Featured Image Credit: Teni Owojori
Topics: Streaming, Technology, US News, Texas, Canada, Film and TV, Netflix
Liv Bridge
Topics: Streaming, Technology, US News, Texas, Canada, Film and TV, Netflix
A teenage tech wizard has launched an innovative website that makes movie night a whole lot easier.
The digital age has drastically changed how we approach movie night, as long gone are the days of browsing the aisles of your local video rental store on a Friday night for the perfect flick.
Nowadays, you're more likely to spend the night doom-scrolling on Netflix or some other streaming platform where the vast amounts of choice can soon become overwhelming and the scrolling... well, endless.
You wouldn't be the first nor the last to scrap movie night entirely to settle on a show you've watched time and time again for an easy life - or worse: selecting one at random and watching something dreadful right to the end credits.
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Now, however, a 19-year-old has conjured up a genius way to preserve the sanctity of movie night by dishing up a selection of good movies approved by the likes of the film buffs on Rotten Tomatoes and at a fraction of the time spent hunting for them.
Teni Owojori, originally from Calgary, Canada, is studying Computer Science at the University of North Texas and has put his tech skills to the test with the launch of a new tool.
His website allows you to search for niche but highly-rated movies based on the very specific mood you're in, as its name 'YScenes', which stands for 'Your Scenes', suggests.
Teni says his AI-driven tool can interpret a far wider range of moods compared to the bog-standard categories we're all too familiar with on streaming platforms.
For example, 'bittersweet but inspiring, 'laugh until I cry', 'slow-burning tension', 'funny with suspense', 'nostalgic for the 80s' or even 'moody but uplifting'.
The way it works is you type in your mood, or select a suggested mood, and it provides three movies with the ratings and blurb of each, plus where it can be watched.
"It’s built specifically to go beyond obvious mood tags like ‘happy' or ‘sad’ and into combinations that actually reflect how people feel," Teni explained when speaking to UNILAD.
The entrepreneurial youngster said he was driven to launch the tool after enduring the same struggles as the rest of us.
“I couldn’t find a movie that fit a very specific mood, something like a psychological thriller that was also funny, but not mainstream," he explained.
"Searching online didn’t help, and I didn’t want to sit through dozens of YouTube ‘recommendations’ that might just be promos.”
Teni continued: “So I built a web app that recommends movies based entirely on mood. At first, it mostly surfaced mainstream films, which still wasn’t what I wanted, so I tuned the AI algorithm to surface only high-rated, under-the-radar titles.”
"In early tests, it still suggested a lot of mainstream titles I’d already seen, so I refined the logic to prioritise underrated, niche films with a high reputation among cinephiles. That one tweak massively improved the experience.”
Although YScenes is still in its infancy, Teni described it as 'like having a friend who knows exactly what you're feeling without the scrolling'.
Impressively, the pupil built his entire algorithm in just a day, explaining in tech terms how he created a frontend, a backend powered by OpenAI's GPT-4o and designed a custom prompt engine.
It's bang on roughly 85 percent of the time when matching movies to mood, according to Teni, as he said he put a lot of time and effort into prioritising tone and emotion into the tool first.
YScenes can't currently cater to requests like specific locations or actors just yet, but these tweaks are 'on the roadmap for the next phase'.
“The first goal was to absolutely nail the mood-matching before layering on more granular controls," he said.
Within a matter of 24 hours, the tool caused a frenzy on Reddit as Teni became inundated with positive encouragement.
"It solved a real pain point for them," he said, "in some cases even matching their mood better than they expected."
He now hopes to evolve YScenes even further with aspirations of it becoming a household staple for those precious nights.
"I want to eliminate the stress and indecision that comes with choosing a movie, whether you’re alone, on a date, or with friends,” he continued.
“Long term, I see YScenes evolving into the decision-making engine for movie nights: something you trust to find the perfect movie for your exact vibe, learns your tastes over time, and even lets you share/discover with friends.
“Entertainment should be effortless."
Here's to that!