Hacker Cinema
The Devil Wears Prada
2006 · Film · 109 min
Part of The Devil Wears Prada Collection
Directed by David Frankel
A young woman from the Midwest gets more than she bargained for when she moves to New York to become a writer and ends up as the assistant to the tyrannical, larger-than-life editor-in-chief of a major fashion magazine.
1 positive2 negative7 neutralfrom 10 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
11 comments on Hacker News
Some of the robot styles take a fake breath, though it doesn't make it more convincing.
When you listen to the first example labelled "Narrative" you can tell where a human speaker would have inhaled (which is something the AI could have picked up on from copious training data) though the inhale itself could be muted in post-editing, e.g. after the long 24-word first phrase[1] ending in "special magnificence", and then again at the end of the sentence. It could just be the way the AI reads the comma but it is very convincing.
The "News" and "Conversational" examples don't include that effect, there is no pause after "for instance" despite it being in the monologue.
Still, the robot takes a deep dramatic breath after the word "I see"[1]. " Oh, okay. I see, [DEEP LOUD DRAMATIC BREATH BY ROBOT], you think this has nothing to do with you. [LOUD DRAMATIC HALF BREATH BY ROBOT] You go to your closet and you select I don't know that lumpy blue sweater for instance because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself". There is no pause on the comma around "for instance" though the script has one. I decided to check whether the robot is just copying the original exactly and that's not it either.[2]
Comparison:
Robot: "Oh, okay. I see, [DEEP LOUD DRAMATIC BREATH BY ROBOT], you think this has nothing to do with you. [LOUD DRAMATIC HALF BREATH BY ROBOT] You go to your closet [no breath] and you select I don't know that lumpy blue sweater for instance [QUICK HALF BREATH BY ROBOT] because you're trying to tell the world [no breath] that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back but [no breath] what you don't know is that sweater is not just blue it's not turquoise it's not lapis it's actually cerulean."
Original: "Oh, okay. I see [no breath] you think this has nothing to do with you. [loud long breath] You go to your closet [breath] and you select I don't know that lumpy blue sweater for instance [no breath] because you're trying to tell the world that you [breath] take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back but [breath] what you don't know is that sweater is not just blue it's not turquoise it's not lapis it's actually cerulean."
Text: "Oh, okay. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you.
You… go to your closet, and you select… I don’t know, that lumpy blue sweater for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back, but what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean. "
I've annotated the breaths in the "conversational" robot sample vs the original film at the youtube link:
Robot Original Same/different? I see... [Loud breath] [no breath] Different with you... [Loud quick breath] [loud long breath] Similar your closet... [no breath] [breath] Different for instance... [QUICK half breath] [no breath] Different that you... [no breath] [breath] Different back but... [no breath] [breath] Different
It's clear it's not copying the source exactly.
[1] The text is here: https://artdepartmental.com/blog/devil-wears-prada-cerulean-monologue/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us52N76XA28&t=1m24s
Accidentally walked through the set of The Devil Wears Prada who were set up to film on around 5th Avenue and West 55th, fortunately they weren't filming. They had a really nice craft services table. Hopefully no one got fired.
This comment made me replay 2021 cruella in my head a bit.. the successful female asshole is successful since she does not play fair.. the younger female gets to be an asshole cuz she is poor / parents taken away (?) She then becomes a different asshole caring for only herself and single success, which her long time friends dislike.. then she gets to be a more sinister asshole because she has proof her victims have been more sinister (?)
the female lead was the same as devil wears prada right? so the typecast / emotional prejudice was already embedded..
I can see how this stuff is hard to write, once of the suicide squads tried so hard it should of just made up new characters imho.
but then this particular formula seems so easy to write - main characters get to do really bad things to people cuz those people did really bad things.
I guess this is the main appeal of spiderman type projects - they limit the bad things done to bad people (?)
I put question marks because my study and recollection of these things is of a real interest, but not well versed research / knowledge. I'm sure there is much more.
Frankly I've been disappointed in what movies/media/tv shows / social sharing - all this stuff has been teaching for lessons for a long time, I can't think of much that is done well for non-awful lessons I guess.
There's a little bit of gender role in there:
Male assholes (ex: Rick from Rick and Morty, Nolan's Batman, Downy's Iron Man) are fun and interesting to watch. Female assholes are much, much harder to write (Amanda Waller, Suicide Squad, seems to be the best written one in recent films?)
I guess there's explicitly "female" movies, like "Devil Wears Prada" where that kind of behavior is more acceptable (Miranda Priestly plays the role of asshole boss).
But maybe the "formula" for what audiences accept just hasn't really been figured out yet for female characters. You certainly can't just take male-oriented tropes and try to apply them to female-oriented characters.
This is a really thought provoking article. I especially like the reference to the movie The Devil Wears Prada, because in essence, what is being described is a very complex algorithm embedded in a large group of people observing a lot of things (fashion trends).
The question raised in my mind is this: where is the tipping point at which the answers / predictions in that algorithm become stale or shift rapidly and require an answer that is orthogonal to previews answers (!) but still "correct". This tipping point seems to be what taste is about to some degree. ..so now we need an algorithm to predict the tipping point; its algorithms all the way down.
This is easy to do badly and very hard to do well.
It's not just about inferring intent. Most discourse systems have little or no model of the consequences of their actions. Systems that can act on the user's behalf need to know if they're potentially making a big mistake or a little one, as guidance of when to ask for clarification. This requires some degree of "common sense". AI systems still suck at that.
Systems that actually do something need to be much better at this than ones that just answer questions. There needs to be some cost/benefit analysis of whether it's necessary to repeat back info and ask for confirmation. Without that, the system will either ask for confirmation too much, or screw up too much. The system needs to have a model of how clear the user is in their intent.
Pizza ordering is relatively low-risk. Travel reservations are a higher-stakes item. Medical is a long way off.
As I wrote last time, I recommend watching "The Devil Wears Prada", the scenes of Andy's first day as Miranda's personal assistant. That's the level of performance you want.
It's big in New York.
Read The Devil Wears Prada. (It's in the movie, but discussed at length in the book.)
sounds like "The devil wears Prada" book/movie
> somewhere would love nothing more to work with the people behind that legendary comic
Yes, and exploiting somebody like that is wrong. They could hire them and treat them well, but because they're famous, they couldn't be fucking bothered.
This shitty behavior goes on all the time in fashion [1] and in the movie industry. I'm sad to hear it's coming to tech.
[1] e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_Wears_Prada_%28novel%29
fashion magazines do not make woman a woman just like woodworking magazines do not make man a man.
Geek culture is a niche and it is more healthy to deal with it as such, promote stars female and otherwise.
I am sick of people being divisive on this issue, we have women coders that like to put make up on and look pretty. However I also have friends, dudes and dudettes who don't really care about tech beyond very easily usable iPhone. Brandishing fact that magazines don't give adverts about iPhones is much like saying that woodworking magazines that do not give adverts about family cars with automatic everything(IMO). iPhone is the easiest phone to use compared to older dial a number phones so I am not sure where argument stands here.
As well fashion industry stands by itself as far as I know it and they don't really care to change their ways just because they say so.(re: movie: Devil wears prada).
If I subscribe to woodworking or mechanics magazine, I am not sure I'd care to see adverts for game boy or Playstation.
Given that I am all for women in technology - however I think that making the rest of the world think(like general purpose womens magazines) is presumptuous that people are into nerdy stuff and computing.
my 2c.
"Miya Matsumoto, manager of the laid-back Mr. Nishikido, says she's tried everything -- from screening success-themed films like "The Devil Wears Prada" to throwing after-work drinking parties -- to push her subordinates to be more ambitious."
They missed the point of Devil Wears Prada. The movie showcases what happens when you occupy yourself with only work. Thats the last movie you want to screen to motivate employees to work harder