The narrative television fiction has always been shaped around the rules of the offered platform. There are the cliffhangers because the viewer must return the following week; episodes are arranged in a structure acts around commercial breaks; grill holes are half or an hour because predictability in schedules is essential for the effect of direct appointment. With its advantages and disadvantages, this model puts on the shirt in some ways the way stories on television, something that is changing due to streaming and are counted binge-watching.
This viewing without pause, this television gluttony, began as a way to catch up. ‘Breaking Bad’ is a great example. Its creator, Vince Gilligan, said that without the possibility of streaming the story of Walter White would not have come this far; was something very remarkable how the growing reputation of its quality prompted many to take such binge ‘Breaking Bad’ to the event in which they had become final batch of episodes. Failure to reach 2 million viewers on average, the last chapter was seen by 10.28 million.
But eventually consumer habits have followed reinforcing the idea of VOD platforms and streaming have continued pushing toward a new way of thinking viewings, identifying how these new mechanics change the relationship with the audience. the “Tuesday from 20-21″ No more traditional television; the streaming your own leisure time, Netflix and Amazon program their premieres in a way that a chain would never open (Fridays, on vacation …); as does Hollywood premiere their films. Streaming is the next step to have a multiplex at home.
In this script and what affects the screenwriter?
Let’s start with formal issues. When we talk about content, the fiction produced for a streaming platform that eliminates all the conventions mentioned above. For starters, commercial breaks are finished. Without them, the story can be written so that flow organically and gradually, thus preventing go pivot point pivot point; It does not eject the viewer outside the universe (to advertising) while at the same time everything is structured towards the end of act up to avoid channel change ..
Commenting on this subject with some Spanish writers (which we will present throughout the article), Natxo Lopez (from ’7 Vidas’ a ‘down there’) spoke precisely how, at last, the average is adapting the content and how it is something that we’ve seen in series like ‘Sherlock’ (trios of 90-minute episodes) or the return of the series or miniseries event. “As a writer, you know that depending on the type of series that you’re writing a limitation of pages, outdoor, number of scenes and characters … Limitations sometimes very strict and absolute condition writing a script. But the new platforms are dynamiting many of these conventions, allowing each story can find your most suitable mold. The conditions of production are still important, but begins to have more freedom in proposing the ideal format for every story and even chapter. “
Tina Fey, creator of ’30 Rock ‘ he developed his latest comedy for NBC. When you were editing the first season of ‘Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’ project finally fell off the chain and signed for two seasons on Netflix. Fey then talked about how it changed their vision of chapters. “It was liberating to go back and re-edit them in streaming format in mind, jokes recovering discarded by time, softening the story and settling her without commercial breaks.”
Do not be a slave to these conventions being key to the evolution in the narrative. Not only by commercial breaks, but also because the form of distribution determines the way a story is consumed. In a weekly rhythm, time is not watching a series is part of it somehow; it is time to process. In diegetic time (of the story itself), the path of Walter White (to continue with ‘Breaking Bad’) lasts two years; at issue were five, but for those who devoured perhaps not gone three weeks. This changes the perception of the evolution of the character.
Ted Sarandos, content director of Netflix, said that Matthew Weiner (creator of Mad Men reputed to control every detail) would only be willing to produce for if they dropped their weekly episodes for that to have time to chew what you’ve seen. But Sarandos is clear that the consumer is moving away from that, that this fiction goes another way. ‘Mad Men’ has many more viewers than AMC Netflix (where the average of its seven seasons has been between 1 and 2 million), and Sarandos says that people see more in one sitting. Whereas the change is already cultural behavior, it is normal that the narrative evolves as it is doing.
Although the binge-watching subtract time chewing and give importance or importance to small details that may not stand out in the global therefore also has many advantages for content. The viewer is better able to retain phrases, facts, gestures and details in memory; It has not been a week (or worse, month and a half with stoppages of issue). This allows you to add deeper layers of complexity to the story, the story can be organized around a great arc of transformation rather small pills that are the episodes.
Often creators of fiction to refer to streaming “movies x hours” to explain this phenomenon that history is over the structure; the format is at your service. There are still certain conventions that are down, as the duration of episodes. While the streaming has to adjust to 42 minutes of open strings themselves that have adopted the model of the cable 50-60 minutes, which I think will disappear naturally if this revolution “first content” continues forward. It is something we have already begun to see in Netflix, whose ‘Making a Murderer’ has episodes of 40 minutes and another 70, depending on which is the thematic center of each of the deliveries.
Content before so
He said Angela Armero (‘Velvet’, ‘Six Sisters’) that these freedoms and demands go in two directions and more difficult to make a good series without a fixed structure or any formal requirement, because these restrictions may limit you but also as crutches at the time of writing. It’s also commented Alan Sepinwall (one of the most important American television critics) in defense of the episode. And this freedom-long episodes or overall structure of a season was carrying some titles dilatasen his narrative too.
Moreover, I believe these changes narrative are moving more and more even the series that are not designed to first for streaming. Creators and producers know that every title can have a second life (important) on these platforms, and not all formats lend themselves to binge-watching. Eating a series of continuously unconsciously it pushes us to think where we carry, what the progression; . something more conclusive series hardly exploited entertainment
The learning process in which the writers are now immersed revolves precisely around this: to identify what format and at what rate is the most conducive to a story. Sepinwall used ‘Jessica Jones’ example in defending the episode, which I do not agree because I do think that the character development and its relationship with the villain and the people around is challenging itself and traps without a structure more capitulate with small hooks or more underlined milestones.
However, I do believe that certain types of stories need some structural unit that allows the viewer a short-term satisfaction, whether in a chapter or curves of two or three episodes. Something to offset a long and designed for the long-term narrative. It’s something I did very well Wachowsky in ‘Sense 8′, a 12-hour history taking its first three chapters as an introductory unit and from there was solving some conflicts of character while planting and developing its global history.
It is something that is still perceived more in The Man in the High Castle ‘, a production of Amazon with a serial drama and convoluted narrative that decides to use a structure that poses a climax by episode closes cliffhanger ending. At the end the film, television and literary fiction is molding and mixing methods and tools and will take time to balance them for each individual story.
Paul Castrillo, who has worked in development Content with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the Bad Robot (‘Alias’,’ Fringe ‘), also let drop a reflection about how all this was affecting comedies (the half-hour, not the type’ Orange is the New Black ‘). Personally I think that happens as with the duration of episodes and how streaming first has been adapted to standard cable. The sitcom is the genre par excellence in the United States and break certain conventions is not that easy for the writer, but it is much to the viewer.
But gradually also it is watching how half-hour comedies as the great ‘Mozart in the Jungle’, ‘Casual’ or ‘Transparent’ themselves with this freedom to create and released from the corseted standards (even more than in the drama) of the sitcom.
This brings me to an important point. When we talk about all these issues of content, format, narration or delay in concluding deliver pills, it is not only relevant to the nature of the story when it comes to adapting the content but also the profile of the viewer. That precisely Natxo Lopez commented that “the way to watch the chapters is not as relevant as the viewer’s own profile, supposedly better ‘trained’ in sophisticated narratives”. ‘Sense 8′ is not equally accessible to ‘Master of None’, ‘Transparent’ or exigentísima ‘Bloodline’.
The relationship with the viewer
But with streaming also have lost some effects than traditional television had on the viewer. First, the so-called watercooler effect; that meet around the water cooler the next day at work to discuss the rotation of the chapter last night. The sense of community within the follower of a series; simultaneous conversation. It’s something with Netflix, Amazon and similar services is lost, since every consumer will pace and talk about products in general without much depth.
Something like the phenomenon “Lost” is difficult to happen again in fiction series. Each chapter as an event. The end of ‘Breaking Bad’ has been one of the last moments of this style; the international broadcast of ‘Game of Thrones’ could be another example, but it will be something that more and more is lost. And with that, the feedback effect that has on the creators and writers of a product. We all remember the mad proliferation of forums that analyzed every frame of ‘Lost’ (and somehow poisoned both creators, eager to feed that, I personally think that hurt them).
said Carlos Lopez (“There Anybody Out There ‘,’ The Prince ‘) that daily production adds a frenzy that puts a lot of pressure on the writers but which in turn converts each season into something alive. “With the closed season, everything is in the hands of the creators, but the viewer feedback that can alter your claims.”
However, the end of the day everything is capture A spectator. No matter the profile, no matter how long or chapter narrative, no matter gender, duration of episodes, the opening day or the viewing platform. What matters it is that content will interest every customer individually and push to keep your subscription for another month. The niche is reduced to a minimum: the person. And the opportunity for variety and specificity that entails is a privilege for content creators.
After all the issues raised in this extensive exhibition I hope it is answered the question posed at the beginning of the article. It is clear that the streaming and characteristics is driving a new business model and consumption and thereby a new narrative. Not that the streaming is killing the television as we know it is that is helping to expand its borders and possibilities.
(From Engadget)
No comments:
Post a Comment