The Bit Player

I am very confused by this. Most of this documentary seems to be composed of a reconstruction by actors. There is very little real information, real photos or real footage.

Also, if you are looking for a more in depth view of information theory, you will be very disappointed. This documentary focuses mostly on his life and the people in his life and teaches me almost nothing about information.

So few people have heard of Claude Shannon, and his impact is bigger than all of the household names. He sought a "universal theory of communication" for the accurate and efficient transmission of information. The documentary succeeds in explaining concepts simply and clearly. The film also links Shannon's interests in Information and communication to his early interests in codes. Commissioned by the IEEE Society, The Bit Player is the perfect title for this informative film portraying the "father of information theory".

First of all, you must understand that this is not a movie, it is a documentary; so well done that you could call it a movie. The "interview" is performed by actors, but so convincing, so very well done, that it appears to be the real Shannon, in the real interview. The interview's dialogues were based on real interviews though: done in a way so perfect, respectful, so convincing, recalling Shannon with grateful love (as it should be).

All information presented here is true and extremely well explained. I read other comments here, that say that it lacks "real information". No. You must understand it well. The interview is performed by excellent actors but it also contains real pictures and scenes of the real Shannon. And the most important: The explanation of his Theory is done in a magnificent way. It is of course an "overall" explanation, but that goes to the heart of the problem and the solution. Explained in plain understandable English, for everyone. Want a more profound look at his theories? Read de Shannon original papers. They are publicly available.

Congratulations to actors John Hutton, Judith Ivey, Kaliswa Brewster and of course to Mark A. Levinson, Writer, Producer and Director by this Excelent. Magnificent work. Thanks!!!

Well!!! This is not a documentary but yes its good to have a content created for an overlooked genius. It is a kind of Documentary - Drama version. It has been enacted as per scripts however very well , undoubtedly. Actors has done pretty well job on that. You will not get any hints that it is a drama documentary type. All the interviews are re enacted of old contents. There would be always a question on contents if it is drama version, nevertheless worth watching. His achievements speak for themselves, and he is certainly a person whom anyone who uses a smartphone or computer should know about. The Bit Player is the perfect title for this informative.

Cheers!!!!!

As a software engineer, admittedly my desires for this documentary skewed more to the academic side than what might interest other viewers, but even then, the explanations were so superficial that I don't see how any of us could find this fulfilling.

In regards to the equivalence between circuitry and Boolean logic, there were a few equations that flashed up for half a second.

For the connection to entropy, an even briefer flash of an equation, with even less explanation about what any of the symbols are referring to.

When researchers introduced a proof of concept for the Shannon limit, the narrative was "fancy that, these French and Thai people who I was ignoring happened to have made an incredible discovery. I wouldn't have thought it would be them." Who is this woman giving us her gossipy take on information theory? I didn't come for your cattiness, I wanted to hear *explanations* of Shannon's insights, along with his personal history.

In terms of personal history, he wasn't a rock star or anything, so that wasn't sufficiently interesting to keep things going. What we ended up with was a simplistic tale of "smart guy did this and that thing which you don't really understand. Computers and tech and stuff".

Incessant mentions of how he was the founder for all this, while mentioning Von Neumann just once; and Turing, never! Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace similarly got no mention at all. What a waste of material for a piece of entertainment.