As we near the end of 2022, it is time to take a look back at the year’s milestones for Largo and our AI-assisted film-making tool – Largo.ai.
Largo attends Trieste FF for “When East Meets West”
Largo CEO Sami Arpa started the year by attending the Trieste Film Festival to join a select panel that included journalist Elena Neira, Ali Vahdati, the founder of Digital-i SODA, and Sarah Calderón & Celia Fumanal from the Film Agency. The panel was asked to discuss the “Future thinking of data analysis in audiovisual industry”
Producers Pitching Their Projects, Powered by Largo.ai Forecasts
Largo was invited to attend the 2022 European Film Market (EFM). We had Largo.ai analyze 30 movie projects from 15 European and 15 American producers. The filmmakers were asked to pitch their films over two sessions. Our AI forecasts of the projects were provided during the presentations to help the audience gain a better understanding of the likely success or failure of each one.
The event was significant because it was attended by financiers, distributors, and other producers, meaning it was a live-pitch event that resulted in many projects gaining real distribution interest.
Sami once again attended to represent Largo.ai. During the event, he commented, “That we could assemble 30 producers to pitch their projects and trust our technology to work for them is a testament to the trust and confidence filmmakers have in our abilities.”
Largo was at GFM to Present Ads
Largo reached a new milestone this year when it released a version of Largo.ai that is able to present insights on video advertisements. Ads are an extremely important revenue source for all companies. Indeed, just this year Netflix announced that it was launching a cheaper subscription option that would include ads.
The need for companies, which invest huge sums in adverts, to get them spot-on is greater than ever. Largo.ai’s new ad-assist tool empowers advertisement directors and producers to do just that.
Largo showed off this new technology in March at GFM Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Marketing in Zurich. Sami was there to present the technology and to answer audience questions along with Gregor Erismann from Exeon Analytics (the winner of the challenge), and Sarah Schlagenhauf from VIVENTS by Artdeal.
The event was an enormous success and generated a huge amount of interest in Largo.ai’s advertisement assist tool.
AI: Ethics and Legal Aspects
Since artificial intelligence is a relatively new field, there is a great deal of ambiguity out there regarding what it is, how it can be used, and the ethics of using artificial intelligence in the first place.
In order to help answer some of these issues, Largo presented an online seminar entitled “AI: Ethics and Legal Aspects” in May of this year.
We shared our views on AI in the audiovisual industry during the conference to help enlighten policymakers on issues such as the collection and analysis of data, data responsibly, risks of legal infringements of copyright or personal rights, and AI model bias such as that relating to ethnicity, etc.
If you wish to watch the seminar in full then it is available via this link.
Largo Becomes Cannes Film Festival’s Official Partner for an AI Pitching Session
In May, Largo was proud to announce that it became an official partner for the 75th Cannes Film Festival in order to undertake an AI pitching session for the Marché du Film.
Cannes Next undertook a high-intensity “shark tank” pitching session where producers with current development projects went head to head to pitch their projects using forecasts from Largo.ai.
Producers were asked to include Largo.ai’s data-driven insights to pitch their projects to financiers and distributors. This was another live-pitching event where many of the projects actually received real interest from the event.
All the team at Largo.ai are delighted that the event was such a success. It gave us a global stage to show off the power and accuracy of Largo.ai and why it has become a vital tool for the film industry throughout the world.
We hope to see you at next year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Largo.ai at France Culture
Shortly after our highly successful event at the Festival de Cannes, Largo.ai also was asked to attend France Culture to give a presentation on Largo.ai and its uses within the film industry.
You can watch the entire event in French via this link.
Any opportunity to showcase the power of our AI-assisted filmmaking tool is always most welcome and so we would like to thank the organizers for inviting us.
Largo.ai Welcomes Two New Members to its Team
Largo.ai is proud to announce that two new members joined its team in 2022. Céline Udriot and Marco Bocchio were welcomed onboard, bringing with them a wealth of knowledge and skills.
MBA graduate Céline Udriot became Largo’s new Chief Operating Officer (COO) while Astrophysics Ph.D. Marco Bocchio will become the CTO of Largo.ai. Marco has 5 years of experience leading Machine Learning research and Data Science teams.
Both are settling in extremely well, and as we are about to see, are already proving to be invaluable members of the team.
Largo.ai at DHDays
DHDays is a prestigious event that aims to showcase the global impact of digital humanities work. This year’s event took place in the Swiss Tech Convention Center and was co-organized by the EPFL College of Humanities.
This year, DHDays organized an event based on several key themes, of which DH & Media was one. Our new CTO, Marco Bocchio, represented Largo.ai at the event, while our new COO, Céline Udriot, showcased Largo.ai to the audience.
Largo.ai at NextLab
In June, Largo was invited to introduce itself to the world of animation. NetLab is a research infrastructure community that aims to encourage collaboration among students. It invited Largo to give a presentation regarding its artificial intelligence tools and how they have the potential to revolutionize the world of animation.
Again, Largo would like to thank the organizers and all the attendees for the opportunity to demonstrate Largo.ai and show off its potential.
Largo 5th Edition of the Ouchy Film Awards
2022 saw the 5th edition of the Ouchy Film Awards. Largo curated this event and is extremely happy to announce that it was a huge success.
The Ouchy Film Awards (OFA) is an up-and-coming international film festival that is held in Lausanne, Switzerland, each July. This year’s edition was called “Cinema through the lens of the AI” and comes hot off the back of last year’s world-first milestone when Largo presented the first-ever AI-picked award.
The event was such a hit that Largo decided to repeat the award for the 2022 edition. Alongside Largo.ai were 4 panels that talked about the influence of AI on the global film industry. The event featured a segment where a select group of producers used the event to pitch their in-development projects to a live audience with the help of Largo.ai insights.
The 5th edition of the Ouchy Film Awards climaxed with the awards ceremony where nominees got to find out which of their projects Largo.ai and the jury panels liked most.
The awards given out included the following:
- AI Award for Best Feature Film
- AI Award for Best Short Film
- AI Award for Best Acting
- AI Award for Best Screenplay
You can find out more about the event and all the nominees via this link on the Largo 5th Edition of the Ouchy Film Awards.
We Met the Distributors at KVIFF
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is a prestigious event that is held every year in the stunning riverside town of Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic.
We were delighted to be invited to the 2022 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival event to do a presentation on Largo.ai to a group of international film distributors. The event was organized in collaboration with Europa Distribution Association and, once again, succeeded in generating a great deal of buzz around Largo.ai and AI-assisted filmmaking.
If you wish to read more about the 2022 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival you can do so via this link.
Largo Receives a Top 100 Swiss Startup Award
Largo is EXTREMELY happy to announce that it was named one of the top 100 startups for 2022 by the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award.
Such recognition not only boosts Largo.ai’s brand but also gave an immense boost to the whole Largo team for all its hard work. We have worked tirelessly to try to develop our AI platform and to try to get it known in the film marketplace.
A lot of challenges face the artificial intelligence industry including developing and training our AI systems, gaining access to the data we need, and on the industry side of things, trying to overcome fears relating to job losses by educating industry professionals regarding AI as a filmmaking assistance tool and not as a job taker.
This award helps us with this task and has given us added impetus to do even better in 2023.
Our heartfelt thanks goes out to the organizers of the Top 100 Swiss Startup Award.
You can read more about this award via this link.
Largo.AI to Help Producers Pitch Their Projects
On November 4th, Largo gave another opportunity for global producers to pitch their in-development projects using Largo.ai. In collaboration with AFM, no less than 20 lucky producers were given the chance to use artificial intelligence-derived insights to help them to pitch their projects to an audience of producers and distributors.
This is not the first time that Largo has taken part in such an event. As one of the world’s leading AI-assisted filmmaking companies, Largo.ai has already undertaken a trial for producers in 2021 in collaboration with Media Desk Suisse. In this instance, European producers got to put their AI platform through its paces and give honest feedback via a live-streamed seminar.
In this year’s AFM event, a range of global producers was given the chance to pitch their projects in California, USA. The event was a huge success and we are delighted to announce that a number of the nominees succeeded in gaining interest in their projects. We wish them the best of luck.
You can read more about the event including the list of nominees via this link.
Largo.ai Attends Slush 100 Awards and the Swiss Embassy
Our last milestone of 2022 came when we were invited to both the Slush 100 Awards and to the Swiss Embassy in Finland.
SwissTech is part of Presence Switzerland, the federal department of the Switzerland Foreign Affairs bureau. It was founded by the Swiss government with the aim of promoting and supporting the most promising and innovative Swiss startups in the fields of science and business.
To receive an invitation from them, therefore, is of the highest honor and we were delighted to attend.
Largo.ai attended SwissTech 2022 together with some of the biggest Swiss startups of the year. We were able to network with so many promising and innovative companies and are delighted to report that the whole event was a complete success.
Likewise, to receive an invitation to the embassy of the Government of Switzerland along with a number of other private Swiss Enterprises was a great honor too. We once again thank everyone in both of these organizations and wish them all the best.
And that was Largo’s 2022. We wish to thank all of you who have supported us and hope to see you in 2023.
As 2022 finished, it is time to take a look back at the year’s milestones for Largo and our AI-assisted film-making tool – Largo.ai. Here we provide a summary.
