“My pitching days are over. That’s it. I quit, starting now… The CSI guy is dead. Welcome to my autopsy.”
That was the entry point for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation creator Anthony E. Zuiker‘s MIPCOM Cannes keynote, in which he pulled back the curtain on Cinemalistics, an app that he called “a true-crime studio that turns real events into cinematic storytelling, built only from verified facts.”
Zuiker first revealed the Cinemalistics in May as an AI-powered true-crime service that gives the user a chance to follow unfolding crimes through video, databases and other forms of evidence that develop, but MIPCOM is its first public showing.
As such, Zuiker was in full showman mode today as he delivered a talk on the vision, complete with pictures from his childhood, AI-generated images of crime scenes and even one of his own ‘death.’
“Cinemalistics is the world’s first real-time true-crime media platform,” he said. “It is not a streaming service, a news site or a documentary studio. It is a completely new category: A platform where stories evolve as reality is revealed and evidence remains connected to narrative.”
The app will include 20 tabs that allow users access to documentary-style footage of crimes as they happen, archive that maps the case, and “blinking live-file indicators” that alert users to new data sourced from verified sources.
“No conjecture. No hyperbole. Only accuracy,” was how Zuiker put it.
As the story updates, videos adapt the reflect the new information, and users are encouraged to investigate through tools that could include police reports, 911 calls, court filings, witness statements, crime-scene evidence, autopsy filings, press conferences, video records and public documents. “Twenty buttons. The entire case file at your fingertips,” said Zuiker.
He added that Cinemalistics will continue even once an arrest is made. “At that point, the real-time phase concludes, but the Cinemalistics journey does not,” said Zuiker.
“The result is not only a living archive of the investigation, but also two completed pieces of premium content: a feature-length motion picture and a long-form documentary, both built from the same verified foundation.
“That is where another dimension of the business model emerges. Cinemalistics satisfies the audience’s immediate desire to understand what is happening, while also building a valuable content library that can live beyond the life cycle of the investigation.”
Zuiker said he was applying the same depth of research into Cinemalistics as he did with the CBS show that launched his career, CSI. The writer, producer and showrunner made 911 episodes of the franchise, which he said “reached a valuation of approximately” $12 billion.
“CSI became a global phenomenon for many reasons, but the factor that set it apart was research,” he said. “It was a forensic procedural drama that depended on the depth and accuracy of its research.
“Our writers’ rooms were built around research, and that gave the shows a global edge that resonated around the world. Our source material included Reddit, Yahoo, CNN, Al Jazeera, the Daily Mail and TMZ. Every story began with research. That was the secret sauce of scripted television.”
Zuiker said Cinemalistics’ ultimate goal is to change crime content in “the age of understanding,” speeing up the time to takes to get under the bonnet of developing story. “This is how the world will watch the truth – as it happened.”
Plans For New Genres
Zuiker co-founded Cinemalistics with former CAA agent David Freeman, and had backers such as David Carsten and his venture capital firm 5IR Funds. Nvidia’s AI tools are being used to power the app.
The ambition is for Cinemalistics to move beyond crime and into a total of 12 areas such as sport, breaking news, politics, scandals, natural disasters and major public events.
In his entertaining, freewheeling speech today, Zuiker mused how a thirteenth version of the app could be called Cinemalistics Sussex – documenting the hectic lives of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle – and he couldn’t resist a small dig at the royal couple. “Grabbed the popcorn, dumped the peanut M&Ms and supersized the soda, because these two keep giving us sequels nobody ever ordered,” he joked.
Turning back to the sales pitch, Zuiker concluded: “MIPCOM, Cinemalistics is not simply a real-time crime app. At its core, it is an operating system for understanding complex stories.
“From the age of broadcast, to the age of information, to the age of understanding, it has been quite a journey – from a boy with a pen behind his ear to whatever comes next. It turns out I was not just thinking about television after all.”