Tag: video

AI in Video and Music — by Oleg Kuvaev

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Right now, AI is stirring up fierce debates — careers are being derailed, games are being banned or stripped of awards… in short, all hell seems to be breaking loose. This will eventually calm down, though, because AI really does help get many things done faster and better. No, it won’t replace a living human being — but it can be a powerful aid.

And riding this very wave, animator Oleg Kuvaev, the creator of the legendary Masyanya, has started making videos using artificial intelligence. He has even shared behind-the-scenes fragments showing that AI is just a tool — and that there’s still a tremendous amount of work involved. But what Oleg has managed to demonstrate is how this tool, in the hands of a talented creator, can help bring yet another series of wonderful works to life.

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TV Series: “The King and the Jester” / “Korol i Shut”

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I don’t think I’ve written long, thoughtful posts about TV series before. But it’s been months now, and I’m still under the impression of this one—so that must be a sign: I need to speak up.

The story of the band Korol i Shut (The King and the Jester) officially begins in 1988 in the city of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) when three classmates—Mikhail “Gorshok” Gorshenev (“Gorshok” in Russian means “pot”), Alexander “Poruchik” Shchigolev (“Poruchik” means “lieutenant”), and Alexander “Balu” Balunov—decided to form a band, initially naming it Kontora (it can be translated as The Office but mostly refers to KGB, I think). However, in 1989, Gorshok met Andrey “Knyaz” Knyazev (“Knyaz” is “Duke”) at a restoration school where they later interned together. They became friends, and Gorshok was deeply impressed by Knyaz’s drawings and lyrics in the style of dark fairy tales. This led to Knyaz joining the band, which a year later adopted its final name, Korol i Shut (The King and the Jester). Knyaz’s depiction of a jester became the band’s iconic emblem, and over the years, the jester in the logo began to resemble Gorshok more and more.

I’m not an expert in music genres, but the band’s work has been described as horror punk, folk punk, and rock. I discovered them around 1998, when their music video Yeli Myaso Muzhiki (Men Were Eating Meat) started airing on various music TV channels. It was a blend of horror, dark humor, and memorable punk rock riffs:

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Book: Reed Hastings, Erin Meyer “No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention”

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It seems that every large (or simply well-known) company has its unique culture, which is also considered the only correct and successful one. We are all unique, after all. However, the concept of “correctness” and “success” is highly subjective. Yet many want to showcase that they achieved success solely because of their approaches (and that others, therefore, succeeded despite theirs).

First, there was the remarkable book Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull about the culture at Pixar. Then came the very loud, but completely unappealing to me, Principles by Ray Dalio. Finally, I reached No Rules Rules by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who co-wrote this book with Erin Meyer. I frequently recommend Meyer’s The Culture Map almost every time someone asks me about the best books.

This book, like many others, was highly praised by my colleagues, receiving the highest ratings. However, I always strive to form my own opinion rather than follow the masses. I read it. And it took me quite a while to gather my thoughts and finally write my review. This is because it is one of the most controversial books I have read in the past several years.

On the one hand, I will definitely recommend it. On the other hand, I had comments like “interesting, but there are nuances” for nearly every chapter. This is because, as usual, I tried to apply all the described approaches to myself as a manager and to the companies I have worked for. And here, as they say, things became far less straightforward.

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TV Show “The History of Russian Computer Games”

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Recently, the streaming service Okko released a documentary series titled The History of Russian Computer Games, about how the video game industry developed across the post-Soviet space—starting with the USSR era.

Anton Vert recommended it to me, immediately pointing out a few downsides. But it’s one thing to listen to smart people, and another to watch it yourself and then share your own opinion that nobody asked for.

In 30–40 minute episodes, the series talks about different milestones in the industry’s formation—first in the USSR, and then across the entire territory of this former Soviet empire. At least, that’s how the series is sometimes positioned (I’ll come back to this in more detail later).

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Cyprus: Is Learning to Drive Hard? (with Help from Cypriot Smurf)

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I often see the same question: is it hard to learn how to drive in Cyprus, since the steering wheel is on the other side? I actually wrote about driving in Cyprus a few years ago — Cyprus: Driving. But in that post, I went straight into the details.

If you already have driving experience anywhere else, you can just start driving without any help. There are limits on how long you can drive with a national license (varies by country). And if you’re just exchanging your license — it’s just a matter of going and replacing it. But to get a license “from scratch,” you need to take lessons with an instructor. Or if you want to improve your practical driving skills — that can also be helpful.

I took a few lessons with an instructor, since Belarusians can’t simply exchange their licenses. For us, the process is as if we have no license at all (even if you’ve been driving for 20 years). The most useful thing I got out of those lessons was: just relax, and everything will be fine. Also, the experience of driving with a Cypriot instructor explains a lot about the island — the local driving style and even the mentality.

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Edward Ross “Filmish: A Graphic Journey Through Film”

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How badly I wanted to read this book! And how great my disappointment turned out to be! It’s much easier to list what’s wrong with this book than to find anything good about it.

In Russian the book is titled How Film Works: Theory and History of Cinema and was marketed as “an extensive study presented as a stylish and engaging comic.” But contrary to the title and description, it’s not about how cinema works at all. Frankly, the translators share some of the blame here, as the original title is Filmish: A Graphic Journey Through Film, which didn’t claim to be about how cinema works, nor about theory or history.

So what is it actually about? If I were to sum it up briefly, I’d say this: it’s a collection of completely unrelated paragraphs that try to appear as a scholarly article with deep insights. More often than not, these “insights” come from other people, whom the author frequently quotes throughout the book. This is criticism in its worst form, where the writer attempts to explain what the filmmaker intended to convey, or what they were thinking. But reality shows that often the filmmaker wasn’t thinking about anything of the sort (there’s a great example with the horse in the film Afonya, which Georgiy Daneliya wrote about in his memoirs).

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Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series

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I just started Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy by Telltale. I can’t say much about the story yet since I’ve only played for about 15 minutes, but the character designs… I’ve never seen the original comics and only know the characters from the two movies. So, naturally, I’m comparing the game to those movie versions. I don’t know why they chose not to replicate the cinematic appearances, but visually, almost all of them fall VERY short compared to the beloved movie versions. Maybe except for Groot and Rocket, who don’t look that different—it would be hard to mess them up. What bothers me the most is Drax—he’s so “flat” and unmemorable. It’s unclear why they didn’t just go with the movie designs. I assume it was too expensive (though in Game of Thrones, they managed to closely mirror the TV actors). I’ll probably keep playing the game, but there’s definitely some disappointment from unmet expectations.