Netflix’s Media Production Suite

> “… automation became imperative. The intricacies of color and framing management, along with deliverables, must be seamlessly controlled and effortlessly managed by the user, without the need for manual intervention. Therefore, we cannot lean into humans configuring JSON files behind the scenes to map camera formats into deliverables.”

I’d often thought (critically) about the lack of visual diversity in Netflix output - and this is something I often see stereotypical film-enjoyers complain about.

I’d never considered it as a consequence of Netflix’s sheer scale. It’s always really interesting when I discover that something I’d previously put down as an (unimaginably unimaginative) aesthetic choice might in fact be an operational choice. It makes me check myself!

It sounds an incredibly complex and clever system; I can’t help but feel that applying such a strong vertical to the more creative aspects of film and tv production - such as colour grading - will ultimately prove short-sighted.

This. “the medium is the message” Marshall McLuhan.

The actual content is invariably a result of the infrastructure behind it. And it’s not just the image, it’s also what kind of scripts are written, what kind of audience insights are passed on to creative producers, what kind of creative teams are selected.

Is it proving short-sighted? If you’re optimizing for cinematic art, then yeah. But they’re optimizing for subscriptions and global reach. That vertical will likely move to live-streaming, sports and other forms that retain subscribers. And on multiple global markets at the same time (not just U.S.)

It’s a weird vertical, they’re quite sophisticated in their approach, but it’s surprising how they sometimes contract entire chunks out. I’ve read academic papers talking about how Netflix is a very strange disjointed thing.

That’s interesting. I’d love to read those papers, if you remember what they were.

I do wonder if an in-house aesthetic can become ‘tacky’ in the age of global media - can trends ‘die’ when there are still billions more people to reach? And will a creative org structure like this be able to move fast enough should that happen? I don’t think we know the answer to that yet.

I personally believe (maybe optimistically!) that this will be an important question even though Netflix’s natural conclusion is to move towards the subscription-retaining, low-creative products like sports that you mentioned.

The problem with those entertainment products is that they have intrinsic value: if the provider is adding little value besides distribution, some (or lots) of users will pirate that content. Super apparent in sports media.

Maybe it’s a naive hope, rather than a belief, but I hope / believe that because of this, companies like Netflix will be ultimately forced by users to have more idiosyncrasy in their production pipeline and output. It’ll be really interesting to find out!