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Netflix Wants Movies to Restate the Plot Three or Four Times in the Dialogue
- rolph 9mo agoi believe that would qualify as "hanging a lantern" http://bekindrewrite.com/2011/02/04/what-does-hang-a-lantern-mean-and-how-do-i-use-it-in-my-book/ http://bekindrewrite.com/2011/02/04/what-does-hang-a-lantern... when done artfully it works well, rather than insulting intelligences, or seeming intentionally dumbed down.
- randycupertino 9mo agoReminds me of the gift shop sketch from Mitchell & Webb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFtl2XXnUc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFtl2XXnUc
- db48x 9mo agoIt’s so painful that I can’t even watch.
- FrankWilhoit 9mo agoMozart wrote for audiences who were only half paying attention. If that is all he had done -- and it was all that most of his peers did -- he would be forgotten. But at the same time he also wrote for audiences who were paying the closest possible attention. He is remembered for doing both. It is quite a trick, as you will see if you try it. Netflix do not even see the need for it, and therefore, their "works" will be forgotten.
- paradox460 9mo agoIt already is. Every time they drop a new show, it's a hot topic for a week, maybe two, then it immediately falls out of the gestalt. No one brings up anything they've done in the future ever again. You barely ever hear anyone mention things like bird box.
- m463 9mo agooh I love the old shows that were written with two-level humor. think foghorn leghorn with funny physical humor for the kids and subversive humor for the parents. Sort of related -- I have friends who are immigrants to the US. They have a hard time with subtle types of humor, but some extra physical humor can sometimes let them have a good time anyway.
- bsder 9mo agoAnd parents of the time also got that Foghorn Leghorn was a parody of Senator Claghorn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senator_Claghorn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senator_Claghorn Edit: Apparently, Foghorn goes even further back and is a parody of the sheriff from Blue Monday Jamboree as the first Foghorn episode predates Claghorn: https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/the-origin-of-foghorn-leghorn/ https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/the-origin-of-foghorn-...
- lostlogin 9mo agoNot quite as highbrow, but Pixar stuff, particularly the earlier movies, manage to have jokes that work for kids and their parents. It was much appreciated.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 9mo agoThe first few seasons of SpongeBob SquarePants are also masterfully crafted in this way
- Karsteski 9mo agoYes! I can still go back and re-watch SpongeBob episodes despite the being 30, and I still laugh. Just at different things now :')
- benttoothpaste 9mo agoBluey is pretty good in in that aspect too.
- timoth3y 9mo agoMany of the original Loony Toons and Warner Brothers cartoons fall into this category. The reason they were produced from the 1930s to 50s was to be run in movie theaters before the main picture. Since they would run before different kinds of movies they had to entertain both kids and adults. Some of the humor in those cartoons clearly went way over the kinds heads. It was only later that they were bundled as TV shows for children.
- treetalker 9mo agoThis is a great point that's applicable to legal writing. Thank you for sharing it! Any chance you have a source where I could learn more about this aspect of Mozart's work?
- FrankWilhoit 9mo agoGood question. The literature does not tend to be very informative on this point. It is a difficult topic to discuss because you can either handwave and presume agreement, or else go very deep. It has a lot to do with the amount and kind of repetition, and that is where the analogy between music and prose gets wobbly. The nearest thing we had to a Mozart in living memory was Stephen Sondheim. Something like "Comedy Tonight" would have been very familiar to Mozart, in purpose if not in all the details of execution. In terms of technical writing for multiple audiences, it comes immediately to vocabulary, and there, again, the analogy fails, because it is much harder to get away with using unfamiliar words. For your purposes, Churchill might be a more direct model than Mozart. Look particularly at how he deploys words of one syllable, two syllables, etc. to shape phrases and produce climactic rhythms. Occupational dialect, full of terms-of-art, is obviously an obstacle to this kind of thing.
- kjellsbells 9mo agoSome TV is already like this. I recall critics of Teletubbies complaining about the repeated statements and actions (Tinky-Winky says "Again! Again!"). Then I spent time in Asia and all their popular entertainment (eg Running Man) continually repeats the last 10 seconds of each action. It's crazy making to me, but it evidently is what the viewers like.
- danpalmer 9mo agoThe teletubbies is a bad example here, it's designed for babies where repetition is good for learning and development. Some Asian content can be like this, sure, but I suspect that's stylistic rather than for the reasons Netflix are doing it.
- add-sub-mul-div 9mo agoInteresting, so Netflix is literally and not figuratively infantilizing its users.
- ndarray 9mo agoThe "user" is only half of a human anyway, 50% is the max consciousness people spend on whatever Netflix they have running as background noise. That's the target audience Netflix is optimizing for: half-humans. Saves them lots of bandwidth, expenses for quality, and yes, it needs a solid amount of exposition[0] to work. [0] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Exposition https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Exposition
- kybernetikos 9mo ago> Then I spent time in Asia The worst show I've seen for this was american - mythbusters.
- ChrisArchitect 9mo agoSome related discussions: Casual Viewing – Why Netflix looks like that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42529756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42529756 The new literalism plaguing today’s movies https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44567683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44567683 Why 90s Movies Feel More Alive Than Anything on Netflix https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46062198 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46062198
- wolvoleo 9mo agoYeah I'm really watching less and less. I already closed all my streaming accounts after the fragmentation but a friend gave me access to his massive Plex library with all the latest stuff. However I find I just don't care anymore. It's such terrible crap. And all the same tired old tropes. The snarky detective breaking all the rules. The muscly ex-soldier that bashes heads in. The superspies with offices that look like nightclubs. And spinoff after spinoff which are even more dumb and one-dimensional than the original. Once in a while there's a pearl but they're few and far between. Most of it is fast food entertainment and utterly hollow.
- chistev 9mo agoThere will never be another The Wire.
- wiredpancake 9mo ago[dead]
- burnt-resistor 9mo agoWhen HBO took chances, was cool, and my grandparents stole it via the terrestrial distribution signal. Netflix will probably absorb them and make them even worse than they are now.
- rurban 9mo ago"Can we get a big one in the first five minutes?" That's in screenwriter circles called the hook, not the plot. You don't reiterate the whole plot for the innate viewers, you just deepen the hook, usually by giving wrong hooks, which are then replaced by better hooks. It's not that Netflix invented TV scripting. Even with festival movies you turn it off within the first 5 minutes if you have to judge 200 to 2000 admissions in a month. Same with distributors. They certainly don't watch the whole movie if it starts bad. It usually doesn't get better in the third act.
- nicbou 9mo ago”He is buying a gift for his aunt” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2gB03p44_4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2gB03p44_4
- throwaway81523 9mo agoThey're taking the hobbits to Isengard.
- helsinkiandrew 9mo agoThe HN headline misses the point that Netflix told Matt Damon this. I'd guess more people will watch Matt Damon's new movie on Netflix than watched Adolescence before it won the awards People want to see (are more likely to watch) super and action hero movies with big stars in - but there's been so many of these with fairly similar plotlines that outside the attention grabbing action and fight scenes the quiet/story development scenes become like ad breaks and people start looking at their phones. If Matt Damon made different movies for Netflix (like adolescence!), he'd get less views but be given more freedom. > shows like “Adolescence” are “the exception,” Affleck said he felt the show “demonstrates you don’t have to do” the Netflix tricks to please audiences.
- cateye 9mo agoTurkish TV series have been operating on this exact "second screen" logic for decades. They are massive global exports specifically because their 140-minute episodes rely heavily on meaningful stares, flashbacks, and circular dialogue. They are designed for people ironing or cooking; you can leave the room for twenty minutes and miss absolutely nothing. Personally, I can't bear them, the constant spoon-feeding is torture if you are actually paying attention, but Netflix is effectively just adopting this proven, low-attention retention strategy.
- takinola 9mo agoI am of two minds here. I can understand how the filmmakers can feel insulted by this demand but I am also one of those viewers that watches movies with one eye on my phone so spoon feeding the audience benefits people like me. I only pay full attention to one or two shows (usually those that I watch with my spouse) and every other show can only get my divided attention. My product manager sense says that you should give people what they want even if my artistic sense is indignant.
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- stuaxo 9mo agoThis will kill Netflix in the end.
- 7speter 9mo agoYou mean the company that is going to spend 100+ billion to buy a legacy hollywood studio, Warner Brothers (sadly)?
- burnt-resistor 9mo agoI hate this lazy, boring form of non-art. If people can't pay attention, fuck them.
- bigmeme 9mo agoI am daft: why do people past a certain age continue to watch movies and tv shows so religiously. What’s the never ending allure? It’s very formulaic as per the articles. Once in awhile I can sort of understand but beyond that, is it escapism? Addiction?
- jamesfinlayson 9mo agoI recently heard some workmates discussing some new TV show - one told the other that they definitely can't double-screen for this show - it needs full attention.