Student Project Idea

[Roedy Green]

I have been mulling over an idea for a student project, and wondered
if anyone had any thoughts.

It would be website to help you figure out the name of an actor you
can't remember.

The basic idea is that actors are similar. For example I tend to lump
Christopher Walken, James Woods and Rupert Giles.

I lump Robert de Niro and James DuVal.

Then there are the young rehab chicks.

The associations are not necessarily based on any strict criteria.
They can be based on things like similar age, appearing together in
the same movies, similar names, pulling similar publicity stunts...

The idea is you create some sort of associativity database. It would
be based on factual criteria, such as lists of movie credits,
character names, age, sex, stereotype role. It would also be based on
"similarity" rating from ordinary people based on whatever nutty
criteria they please.

When you have thing sufficiently primed with trivia, you spring it on
the public. They can then came and find the name of an actor whose
name they can't remember they have just seen in movie whose name the
wretched TV station refused to announce at the end.

The idea is the website would generate movie from ad revenue.

It might show the information graphically as a sort of giant
n-dimensional map of photos you can navigate, much like Freudian free
association.

Such diversions seem to be the projects that make the megabucks.

 

[Mike Schilling]

I have been mulling over an idea for a student project, and wondered
if anyone had any thoughts.

It would be website to help you figure out the name of an actor you
can't remember.

The basic idea is that actors are similar. For example I tend to
lump
Christopher Walken, James Woods and Rupert Giles.

I lump Robert de Niro and James DuVal.

Then there are the young rehab chicks.

The associations are not necessarily based on any strict criteria.
They can be based on things like similar age, appearing together in
the same movies, similar names, pulling similar publicity stunts...

The idea is you create some sort of associativity database. It would
be based on factual criteria, such as lists of movie credits,
character names, age, sex, stereotype role. It would also be based
on
"similarity" rating from ordinary people based on whatever nutty
criteria they please.

When you have thing sufficiently primed with trivia, you spring it
on
the public. They can then came and find the name of an actor whose
name they can't remember they have just seen in movie whose name the
wretched TV station refused to announce at the end.

I can usually get this from looking up the movie on imdb.com. Not
that what you describe isn't interesting (Al Pacino and Robert DeNrio,
Adam Sandler and Paulie Shore, etc.) but it's not the best way to
achieve this goal.

 

[Roedy Green]

I can usually get this from looking up the movie on imdb.com. Not
that what you describe isn't interesting (Al Pacino and Robert DeNrio,
Adam Sandler and Paulie Shore, etc.) but it's not the best way to
achieve this goal.

the problem is you need specific keywords to find stuff on IMDB. That
is not really the way I think about movies. I think about them in
terms of similarities to other movies.

I often see a great movie on TV then try to find it on their data
base. Sometimes a combo of character names and actor names will help
home in on it. I don't know why movies always leave out the title in
the credits. It is as though they still think most movies are seen in
theatres.

You can't search it by tone, theme. One idea I had was to cheat and
screenscrape great hunks of IMBD using its database or the google
caches to avoid frightening them. Then do a proof of concept, and
showit to them, and see if you could sell them on the idea, using
their actual databases legitimately.

 

[Mike Schilling]

the problem is you need specific keywords to find stuff on IMDB.
That
is not really the way I think about movies. I think about them in
terms of similarities to other movies.

I often see a great movie on TV then try to find it on their data
base. Sometimes a combo of character names and actor names will
help
home in on it. I don't know why movies always leave out the title in
the credits. It is as though they still think most movies are seen
in
theatres.

The TV listings for most stations are online these days. You just
have to recall where and when you saw it. By the way, another use for
your idea is recommendations. If you liked this you'll like this too,
etc.