There seems to be an overall trend pushing writers to write for folks who aren't paying attention to what's happening. Writers are absolutely told to have characters explain what they're doing...
There seems to be an overall trend pushing writers to write for folks who aren't paying attention to what's happening.
Writers are absolutely told to have characters explain what they're doing when taking an action, which on the bright side is great for folks with serious vision issues. For example, "I can't believe we need to walk all this way through the woods!"
I've noticed that more and more movies seen to be set in the past, and I don't think it's all nostalgia. The world has changed a lot, and it's hard to see how some things would even work with modern technology. I was surprised they didn't do this with Superman, and think they handled it pretty well. Yes, livestreaming is a thing and of course he'd be filmed and those videos would be scrutinized. The thing about the glasses warping your vision was clever, I guess that was also meant to work with facial recognition. Gait recognition isn't well known enough that it needs to be addressed.
Hollywood movies absolutely go through phases; I'm hoping we're in the middle of a change rather than stuck in the middle.
The article only lightly touched it, but Netflix in particular is 100% pushing for "second screen content". It's a deliberate strategy and I guess it's bearing fruit. Normally I'd want to praise a...
There seems to be an overall trend pushing writers to write for folks who aren't paying attention to what's happening.
The article only lightly touched it, but Netflix in particular is 100% pushing for "second screen content". It's a deliberate strategy and I guess it's bearing fruit.
Normally I'd want to praise a company to giving affordances to people and designing around their behavior, but... these are still premium services and I'm not sure this is a fight they can really win long term with stuff like Tiktok or even Youtube. Especially as costs keep rising.
Everything about Netflix has been a mess since they lost all the extra lockdown subscribers. They are still expected to make that line go up, which has driven the user hostile decisions they've...
Everything about Netflix has been a mess since they lost all the extra lockdown subscribers. They are still expected to make that line go up, which has driven the user hostile decisions they've been making.
Going from encouraging folks to share passwords to forbidding it is a pretty extreme culture change. They aren't the only company shifting from serving users to treating them as the enemy, but I think this change might have touched the most people.
And it's not as if people were pirating content. A Netflix subscription includes a given number of devices, and that's what they were using. I have an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription that allows...
Going from encouraging folks to share passwords to forbidding it is a pretty extreme culture change.
And it's not as if people were pirating content. A Netflix subscription includes a given number of devices, and that's what they were using. I have an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription that allows two devices to use the software at any one time, and Adobe doesn't care where those devices are.
This a deep dive into how data collection, algorithms and now AI are changing the movie production landscape. There are some interesting points a long the way, as film makers working for Netflix...
This a deep dive into how data collection, algorithms and now AI are changing the movie production landscape. There are some interesting points a long the way, as film makers working for Netflix generally say they have been given freedom to what they feel like and that what titles becomes hits or bust is still not something they can easily predict anyway. Yet everyone agrees that the data does influence the creative process, though a point is that is has always done that. There is just more data now.
Netflix is #1 example for why customers should have an explicit right to develop, share, and use third-party clients. It was once a perfect movie service. And they ate away at it over the course...
Netflix is #1 example for why customers should have an explicit right to develop, share, and use third-party clients.
It was once a perfect movie service. And they ate away at it over the course of 20 years until it became the UI hellscape it is today.
The pipedream of a silver lining here is a possible resurgence of serial audio fiction. Families and friends used to sit around the radio like we do the television now, and many works of radioplay...
The pipedream of a silver lining here is a possible resurgence of serial audio fiction. Families and friends used to sit around the radio like we do the television now, and many works of radioplay (and their podcasting inheritors) did a good job of providing simple stings and quips for the family members less interested without interfering with the enjoyment of the story or its elements for the real fans. Sure, there are a huge number of great audio dramas and comedies in the podcast world, but they're not exactly in the mainstream. It's seen as absurd to listen to one with friends, but if the standard fare TV keeps pandering to the second screeners like this, eventually it'll just be an expensive or ugly and worse competitor for background narrative entertainment.
I think people in general are moving away from any sort of narrative. They like hangout podcasts like Joe Rogan. And even then I think a lot of consumption of those types of podcasts are done...
I think people in general are moving away from any sort of narrative. They like hangout podcasts like Joe Rogan. And even then I think a lot of consumption of those types of podcasts are done through TikTok clips rather than watching/listening to the full thing.
The hangout podcasts are for solo viewing, I think, but people still use TV as a sort of mantle substitute. If you're young and hanging out with friends, you put something on. If you're in a...
The hangout podcasts are for solo viewing, I think, but people still use TV as a sort of mantle substitute. If you're young and hanging out with friends, you put something on. If you're in a relationship or have roommates you like, there is often some shared comfort watching. If you live alone and work at a desk, a talkshow podcast can substitute for after work drinks, but putting something like that on a big screen the way one would turn on Golden Girls or Columbo is not normalized yet outside of frat-type housing.
Narrative is definitely losing its stranglehold on the audiovisual medium, but nonfiction and poetry have always had some popularity offscreen, and I think there's plenty of reason to believe people still value stories when you see the popularity of shows like The Pitt or Andor, or even the Skibidy Toilet supercuts on youtube.
I unsubscribed from Netflix not because of the cost, or because I dislike the company—though both would have been great reasons on their own—but because the user interface got so overwhelming and...
I unsubscribed from Netflix not because of the cost, or because I dislike the company—though both would have been great reasons on their own—but because the user interface got so overwhelming and unpleasant to use that I closed the app in frustration whenever I wanted to watch something. It'd change the thumbnails it used for shows each time you opened it, so it'd be really hard to find something you'd specifically opened the app to watch, or continue watching something you'd already started. I'm sure it's doing incredibly on a metrics dashboard somewhere, but that's not the same thing as being a good user experience.
The changing of thumbnails is also mentioned: Which to me is very offputting, and dishonest in that it is trying to "sell" a movie as something it isn't. Not unlike dishonest trailers, which...
The changing of thumbnails is also mentioned:
The streaming firms already auto-generate artwork and trailers, personalised for each subscriber. If, say, Good Will Hunting appears on the feed of an inveterate romcom watcher, their thumbnail image for the film would feature Matt Damon and Minnie Driver getting cosy; for a user who prefers comedies, Robin Williams would feature.
Which to me is very offputting, and dishonest in that it is trying to "sell" a movie as something it isn't. Not unlike dishonest trailers, which directors often have little control over.
I feel like this article is both interesting, but also doesn't really make a strong conclusion. The article makes the point that appeasing the algorithm feels a bit similar to earlier periods...
I feel like this article is both interesting, but also doesn't really make a strong conclusion. The article makes the point that appeasing the algorithm feels a bit similar to earlier periods where movie execs tried to predict what movies would be popular, the only difference with streaming is having more data points.
There seems to be an overall trend pushing writers to write for folks who aren't paying attention to what's happening.
Writers are absolutely told to have characters explain what they're doing when taking an action, which on the bright side is great for folks with serious vision issues. For example, "I can't believe we need to walk all this way through the woods!"
I've noticed that more and more movies seen to be set in the past, and I don't think it's all nostalgia. The world has changed a lot, and it's hard to see how some things would even work with modern technology. I was surprised they didn't do this with Superman, and think they handled it pretty well. Yes, livestreaming is a thing and of course he'd be filmed and those videos would be scrutinized. The thing about the glasses warping your vision was clever, I guess that was also meant to work with facial recognition. Gait recognition isn't well known enough that it needs to be addressed.
Hollywood movies absolutely go through phases; I'm hoping we're in the middle of a change rather than stuck in the middle.
The article only lightly touched it, but Netflix in particular is 100% pushing for "second screen content". It's a deliberate strategy and I guess it's bearing fruit.
Normally I'd want to praise a company to giving affordances to people and designing around their behavior, but... these are still premium services and I'm not sure this is a fight they can really win long term with stuff like Tiktok or even Youtube. Especially as costs keep rising.
Everything about Netflix has been a mess since they lost all the extra lockdown subscribers. They are still expected to make that line go up, which has driven the user hostile decisions they've been making.
Going from encouraging folks to share passwords to forbidding it is a pretty extreme culture change. They aren't the only company shifting from serving users to treating them as the enemy, but I think this change might have touched the most people.
And it's not as if people were pirating content. A Netflix subscription includes a given number of devices, and that's what they were using. I have an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription that allows two devices to use the software at any one time, and Adobe doesn't care where those devices are.
Don’t give them any bad ideas.
This a deep dive into how data collection, algorithms and now AI are changing the movie production landscape. There are some interesting points a long the way, as film makers working for Netflix generally say they have been given freedom to what they feel like and that what titles becomes hits or bust is still not something they can easily predict anyway. Yet everyone agrees that the data does influence the creative process, though a point is that is has always done that. There is just more data now.
Netflix is #1 example for why customers should have an explicit right to develop, share, and use third-party clients.
It was once a perfect movie service. And they ate away at it over the course of 20 years until it became the UI hellscape it is today.
The pipedream of a silver lining here is a possible resurgence of serial audio fiction. Families and friends used to sit around the radio like we do the television now, and many works of radioplay (and their podcasting inheritors) did a good job of providing simple stings and quips for the family members less interested without interfering with the enjoyment of the story or its elements for the real fans. Sure, there are a huge number of great audio dramas and comedies in the podcast world, but they're not exactly in the mainstream. It's seen as absurd to listen to one with friends, but if the standard fare TV keeps pandering to the second screeners like this, eventually it'll just be an expensive or ugly and worse competitor for background narrative entertainment.
I think people in general are moving away from any sort of narrative. They like hangout podcasts like Joe Rogan. And even then I think a lot of consumption of those types of podcasts are done through TikTok clips rather than watching/listening to the full thing.
Counter-point: TTRPG based shows like Critical Role and Dimension 20 are huge now. In many ways these feel like the successors to radioplays.
The hangout podcasts are for solo viewing, I think, but people still use TV as a sort of mantle substitute. If you're young and hanging out with friends, you put something on. If you're in a relationship or have roommates you like, there is often some shared comfort watching. If you live alone and work at a desk, a talkshow podcast can substitute for after work drinks, but putting something like that on a big screen the way one would turn on Golden Girls or Columbo is not normalized yet outside of frat-type housing.
Narrative is definitely losing its stranglehold on the audiovisual medium, but nonfiction and poetry have always had some popularity offscreen, and I think there's plenty of reason to believe people still value stories when you see the popularity of shows like The Pitt or Andor, or even the Skibidy Toilet supercuts on youtube.
I unsubscribed from Netflix not because of the cost, or because I dislike the company—though both would have been great reasons on their own—but because the user interface got so overwhelming and unpleasant to use that I closed the app in frustration whenever I wanted to watch something. It'd change the thumbnails it used for shows each time you opened it, so it'd be really hard to find something you'd specifically opened the app to watch, or continue watching something you'd already started. I'm sure it's doing incredibly on a metrics dashboard somewhere, but that's not the same thing as being a good user experience.
The changing of thumbnails is also mentioned:
Which to me is very offputting, and dishonest in that it is trying to "sell" a movie as something it isn't. Not unlike dishonest trailers, which directors often have little control over.
I feel like this article is both interesting, but also doesn't really make a strong conclusion. The article makes the point that appeasing the algorithm feels a bit similar to earlier periods where movie execs tried to predict what movies would be popular, the only difference with streaming is having more data points.