Using AI to improve Peetimes

AI is revolutionizing many professions, including our work at RunPee. While I’ve used AI (Copilot) for years to assist with coding, we’ve recently discovered its potential to enhance a crucial aspect of our service: crafting the perfect Peetime Synopsis.

Our team still handles the essential task of watching movies to select Peetimes, but summarizing missed scenes concisely has always been challenging. These synopses must be brief and informative, as users have limited time to read before returning to their seats. Our RunPee Admin app includes a word counter that alerts us at 100 words and raises a warning at 150 words.

Although we’ve honed our skills to keep most synopses under 100 words, there’s always room for improvement. That’s where AI comes in. We’re utilizing Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet, currently the industry-leading model according to most benchmarks.

Here’s how it works: After adding our synopsis to the database, we can click “Suggest AI Improvements.” This sends the text to Anthropic, prompting it to edit the synopsis line-by-line. We then compare the original and AI-suggested versions, selecting the best elements from each.

Our app displays the original sentence, the AI suggestion, and an input field for our final selection. This process allows us to combine human expertise with AI assistance, resulting in more polished and effective Peetime synopses.

 

Here’s a few selected Peetimes that I’ve edited from previous movies. You can see the original on top and the AI suggestion on bottom.

The Crow Peetimes

Cut to the police pulling Zadie’s body out of the water.
Cut to police pulling Zadie’s body from water.

A cop makes a phone call and says, “Marion, you have a problem.”
An unknown cop makes a phone call and says, “Marion, you have a problem.”

Marion (the woman who does Vincent’s dirty work) calls Vincent and tells him the police found the girl’s body.
Marion calls Vincent, reporting the discovery of girl’s body.

Vincent tells her, “If this video gets out, do you know what they’ll do to me?… This ends here.”
Vincent tells her, “If this video gets out, do you know what they’ll do to me?… This ends here.”

Marion is scared.
Marion is scared.

Cut to Eric, Shelly, and some friends camping by a lake.
Cut to Eric, Shelly, and friends camping by a lake.

Eric and Shelly hold each other in the water.
Eric and Shelly hold each other in the water.

She says she never wants it to end.
Shelly: “I never want this to end.”

Eric says it never has to.
Eric: “It never has to.”

Cut back to the city. Shelly lays in bed, singing.
Cut back to city. Shelly lays in bed, singing.

Word count, original: 106
Word count, edited: 97

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2 of 2

Eric goes back to Shelly’s apartment.
Eric returns to Shelly’s apartment.

There are a bunch of flashbacks to their time together.
There are flashbacks of Eric and Shelly’s time together.

He goes to where she stashed the pills and finds the phone.
Eric finds the phone with the troublesome video and watches it.

He plays the video that caused all the trouble.
Removed

In the video, Shelly is playing the piano.
The video shows Shelly playing piano.

Vincent whispers to her. She gets up and stabs a girl to death.
Vincent whispers to her. Shelly rises and fatally stabs a girl.

Eric is upset. He drops the phone and cries, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Eric becomes distraught and drops the phone, crying, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Cut to Eric on the street, following the crow.
Cut to Eric on the street, following the crow.

Word count, original = 81
Word count, edited = 64

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AfrAId Peetimes

1 of 1

They explain to Curtis that *AI* really likes him and will offer him anything to work there.
They explain to Curtis that *AI* really likes him and will offer him anything to work there.

Curtis leaves. He sits in his car for a while to think about it.
Curtis leaves. He sits in his car for a while to think about it.

Cut to Meredith as she reads to Cal.
Cut to Meredith reading to Cal.

When he falls asleep she walks around the house straightening things.
After Cal sleeps, Meredith tidies the house.

While she does this *AI* talks with her.
*AI* converses with Meredith during housework.

She asks Meredith what she was made for.
*AI* asks Meredith what she was made for.

Meredith tells her that she wants to finish her doctorial thesis and go into the same field as her father.
Meredith expresses desire to complete doctoral thesis and enter father’s field.

Then Meredith looks a little sad and tells *AI* she was also made to be a mother.
Then Meredith looks a little sad and tells *AI* she was also made to be a mother.

Word count, original = 101
Word count, edited = 87

I think this will make a meaningful improvement in the app. What do you think?

Prompt

For those geeks in the room, here’s the prompt. By the way, I had to add the “in my screenplay” to the prompt because sometimes Claude would give me a copyright error.

The following is a synopsis of a scene in my screenplay.
The synopsis needs to be as concise as possible
without losing important information.

Most importantly, aim for ‘ease of reading’.

Look for ways to improve the scene, by:
1. Removing unnecessary words.
2. Shorten sentences.
3. Use more concise language.
4. Avoid using pronouns.
5. Try to use the present tense, unless it doesn’t make sense.
For instance, if the scene takes place in the past.
6. Remember to keep character names unchanged.
7. Correct any grammatical errors.
8. Correct any spelling errors.
9. If a sentence can be improved by breaking it into
multiple sentences, then do so.
10. Leave the asterisks in place,
they are used for formating.
11. IMPORTANT: text in quotes is character
dialog and should never be changed.

Show the results one sentence at a time,
with the original text on one line.

On the next line show the improved text.
Place a ‘—‘ marker between each pair of sentences.
Example:
O: This is the original first line.
E: This is the edited first line.
—
O: This is the original second line.
E: This is the edited second line.
If a sentence begins with something like ‘Cut to ‘ you should
leave it as it indicates a different setting for the scene.

It’s okay to leave a sentence unchanged if it’s already concise.
Don’t include anything other than the original text
and the improved text in the response.
Scene: { This is where we send the current synopsis. }