Together with
The rock show. It’s Friday, Future Party people, which can only mean one thing: Coachella is finally here! And if you’re lucky enough to be in the desert this weekend, make sure to hit up the Sahara stage later today. Word on the street is that Blink-182 is reuniting to play a surprise set. The band’s festival appearance will be the first time its classic lineup has performed together since 2015… but it won’t be their last. The boys kick off the first leg of their world tour early next month.
In other news… Saint Laurent fashions a film banner, Tim McGraw launches a media company, and Insider incorporates AI into its newsroom.
Top Trends
YouTube → The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Twitter → Jamie Foxx
Google → Joan Baez
TikTok → “Come and Get Your Love” - Redbone
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ENTERTAINMENT
Saint Laurent wants to be a cinematic tastemaker
The Future. Saint Laurent is launching an official film production banner — the first of its kind by a luxury fashion brand. The move not only makes sense to work with some of the greatest artists in the world but also to broaden the appeal of the label. If one of the films takes off in the mainstream, Saint Laurent may see sales skyrocket as audiences try to capture a new iconic look.
Fashion house to production houseSaint Laurent is making its stamp on the film industry.
Run by in-house creative director Anthony Vaccarello, Saint Laurent Productions will produce, finance, and provide costumes for an ongoing slate of films.
Like the Kering-owned fashion house, the production banner will be based in Paris.
Saint Laurent Productions is already dropping its first two projects at Cannes next month — Pedro Almodóvar’s short film, Strange Way of Life, and another short rumored to be the last film by the legendary Jean-Luc Godard before he passed away last year.
The banner already has features in the works from renowned filmmakers David Cronenberg and Paolo Sorrentino.
Fashionable filmIt was only a matter of time before a fashion house got fully involved with cinema.
Fashion houses routinely hired top directors for ad spots, including Sofia Coppola for Dior, Asif Kapadia for Burberry, and Darren Aronofsky for, yes, Saint Laurent.
Houses have also financed narrative shorts from filmmakers, such as Prada with Wes Anderson’s Castello Cavalcanti and Miu Miu with the anthology series Women’s Tales.
Vaccarello says, “communication-wise, doing a film has more impact on people than a collection. I’m very excited to extend that creativity into something broader and more popular. It’s a new approach to maybe get new Saint Laurent customers.”
ENTERTAINMENT
Tim McGraw // Illustration by Kate Walker
Tim McGraw launches media company focused on “everyday Americans”
The Future. Country music star and Yellowstone actor Tim McGraw is looking to combine those two worlds with a new media company called Down Home. With the company’s focus on telling stories that appeal to his fanbase, Down Home may find the entertainment industry extremely receptive after the outsized success of Taylor Sheridan’s universe of blue-collar shows.
Country music meets HollywoodTim McGraw is getting into the business of cross-cultural communication.
He’s launching a new venture called Down Home that will focus on “relatable stories that capture the essence and spirit of everyday Americans.”
It has a first-look deal with David Ellison’s Skydance to produce film, TV, and digital projects.
It will also have its hands in other types of media and marketing, acting as a full-fledged content studio that reflects McGraw’s passions.
Down Home is a partnership with McGraw’s management company, EM.Co, and social content studio, Shareability — Shareability co-founder Tim Staples will act as CEO, while EM.Co’s Brian Kaplan will be Chief Strategy Officer.
Next up in NashvilleDown Home won’t be based in LA but instead in Nashville, McGraw’s home. Not only does the company have financing from Skydance, but also from Nashville-based investment firm TriScore Entertainment and merchant bank The Laurel Group.
Through Down Home, McGraw plans to open a social content studio dedicated to “nurturing Nashville’s pipeline of emerging talent, fostering connections across music, sports, entertainment and brands.”
Sounds like McGraw has set up his second act.
TOGETHER WITH VANTAGEPOINT
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AI
Humans and AI on the Google Doc // Illustration by Kate Walker
Insider updates its newsroom with AI
The Future. Insider is experimenting with ways to use generative AI in every facet of its newsroom, with a team of veteran journalists leading the way in creating a best practices framework. If AI does become part of the workflow, it has the potential to displace lower-level editorial staff and put extra emphasis on the role of editors.
Generate journalismAccording to its global editor-in-chief Nicholas Carlson, Insider wants to be ahead of the curve in incorporating AI into its journalism.
The publisher has set up a working group of “very experienced, seasoned journalists” to start experimenting with ways generative AI could responsibly be used in the newsroom.
That includes using AI-written text in pieces, generating outlines, fixing typos, crafting headlines that are SEO friendly, and even helping come up with interview questions.
Carlson didn’t rule out that one day full stories may be written by AI… but they’ll need to be fully vetted by a human editor.
Unlike BuzzFeed, which is also testing using generative AI to write stories, Carlson said that Insider wouldn’t disclose if AI has been used to write an article — it will only list a blanket policy about AI on its editorial policies page.
Sorry, no “Buzzy the Robot” for Insider. We’ll see how the greater journalism industry feels about that.
Future Forecast
For those of you who like to stay a step ahead, here are a few things we’re excited about right now:
Hot tips. Every Monday morning, Unicorner will send a rundown of the best early-stage startups straight to your inbox. In just a two-minute read, you’ll be all up on the next promising company with the potential to be a future unicorn. Learn about the next Netflix, Uber, or Airbnb before they're the next Netflix, Uber, or Airbnb. Check it out here.
A process for progress. That’s what sustainable clothing co., No Land preaches. They’re a design studio pioneering the change needed for fashion to work better for the people and the planet. The Deadstock streetwear brand buys unwanted, rejected fabric to create upcycled fashion. They also re-work development samples that would traditionally be discarded and end up in landfills. Check ‘em out.
Fitness tracking. Still keeping up with your fitness goals this year? We hope so! And if you haven’t heard, we’re giving away something to help maintain that motivation. Join our latest sweepstakes for a chance to win a free Oura Ring! Simply invite your friends and fam to sign up to TheFutureParty. Each successful referral corresponds to one entry, so the more people you bring, the greater the odds of winning.
Highlights
The best curated daily stories from around the web
Bria hopes to program ethical AI-generation
While Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and DALL-E are facing lawsuits for using copyright-protected artworks in their data sets, a startup called Bria only allows images to be generated from licensed or copyright-free material. That dataset includes individual photographers and artists who have given their permission, stock image sites, and other open-source libraries. All photographers and artists will also receive a cut of the company’s revenue via an algorithm that tracks when an image has been used in a generative work.
Read more → techcrunch
Vox offloads NowThis
Vox Media is sticking with its own in-house created videos from now on. The company has sold NowThis, a brand known for making viral news and politics-focused videos for social platforms, to news nonprofit Accelerate Change. Vox will keep a minority stake in NowThis, but the sale is seen as a move for the company to shore up cash after missing revenue goals.
Read more → theinformation
Universal Music wants to mute its songs from AI
Universal Music Group, the largest music company in the world, doesn’t want anything to do with AI, asking streamers such as Spotify and Apple Music to ensure that AI companies don’t use their music to train AI datasets. Specifically, it’s asking the streamers to make it impossible for AI firms to download music to use in their datasets. How that’s possible remains to be seen, but UMG has been sending take-down requests “left and right” to cut off music that mimics artists’ sounds.
Read more → variety
Coachella encores in Fortnite
Coachella is back up on Fortnite for another year. Custom emotes, outfits, and activations will be available on an island that replicates the festival in Indio, California. Additionally, users will be able to play minigames that require plenty of dancing, of course. All of that is cool and all, but we feel like, after the innovations made during the pandemic, we should be able to see artists live both at the fest and in the game.
Read more → engadget
Argo plans to turn Moon water into fuel
Argo Space Corporation, founded by ex-SpaceX employees and brothers Robert, Ryan, and Kirby Carlisle, has signaled that they have the juice to power the Moon economy. They’ve created an orbital transport vehicle dubbed the “Argonaut” that is reusable and refuelable — not typical of these vehicle types. And they plan to fuel the Argonaut with lunar water, which will power the vehicle’s water plasma thruster. We won’t pretend to know how any of that works, but it sounds awesome.
Read more → techcrunch
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Today's email was brought to you by David Vendrell.Edited by Nick Comney. Publishing by Sara Kitnick.