Netflix Is Forcing Hollywood into a Talent War • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix Is Forcing Hollywood into a Talent War

#71

Post by idontpost » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 4:56 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #43

kevin_b_er wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know that Hollywood cheats on the backend deals anyways in a philosophy known as "Hollywood accounting", so good on Netflix for offering straight deals not subject to the lying and cheating that Hollywood is known for via their accounting.

>We know that Hollywood cheats on the backend deals anyways in a philosophy known as "Hollywood accounting" is this still a thing? if the studio is promising $50k + 5% of "profits", but you know that's going to be $0 because of hollywood accounting (which everyone does), why would you assign that "5% of profits" any value? as a rational actor, you would see the compensation as $50k, nothing more.

> is this still a thing?

Someone poor schmuck is always gonna be one of today's unlucky 10,000 who doesn't know he's getting screwed.

Re: Netflix Is Forcing Hollywood into a Talent War

#72

Post by stronglikedan » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 4:57 PM UTC

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #55

ggregoire wrote: post #53

I wish Netflix would force HBO Go and Amazon Prime Video into an UX war. It drives me crazy how bad the player and the general experience are on these 2 services. You can’t even pause with the space bar on HBO.

I could not disagree more. Prime Video is by far the best user experience for me, and Netflix is by far the worst. I can't stand how Netflix displays related results when they don't actually have a particular result in stock. I cannot stand the auto-start feature where if you're browsing and idle too long on one item, it will start playing a trailer or synopsis. The sideways scroll under different heading is horrible…

> I also find that the "continue watching" section on Netflix frequently does not appear as the first row, and there are all sorts of "trending" or "critically acclaimed" rows that I have to scroll through to get back up to the "continue watching row" at the top.

I know that scrolling up instead of down will get you to 'My List' very quickly, and I believe 'Continue Watching' is there too, but I cannot confirm while I'm at work. I almost never scroll down anymore (unless I do so subconsciously).

Re: Netflix Is Forcing Hollywood into a Talent War

#73

Post by TylerE » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 4:59 PM UTC

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #55

ggregoire wrote: post #53

I wish Netflix would force HBO Go and Amazon Prime Video into an UX war. It drives me crazy how bad the player and the general experience are on these 2 services. You can’t even pause with the space bar on HBO.

I could not disagree more. Prime Video is by far the best user experience for me, and Netflix is by far the worst. I can't stand how Netflix displays related results when they don't actually have a particular result in stock. I cannot stand the auto-start feature where if you're browsing and idle too long on one item, it will start playing a trailer or synopsis. The sideways scroll under different heading is horrible…

The real star of Amazon Prime video: Skip forward button. So easy to skip past logos, titles, or even just plain boring bits.

Re: Netflix Is Forcing Hollywood into a Talent War

#74

Post by stronglikedan » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 4:59 PM UTC

tdb7893 wrote: post #39

mateuszf wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liked the story, the houmour and the characters. Can't wait for continuation.

Huh, I hated it partially for not being very funny and the characters being generally unlikable (and also just unbelievable in a weird way). It's cool how people can have so different opinions on it, are there any scenes in it you find particularly funny so I can pay close attention when I rewatch it?

I liked the scene where Luke drinks milk.

Re: Netflix Is Forcing Hollywood into a Talent War

#75

Post by mlthoughts2018 » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 5:01 PM UTC

armandososa wrote: post #63

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could not disagree more. Prime Video is by far the best user experience for me, and Netflix is by far the worst. I can't stand how Netflix displays related results when they don't actually have a particular result in stock. I cannot stand the auto-start feature where if you're browsing and idle too long on one item, it will start playing a trailer or synopsis. The sideways scroll under different heading is horrible…

Ok. Maybe GP should have said UI instead of UX, but still, the spacebar to pause is a bigger deal for me that everything you mention. It's like not having the light in your fridge go on when you open the door. It's not important for the actual purpose of the thing but it is something one has come to expect.

I literally don't know anyone who watches Netflix on a device with a space bar. I mean, I get it. For you that is important. I couldn't care less, and would never watch any of these things on a laptop. I usually watch them via devices that are connected to a regular TV. Otherwise, very occasionally on a tablet or phone.

Re: Netflix Is Forcing Hollywood into a Talent War

#76

Post by krapp » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

thrower123 wrote: post #64

mateuszf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Last Jedi was pretty pretty good to me.

It's hard to forgive throwing out all the well-explored material in the old Expanded Universe for... this mess.

Why would Disney purchase Star Wars only to shackle themselves and filmmakers to decades of convoluted lore, not to mention rights negotiations and royalty payments, to rehash stories that have already been told, and tell them to an audience who, for the most part, couldn't care less?

Re: Netflix Is Forcing Hollywood into a Talent War

#77

Post by xenadu02 » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 5:05 PM UTC

sethammons wrote: post #46

gruez wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We know that Hollywood cheats on the backend deals anyways in a philosophy known as "Hollywood accounting" is this still a thing? if the studio is promising $50k + 5% of "profits", but you know that's going to be $0 because of hollywood accounting (which everyone does), why would you assign that "5% of profits" any value? as a rational actor, you would see the compensation as $50k, nothing more.

Last popular one I recall was Lord of the Rings, but I admittedly do not follow this stuff even remotely. Just recall a post, prolly on here, about it.

Point on the net are points on nothing. Everyone has known this for 20 years now, so all points are on the gross.

As a result, Hollywood has started manipulating the gross numbers to hide money.

The Lord of the Rings lawsuit was over the right to audit the books to detect such fraud. No studio will ever actually let you look at the books. Period. If you sue they’ll drag it out then settle.

Re: Netflix Is Forcing Hollywood into a Talent War

#78

Post by dylan604 » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 5:06 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #35

cylinder wrote: post #4

Most of these shows are junk. If you don't like comic books or dark murder based series you're not too happy with Netflix these days. It's going to be one big ABC now. What do you expect when you hire one person to churn out seven shows at once? Where's the creative risk taking? Shonda Rhimes? Ugh.

You're not wrong. I think a major issue is a lack of talented writers. A large number of show, like the Netflix Originals, seems to have a good idea for one season. When season two comes around it's clear that the creators/writers just had ideas for one season and the quality of the show suffers. The Marvel based shows Netflix produces just wants to capitalize on the success of the movies, but they couldn't secure th…

>A large number of show, like the Netflix Originals, seems to have a good idea for one season.

Think of the first season like a start up. You have a creator/founder that has a passion project/idea/concept, but can't get in front of the right people to make it happen, yet. They keep pitching it, getting feedback, re-working the original concept through many iterations (could be years). Then one day they meet the right investor/producer/etc with a much more fully edited/revised product and plenty of practice pitching. The original product gets made to great fanfare, and suddenly everyone wants version/season 2.0, but like now. Everyone forgets how long v1/s1 took to develop. Some developers/creators can already see past v1 to vX, and just hope they can keep the product viable long enough to get there.

Re: Netflix Is Forcing Hollywood into a Talent War

#79

Post by JansjoFromIkea » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 5:11 PM UTC

wwweston wrote: post #62

jasonrhaas wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 4 episodes in and I still don't know what the show is about. It seems like its trying hard to channel some kind of weird, blade runner light vibes, but its doing a pretty bad job. Honestly if it didn't have some name brands in it (Jonah Hill and Emma Stone), I don't think it would getting the attention that it is.

It's definitely a show that unfolds in a lot of directions and that doesn't make it easy to zero in on a predictable narrative. Personally, I like that it managed to do that -- while still actually having a narrative arc and sense the writers had done their homework, unlike, say, Lost and Twin Peaks, which are probably two reasonable analogues. Also, like a lot of character dramas, the most direct "about" is your inv…

An even closer one would be the Leftovers seeing as it shares a few key crew members (well, Theroux and the lead writer worked on the Leftovers, at least).

The Leftovers was basically Lost done right, very very clear from the onset that it's about people's reactions to the craziness than the underlying reasons for it. Maniac feels like it has some unnecessary stuff tacked on, the premise has a Charlie Kaufman copycat element to it all that feels like a necessary gimmick as opposed to something which naturally fits into the world.

Re: Netflix Is Forcing Hollywood into a Talent War

#80

Post by TheTrotters » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

empath75 wrote: post #16

JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #12

> “The increased volume at other places has worked in our favor,” says Casey Bloys, the head of programming at HBO. I do hope this is the case but I'm not convinced. Netflix's approach atm seems very strongly geared towards the middlebrow, which is perhaps the area their algorithms perform best. It's probably not very economical for them to target someone like me when there's still droves of people watching network T…

Maniac is a prestige show.

Even if we classify Manic as a prestige show, what else form Netflix fits into this category? The Crown. In Europe Netflix has Better Call Saul (and labels it as a "Netflix Original") but I don't think it should count. And then what?

It seems to me that Netflix specialises in 7/10 shows. Solid and fairly forgettable productions.

I spend 5-7 hours a week watching TV shows and I find I have zero use for Netflix. It has almost that I want to watch if my goal is to watch the best thing I can find for an hour a day.