In the contemporary film industry, you can’t talk about distributing projects without talking about tech. From Netflix’s mighty recommendation algorithm to innovations in AI, technology and its intersection with art has become a constant topic of discussion (and concern) for all who love film.
At the IndieWire Studio at Sundance on January 24, Dropbox held a panel conversation called “Brave New Worlds: How Technology Is Expanding Filmmaking” about all the ways that tech can help innovate in the filmmaking space. Moderator Effie Brown spoke to the team of directors behind the film “Khartoum”: Phil Cox, Anas Saeed, Timeea Mohamed Ahmed, Ibrahim Snoopy Ahmad, and Rawia Alhag. Editor Yousef Jubeh and Amma Okwara were also in attendance. The group spoke to Brown about the making of the film — a documentary about five people who fled Sudan that combines green screen sequences with real footage of their escape — and the innovative tech practices that brought the movie to life.
Okwara, who works as a General Manager for Data, Technology and Program Delivery at the New York based film company Jolt, discussed how the company uses algorithms to help filmmakers, including the ones that worked on “Khartoum,” find audiences and get feedback they need to make potential tweaks to their films before distribution.
“My team built out our audience discovery algorithm to help identify the right audiences for filmmakers,” Okwara said. “And then we do the full screening for the films, gather all the data, and package that up for the filmmakers. Once you leave, you retain all your rights, you retain all the data, so you’re prepared to go out and do whatever you want with the film.”
Talking about how the Sundance Film Festival intersects with her work, Okwara said that the advent of online screenings of films helped create more data for her team to analyze: “If there’s no barrier to entry for how audiences naturally come and gather around film, fast forward with technology advancements five years later, we’re able to do this at scale, with data.”
“What we do is find the audiences that will really resonate with this film, that will really love this film,” Okwara continued. “Because it’s so important, you want to get the impact out there.”
Cox, discussing the process of making “Khartoum,” discussed how the film blended animation and real footage. The film doesn’t hide its use of tech, explicitly showing the green screen being set up before each scene. “We knew we couldn’t pretend to compete with the high-end. But it’s all about authenticity,” Cox said. “The audience could see the authentic way we were trying to tell the story.”
“We had to innovate or die,” Cox continued. “We didn’t have anything. Or only resource was innovation and making the green screens work” The innovation paid off: As Cox pointed out, the use of tech helped the film grow from a small-scale story to a much larger one about geopolitical affairs, which increased interest in the production.
The four Sudanese directors of “Khartoum” — Saeed, Alhag, Snoopy, and Ahmed — filmed the movie as they themselves were fleeing the country and the conflict that was displacing millions of their fellow countrymen. Speaking about their goals making the film, Ahmed said he wanted the audience to relate to and come to understand the country and what was happening to its residents at the time: “People, when they get numbers from conflict areas, they be like emotional fatigue. They don’t care anymore,” he said. “But when you have a personal story you can relate to — people with dreams, with hopes, with struggles, but with a lot of actually good moments, not necessarily bad — that’s how people can relate to Sudan, know Sudan, understand Sudan, and that’s what we’re hoping for.”
“What matters is how we can make people feel, good or bad. What we want them to feel or how the subjects what them to feel with what’s available,” Ahmed continued. “And that’s what we did, through iPhones or greenscreen.”
