How Ratings and Algorithms Impact Your Filmmaking Career

New products by tech company Atomos, and what’s going on with IMDb ratings? If you have concerns about how the dreaded algorithm is affecting your career, you’ll definitely want to check out this episode.

In this episode, we talk about…

• “Pacino-ing”—Al Pacino likes the challenge of being in bad movies to try to improve them, and for this reason, his career has seemed to follow a downward trajectory.
• How some actors like Pacino and DeNiro started really strong, and have now been in worse and worse movies. But other actors, like Chris Pine and Chris Evans, have had the reverse Pacino effect. 
• Looking at where data for good movies vs. bad movies come from, who is making the ratings (critics vs. audience), and what that means—especially in the context of modern-day film vs. the 70s.
• Atomos, the Australian tech company which has some amazing products.
• Atomos just announced the new release of Ninja Stream, which has some interesting features, especially for social distancing on set.
• IMDb and internet rating systems—including a case study where weighted users can bring down a review average with just a few low ratings.
• How much of the internet is driven by algorithms, which are very imperfect.
• Different theories about how ratings and algorithms might work.

Links to Resources:

• Stephen Follows’ article about "Pacino-ing" 
• Subscribe to Steven Follows’ email list for weekly data dives!
• More about the Atomos Ninja Stream 
• Fake ratings and reviews on IMDb 
• Help us algorithm it up by rating Amigo Undead (2015) and Salty Pirate (TV Movie 2020) 

Let us know your theories about what is going on with IMDb ratings over on Twitter!

Ask us a question about the weirdest thing you can find on IMDb at editor@nofilmschool.com and we’ll eventually talk about it on the show!

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This episode of The No Film School Podcast was produced by George Edelman and Charles Haine.