Roughly 10 years back, I wrote a screenplay for a Hindi language movie and discussed it with several producers. Many liked the script but they weren’t sure they could take a script from a new writer/director to the top actors or film financiers. Their concerns made sense and I went back to my entrepreneurial and data interests. Over the years, I have heard from many successful writers and directors that it took them 15 years to break in to the industry. Or that it’s so hard to evaluate content or talent before they are huge. Legendary screenwriter Bill Goldman once said “Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess.” And when no one knows what’s going to work, the result is an old boys club that relies on gut and relationships over insight and ability.

That's when I realized that the problem I should solve is not how do I get a movie made but how we de-risk new stories and new voices and democratize an entire industry. The inclusion problem in Hollywood is well documented — 7% of film directors are women, 9% of TV showrunners are minorities, showrunners with enough traditional experience are almost non-existent in many markets such as India, Latin America, and Africa. Up until now, everyone has paid lip service to the idea that new perspectives are important, but nobody knows how to make it happen. Betting on bold new voices and stories is risky even today and one needs a programmatic way to mitigate risks.

That’s where Jumpcut comes in — using data and audience testing to make smarter decisions and a unique incubator model to support creators. Among the vast number of stories and screenplays being written, I have always wondered why we see certain projects on the screen and not others. I eventually realized that it's because they've been de-risked in some way (most commonly, modern shows and movies are based on bestselling books or other such IP; in other cases, they are de-risked through star talent). But IP is not the only way to de-risk projects. A better approach exists.

How can data help a creative pursuit?

For the last 20 years, I have primarily been an entrepreneur and an academic. I was a cofounder of Yodle (we applied data science to online marketing) and I am a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania where I study applications of Data Science to digital media & marketing. Outside of that, I have always had an interest in content and storytelling — I am a hobbyist filmmaker. The idea that strong, commercially viable content like Stranger Things or Get Out can come from unexpected places has always appealed to me. But until now, my work was my work and my personal interests were my personal interests. That changed when I recently got hooked on the idea that data can provide an answer to a decades-old problem in Hollywood.

Many companies in Hollywood claim to use data. Their approach mainly involves identifying patterns for what’s worked in the recent past. But if you only analyze what’s worked in the past, you’re unable to account for cultural shifts or changes in taste. The result is the modern sequel culture. In fact, this approach in general is the antithesis of creativity and will result in new voices and stories being denied an opportunity because they are outside the frontier of what the data covers.

In contrast, our proprietary approach breaks free from this feedback loop. Our system combines a unique repository of past data with forward-looking digital experimentation and focus groups to assess audience interest in a concept today irrespective of what’s worked in the past. The entire process begins with using data to discover emerging creators where they are irrespective of the platform or country they are in. And then, in our incubator program, we empower them with our audience insights, collaboration tools, and mentors to develop their ideas and eventually match them with a global pool of content buyers.

And the approach works. We find that Jumpcut’s metrics are four to five times better in explaining audience viewing interests than IP or star talent. But data is not a silver bullet. For it to work, we need data scientists and creatives to come together in ways that have not happened before. This is why we are not a data vendor and are instead building the first data-powered studio to reimagine how films and series are developed. So far, our approach has given us a tremendous edge in building our own development slate of 12+ film and series projects.

One baby step taken and a million more remain

Obviously, it takes a village to build a company, especially one that hopes to solve Hollywood’s decades-old problems. I am joined in this effort by my former student and BuzzFeed product manager (and budding music producer) Dilip Rajan, former CBS and Super Deluxe exec Winnie Kemp, Jack Abraham, Chester Ng, and the entire crew at Atomic with whom I have been building Jumpcut for the past two years as a founder in residence.

We are just getting started and there is more work to do. This is where you come in. Help us create a bolder and more inclusive era of TV/film where anyone with a compelling story can be heard.

If you are a creator with a unique film/series idea whose time has come, apply to our writer’s incubator, Jumpcut Collective. If you are both creative and savvy with data, we’d love to have you join the team — send me a note at kartik@jumpcutmedia.com. And finally, if you believe in our mission to democratize opportunities in the industry, please follow us on social media (FB / TW / IG / LI) and tell us what inclusion in film and storytelling means to you.