5 Innovative Ways Technology is Transforming Recent TV Shows

Humans have always had a passion for entertainment, from ancient Greeks and Romans hosting various sporting events like chariot racing and horseback racing to the Elizabethan nobles enjoying theatre performances in the afternoon. But while we still have sporting events and theatres entertainment has taken a big turn since the 20th century. Technology is now driving the entertainment scene in more radical ways than we could have imagined decades ago.

TV shows specifically are getting transformed significantly by technology, from shows that let you decide the fate of characters to virtual worlds indistinguishable from reality. Let’s look at five ways technology is changing TV shows today.

Virtual Production

Virtual production is a groundbreaking technology that’s reshaping how some of the best new TV series are made. It merges a physical film set with a digital one. With this technology, actors can interact with digital environments while on set. Unlike before where visual effects are added after shooting, virtual productions allow filmmakers to see and adjust digital elements on set.

The Emmy-winning show “The Mandalorian” was created using this technology. The show uses massive LED screens forming a 270-degree semicircle and about 20 feet high to create real-time backgrounds. These screens display advanced digital environments that are so convincing it's hard to believe it's not real. It was so impressive that the second season won an Emmy for it.

Interactive Shows

If you have ever found yourself wishing a TV character would make better choices, you may be pleased to hear that some shows now allow the audience to determine what characters do. With interactive television, the audience can be the puppeteers, making important decisions for the characters that determine how everything plays out in the end.

Take "Black Mirror: Bandersnatch," for instance. This mind-bending episode allows you to guide the protagonist through a labyrinth of choices. With five main endings and countless storylines, it's like playing a controller in a digital universe.

Enhanced Algorithms and Personalized Content

You might have noticed how streaming platforms always suggest what show you might like. This is thanks to enhanced algorithms. Rather than the old times when people flipped through channels looking for what to watch, today's streaming platforms use computers to suggest content tailored to your taste.

Netflix is particularly known for using this technology. It doesn’t just suggest similar shows to the ones you’ve watched, analyzes everything from viewing habits to pause points to create a highly personalized experience. According to former Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, 80% of what people watch on the platform are from the algorithm suggestions. This shows how effective the recommendations are. The same goes for other streaming platforms as well.

Advanced VFX

Visual Effects (VFX) is a broad term for all types of artificially created images. Films and shows have used these effects for decades. Films like “Titanic” and “The Matrix” have a good amount of visual effects in them. But they are now so advanced that it is hard to tell what is real from what is not.

Looking at the shows “Merlin” and “House of the Dragon”, we can see how advanced these technologies have become. Both shows have dragons as important characters but even a child will be able to tell that the dragon in Merlin looks unreal. However, the dragons in “House of the Dragon” were created using modern VFX with each scale and movement meticulously crafted to appear real. House of the Dragon’s VFX supervisor Mike Bell reported that it took them months and several artists to create each dragon.

But VFX are not just used to create mystical creatures. They were also used in “The Crown” to recreate old locations. For example, in the scene where Princess Diana visited New York, VFX was used to transform modern-day New York City into the 80s version.

AI-Generated Content

We use AI everywhere these days, from revolutionized educational experiences to health and entertainment. Now, we're not quite at the point where robots are writing our favorite TV shows, but AI is definitely changing how things get made behind the scenes.

Take this for example there's a company called Scriptbook that's using AI to play movie critic. They feed scripts into their system, and it spits out predictions about how well the movie will do at the box office. Their AI actually called it right on "The Martian" being a hit, just by reading the script. This level of accuracy has led many scriptwriters and producers to make adjustments to scripts based on the suggestions of an AI tool.

The potential for using AI in shows is quite big. While we’re still in the early stage of AI-generated content in shows, it's clear that AI will contribute more to the future of television production.