as where scenes are shot. as part of a test, states the sloan article, the software predicted that the 2007 film
lucky you
would bomb and take in just $ 7 million in box - office receipts .
the film, which featured a major star (drew barrymore), a well - known director and screenwriter, and a plot about a popular topic, professional poker, cost $ 50 million to make ,
write davenport and harris .
epagogix, however, was on target, as the film brought in a paltry $ 6 million .
20 feb 2007: is there a formula to predict oscar winners? deutsche welle radio' s matthew lawton asks epagogix' s nick meaney this timely question, and investigates other aspects of the' artistic' versus the' commercial' imperatives of film - making. listen to the interview (english - mp3 sound file 3. 43 mb) deutsche welle homepage: urltoken
aug 2007 :
super crunchers... are delivering staggeringly accurate results
super crunchers - why thinking - by - numbers is the new way to be smart. yale law professor and noted econometrician and commentator, ian ayres' new book has been embraced by the
best and brightest
business thinkers. with a fast - moving and compelling style, ayres shows the value of evidence - based decision - making in various arenas. in the world of movies, ayres identifies and highlights the value that epagogix adds to film - makers, film financiers - - and film audiences. read epagogix references (english) super crunchers is published by bantam books, a division of random house inc. isbn 978 - 0 - 553 - 80540 - 6
19 jul 2011: urltoken (technology, entertainment, design) how algorithms shape our world kevin slavin - - the co - founder of gaming company area / code delivers a broad - ranging lecture for the prestigious urltoken on how algorithms are re - shaping many areas of business and everyday life - - including epagogix' s endeavours in the movie industry. watch the video (english )
that
nobody... knows the least goddam [ sic ] thing about what is or isn' t going to work at the box office .
while it may be true that one person alone cannot predict hits and misses with total accuracy, epagogix' s data - mining and deep learning algorithms have shown that they can accurately forecast how much money a movie is going to make at the box office .
feb 2016: bits, data and stars - the new york times considers hollywood in the digital age michael belfiore considers the impact of silicone valley on various aspects of hollywood business - including how epagogix
brings the kind of data - based risk analysis to moviemaking that investors — in this case, the studios investing in movies — have long used in other industries, like banking .
read the full article (english )
26 nov 2010: the algorithm method ira basen of canada' s the globe and mail notes epagogix' s accuracy and usefulness for studios, despite his concern that it removes
risk - taking
from movie making - - which is praise indeed for a risk - management tool that is designed to help studios and independent producers to avoid calamity and assists in ensuring that each film satisfies its intended audience. read the full article (english )
19 jul 2013 :
shockingly accurate
:... the future of hit movies? an algorithm stacey vanek smith of the usa' s npr marketplace talks to epagogix' s nick meaney, and to film financiers about the utility, efficiency and necessity of evidenced - based decision - making in hollywood movie - making and investing. how to get the best out of a script and the economics of a film. listen to the broadcast (english )
24 may 2007: data and technology driving new approaches to the film and music industries peter day, the bbc' s respected business innovation broadcaster interviews epagogix' s nick meaney for bbc radio 4' s in business programme. day examines how technology can and is influencing the key decisions that help to protect investments. he wonders what - if any - difference this makes to creative output. bbc radio 4 in business homepage listen to the broadcast (english - mp3 sound file 11. 4 mb )
of course, in an age where no two users have to show the exact same google results for a search, we might argue that the day of
mass appeal
is over. companies like epagogix offer a modern spin on an old - fashioned idea: that there is such a thing as a work of art that will appeal to everyone. but algorithms, neural networks, and assorted other similar apparatus can go much further than this. in an era of digital reproducibility why not democratize art by finetuning it for each person ?
when epagogix submits its final report to a movie studio (ceo nick meaney won' t reveal which studios he works with, although he says they' re among the biggest) it presents a thin dossier - - just two or three pages bound by a single staple - - culminating in two different numbers. the first of these is the projected box - office forecast for a film as written. the second, more mysterious, number is usually around 10 percent higher than the first figure, although it can sometimes be up to twice its value .
they had looked at “the interpreter” scripts a few weeks earlier. the process typically takes them a day. they read, they graded, and then they compared notes, because mr. pink was the sort who went for “yojimbo” and mr. brown’s favorite movie was “alien” (the first one), so they didn’t always agree. mr. brown couldn’t remember a single script he’d read where he thought there wasn’t room for improvement, and mr. pink, when asked the same question, could come up with just one: “lethal weapon. ” “a friend of mine gave me the shooting script before it came out, and i remember reading it and thinking, it’s all there. it was all on the page. ” once mr. pink and mr. brown had scored “the interpreter, ” they gave their analyses to mr. bootstraps, who did fifteen runs through the neural network: the original randolph script, the shooting script, and certain variants of the plot that epagogix devised. mr. bootstraps then passed his results to copaken, who wrote them up. the epagogix reports are always written by copaken, and they are models of lawyerly thoroughness. this one ran to thirty - eight pages. he had finished the final draft the night before, very late. he looked fresh as a daisy .
up into the hovering helicopter, we sense that she is feeling more than relief. ” in the epagogix ending, broome stabs one of zuwanie’s security men with a knife. zuwanie storms off the stage, holds a press conference, and is shot dead by a friend of broome’s brother. broome cradles the dying man in her arms. he “dies peacefully, ” with “a smile on his blood - spattered face. ” then she gets appointed matobo’s u. n. ambassador. she turns to keller. “‘this time, ’ she notes with a wry smile... ‘you will have to protect me. ’ ” bootstraps’s verdict was that this version would result in a u. s. box - office of $ 111 million .
that formula, the theory goes, can then be applied to new scripts. if you were developing a $ 75 - million buddy picture for bruce willis and colin farrell, epagogix says, it can tell you, based on past experience, what that script’s particular combination of narrative elements can be expected to make at the box office. if the formula says it’s a $ 50 - million script, you pull the plug. “we shoot turkeys, ” meaney said. he had seen mr. bootstraps and the neural network in action: “it can sometimes go on for hours. if you look at the computer, you see lots of flashing numbers in a gigantic grid. it’s like ‘the matrix. ’ there are a lot of computations. the guy is there, the whole time, looking at it. it eventually stops flashing, and it tells us what it thinks the american box - office will be. a number comes out. ”
in the summer of 2003, copaken approached josh berger, a senior executive at warner bros. in europe. meaney was opposed to the idea: in his mind, it was too early. “i just screamed at dick, ” he said. but copaken was adamant. he had mr. bootstraps, mr. pink, and mr. brown run sixteen television pilots through the neural network, and try to predict the size of each show’s eventual audience. “i told josh, ‘stick this in a drawer, and i’ll come back at the end of the season and we can check to see how we did, ’ ” copaken said. in january of 2004, copaken tabulated the results. in six cases, epagogix guessed the number of american homes that would tune in to a show to within. 06 per cent. in thirteen of the sixteen cases, its predictions were within two per cent. berger was floored. “it was incredible, ” he recalls. “it was like someone saying to you, ‘we’re going to show you how to count cards in vegas. ’ it had that sort of quality. ”
it was clear that the whole conversation was beginning to make mr. pink uncomfortable. he didn’t like “the bodyguard. ” even the title made him wince. he was the sort who liked “yojimbo, ” after all. the question went around the room: what would you do with “the interpreter”? sean verity wanted to juice up the action - adventure elements and push it to the $ 150 - to $ 160 - million range. meaney wanted to do without expensive stars: he didn’t think they were worth the money. copaken wanted more violence, and he also favored making keller black. but he didn’t want to go all the way to “the bodyguard, ” either. this was a man who loved “dear frankie” as much as any film he’d seen in recent memory, and “dear frankie” had a domestic box - office gross of $ 1. 3 million. if you followed the rules of epagogix, there wouldn’t be any movies like “dear frankie. ” the neural network had one master, the market, and answered one question: how do you get to bigger box - office? but once a movie had made you vulnerable—once you couldn’t even retell the damn story without getting emotional—you couldn’t be content with just one master anymore .
sunny afternoon not long ago, dick copaken sat in a booth at daniel, one of those hushed, exclusive restaurants on manhattan’s upper east side where the waiters glide spectrally from table to table. he was wearing a starched button - down shirt and a blue blazer. every strand of his thinning hair was in place, and he spoke calmly and slowly, his large pink charlie brown head bobbing along evenly as he did. copaken spent many years as a partner at the white - shoe washington, d. c. , firm covington & burling, and he has a lawyer’s gravitas. one of his best friends calls him, admiringly, “relentless. ” he likes to tell stories. yet he is not, strictly, a storyteller, because storytellers are people who know when to leave things out, and copaken never leaves anything out: each detail is adduced, considered, and laid on the table—and then adjusted and readjusted so that the corners of the new fact are flush with the corners of the fact that preceded it. this is especially true when copaken is talking about things that he really cares about, such as questions of international law or his grandchildren or, most of all, the movies .
dick copaken loves the movies. his friend richard light, a statistician at harvard, remembers summer vacations on cape cod with the copakens, when copaken would take his children and the light children to the movies every day. “fourteen nights out of fourteen, ” light said. “dick would say at seven o’clock, ‘hey, who’s up for the movies? ’ and, all by himself, he would take the six kids to the movies. the kids had the time of their lives. and dick would come back and give, with a completely straight face, a rigorous analysis of how each movie was put together, and the direction and the special effects and the animation. ” this is a man who has seen two or three movies a week for the past fifty years, who has filed hundreds of plots and characters and scenes away in his mind, and at daniel he was talking about a movie that touched him as much as any he’d ever seen .
“nobody’s heard of it, ” he said, and he clearly regarded this fact as a minor tragedy. “it’s called ‘dear frankie. ’ i watched it on a virgin atlantic flight because it was the only movie they had that i hadn’t already seen. i had very low expectations. but i was blown away. ” he began, in his lawyer - like manner, to lay out the plot. it takes place in scotland. a woman has fled an abusive relationship with her infant son and is living in a port town. the boy, now nine, is deaf, and misses the father he has never known. his mother has told him that his father is a sailor on a ship that rarely comes to shore, and has suggested that he write his father letters. these she intercepts, and replies to, writing as if she were the father. one day, the boy finds out that what he thinks is his father’s ship is coming to shore. the mother has to find a man to stand in for the father. she does. the two fall in love. unexpectedly, the real father reëmerges. he’s dying, and demands to see his son. the mother panics. then the little boy reveals his secret: he knew about his mother’s ruse all along .
“i was in tears over this movie, ” copaken said. “you know, sometimes when you see a movie in the air you’re in such an out - of - body mood that things get exaggerated. so when i got home i sat down and saw it another time. i was bawling again, even though i knew what was coming. ” copaken shook his head, and then looked away. his cheeks were flushed. his voice was suddenly thick. there he was, a buttoned - down corporate lawyer, in a hushed restaurant where there is practically a sign on the wall forbidding displays of human emotion—and he was crying, a third time. “that absolutely hits me, ” he said, his face still turned away. “he knew all along what the mother was doing. ” he stopped to collect himself. “i can’t even retell the damn story without getting emotional. ”
he tried to explain why he was crying. there was the little boy, first of all. he was just about the same age as copaken’s grandson jacob. so maybe that was part of it. perhaps, as well, he was reacting to the idea of an absent parent. his own parents, albert and silvia, ran a modest community - law practice in kansas city, and would shut down their office whenever copaken or his brother had any kind of school activity or performance. in the copaken world, it was an iron law that parents had to be present. he told a story about representing the marshall islands in negotiations with the u. s. government during the cold war. a missile - testing range on the island was considered to be strategically critical. the case was enormously complex—involving something like fifty federal agencies and five countries—and, just as the negotiations were scheduled to begin, copaken learned of a conflict: his eldest daughter was performing the lead role in a sixth - grade production of “the wiz. ” “i made an instant decision, ” copaken said. he told the president of the marshall islands that his daughter had to come first. half an hour passed. “i get a frantic call
from the state department, very high levels: ‘dick, i got a call from the president of the marshall islands. what’s going on? ’ i told him. he said, ‘dick, are you putting in jeopardy the national security of the united states for a sixth - grade production? ’ ” in the end, the negotiations were suspended while copaken flew home from hawaii. “the point is, ” copaken said, “that absence at crucial moments has been a worry to me, and maybe this movie just grabbed at that issue. ”
he stopped, seemingly dissatisfied. was that really why he’d cried? hollywood is awash in stories of bad fathers and abandoned children, and copaken doesn’t cry in fancy restaurants every time he thinks of one of them. when he tried to remember the last time he cried at the movies, he was stumped. so he must have been responding to something else, too—some detail, some unconscious emotional trigger in the combination of the mother and the boy and the scottish seaside town and the ship and the hired surrogate and the dying father. to say that he cried at “dear frankie” because of that lonely fatherless boy was as inadequate as saying that people cried at the death of princess diana because she was a beautiful princess. surely it mattered as well that she was killed in the company of her lover, a man distrusted by the royal family. wasn’t this “romeo and juliet”? and surely it mattered that she died in a tunnel, and that the tunnel was in paris, and that she was chased by motorbikes, and that she was blond and her lover was dark—because each one of those additional narrative details has complicated emotional associations, and it is the subtle combination of all these associations that makes us laugh or choke up when we remember a certain movie, every single time, even when we’re sitting in a fancy restaurant .
of course, the optimal combination of all those elements is a mystery. that’s why it’s so hard to make a really memorable movie, and why we reward so richly the few people who can. but suppose you really, really loved the movies, and suppose you were a relentless type, and suppose you used all of the skills you’d learned during the course of your career at the highest rungs of the law to put together an international team of story experts. do you think you could figure it out ?
the most famous dictum about hollywood belongs to the screenwriter william goldman. “nobody knows anything, ” goldman wrote in “adventures in the screen trade” a couple of decades ago. “not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. every time out it’s a guess. ” one of the highest - grossing movies in history, “raiders of the lost ark, ” was offered to every studio in hollywood, goldman writes, and every one of them turned it down except paramount: “why did paramount say yes? because nobody knows anything. and why did all the other studios say no? because nobody knows anything. and why did universal, the mightiest studio of all, pass on star wars? ... because nobody, nobody —not now, not ever—knows the least goddamn thing about what is or isn’t going to work at the box office. ”
what goldman was saying was a version of something that has long been argued about art: that there is no way of getting beyond one’s own impressions to arrive at some larger, objective truth. there are no rules to art, only the infinite variety of subjective experience. “beauty is no quality in things themselves, ” the eighteenth - century scottish philosopher david hume wrote. “it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. ” hume might as well have said that nobody knows anything .
but hume had a scottish counterpart, lord kames, and lord kames was equally convinced that traits like beauty, sublimity, and grandeur were indeed reducible to a rational system of rules and precepts. he devised principles of congruity, propriety, and perspicuity: an elevated subject, for instance, must be expressed in elevated language; sound and signification should be in concordance; a woman was most attractive when in distress; depicted misfortunes must never occur by chance. he genuinely thought that the superiority of virgil’s hexameters to horace’s could be demonstrated with euclidean precision, and for every hume, it seems, there has always been a kames—someone arguing that if nobody knows anything it is only because nobody’s looking hard enough .
in a small new york loft, just below union square, for example, there is a tech startup called platinum blue that consults for companies in the music business. record executives have tended to be humean: though they can tell you how they feel when they listen to a song, they don’t believe anyone can know with confidence whether a song is going to be a hit, and, historically, fewer than twenty per cent of the songs picked as hits by music executives have fulfilled those expectations. platinum blue thinks it can do better. it has a proprietary computer program that uses “spectral deconvolution software” to measure the mathematical relationships among all of a song’s structural components: melody, harmony, beat, tempo, rhythm, octave, pitch, chord progression, cadence, sonic brilliance, frequency, and so on. on the basis of that analysis, the firm believes it can predict whether a song is likely to
become a hit with eighty - per - cent accuracy. platinum blue is staunchly kamesian, and, if you have a field dominated by those who say there are no rules, it is almost inevitable that someone will come along and say that there are. the head of platinum blue is a man named mike mccready, and the service he is providing for the music business is an exact model of what dick copaken would like to do for the movie business .
mccready is in his thirties, baldish and laconic, with rectangular hipster glasses. his offices are in a large, open room, with a row of windows looking east, across the rooftops of downtown manhattan. in the middle of the room is a conference table, and one morning recently mccready sat down and opened his laptop to demonstrate the platinum blue technology. on his screen was a cluster of thousands of white dots, resembling a cloud. this was a “map” of the songs his group had run through its software: each dot represented a single song, and each song was positioned in the cloud according to its particular mathematical signature. “you could have one piano sonata by beethoven at this end and another one here, ” mccready said, pointing at the opposite end, “as long as they have completely different chord progressions and completely different melodic structures. ”
if “crazy” hadn’t scored so high, though, the platinum blue people would have given the song’s producers broad suggestions for fixing it. mccready said, “we can tell a producer, ‘these are the elements that seem to be pushing your song into the hit cluster. these are the variables that are pulling your song away from the hit cluster. the problem seems to be in your bass line. ’ and the producer will make a bunch of mixes, where they do something different with the bass lines—increase the decibel level, or muddy it up. then they come back to us. and we say, ‘whatever you were doing with mix no. 3, do a little bit more of that and you’ll be back inside the hit cluster. ’ ”
mccready stressed that his system didn’t take the art out of hit - making. someone still had to figure out what to do with mix no. 3, and it was entirely possible that whatever needed to be done to put
right. still, for the first time you wouldn’t be guessing about what needed to be done. you would know. and what you needed to know in order to fix the song was much simpler than anyone would have thought. mccready didn’t care about who the artist was, or the cleverness of the lyrics. he didn’t even have a way of feeding lyrics into his computer. he cared only about a song’s underlying mathematical structure. “if you go back to the popular melodies written by beethoven and mozart three hundred years ago, ” he went on, “they conform to the same mathematical patterns that we are looking at today. what sounded like a beautiful melody to them sounds like a beautiful melody to us. what has changed is simply that we have come up with new styles and new instruments. our brains are wired in a way—we assume—that keeps us coming back, again and again, to the same answers, the same pleasure centers. ” he had sales data and top 30 lists and deconvolution software, and it seemed to him that if you put them together you had an objective way of measuring something like beauty. “we think we’ve figured out how the brain works regarding musical taste, ” mccready said.
epagogix is a uk-based company founded in 2003 that uses neural networks and analytical software to predict which movies will provide a good possibility of return on investments and which movie scripts or plots will be successful . it was featured in an article by malcolm gladwell in the new yorker . it has also been featured in super crunchers , ian ayres ' book about number analysis , in cio magazine and in kevin slavin 's ted talk . 
epagogix is a uk-based company founded in 2003 that uses neural networks and analytical software to predict which movies will provide a good possibility of return on investments and which movie scripts or plots will be successful. it was featured in an article by malcolm gladwell in the new yorker. it has also been featured in super crunchers, ian ayres' book about number analysis, in cio magazine and in kevin slavin's ted talk.
epagogix is a uk-based company founded in 2003 that uses neural networks and analytical software to predict which movies will provide a good possibility of return on investments and which movie scripts or plots will be successful. it was featured in an article by malcolm gladwell in the new yorker. it has also been featured in super crunchers, ian ayres' book about number analysis, in cio magazine and in kevin slavin's ted talk.