Hollywood

3 Ways Netflix Could Personalize Viewer Experience

Tech publisher TechCrunch reported yesterday that the world’s largest video streaming service Netflix (NLFX) has posted a loss of net subscriber base in the U.S. fixing the blame on hikes in subscription costs. Netflix’s loss of U.S. subscribers happened for the first time in eight years and it also missed its targets for overseas customers. Shares of Netflix tumbled more than 13% in after-market hours on July 18.

Netflix

Netflix’s continued subscription price hikes might finally have reached the end of some customers’ patience in the U.S., judging from an overall paid subscriber decline the company reported in its quarterly earnings for its fiscal second quarter 2019 results. The company’s overall growth for paid subscribers climbed by 2.7 million worldwide, but it actually added 2.83 million new subscribers around the world — while losing around 130,000 net in the U.S. to account for the difference.*

* Netflix reports first net subscriber loss in the US, misses global subscriber growth predictions

Last year I wrote a piece on the creative freedom currently afforded by several streaming platforms such as Netflix’s. And the plethora of critically acclaimed movies and TV series, including Oscar winners, that audiences are served on demand some of which otherwise wouldn’t have seen the light of the day being ruthlessly entangled in financial disputes, creative controversies, or sheared mercilessly under the garb of censorship laws across the globe. That creative freedom allows viewers to watch immersive content in high-definition at a nominal rate while bestowing acclaimed filmmakers like Martin Scorcese, Alfonso Querón or David Fincher a safer platform to pursue their innovative endeavours without having to think about compromising their intellectuality, least of all getting jammed in the filmmaking process due to stringent production cost controls. As always I will attempt to look at the subscriber slump from a customer’s viewpoint to analyze if the dots could be connected in innovating the viewer’s experience.

To simplify the challenge in clear terms, how might we innovate the viewing experience to keep the audiences engaged? The launch of Apple TV+ has just made the online video streaming service industry that much more interesting, it joins a bevvy of other subscription services offering loads of original content. So what could Netflix do in order to retain or enhance its customer base regardless of this slump they are facing? I have 3 creative solutions.

Continue reading…
Salyut 7

‘Salyut 7’ Honours Space Endeavour

Who doesn’t have a penchant for space adventure flicks, huh? In fact, I have proof that I have always been intrigued by space stuff and the idea of space exploration though it’s always been a dream to ride a spacecraft, or at best, even visit a space museum (yup, that’s on my bucket list), or experienced zero-gravity (another moonshot), but the closest that I could get to experiencing space travel was the movie theatres! In Alphonso Querón’s brilliant narration of Gravity about two American astronauts who get stranded after their space shuttle is destructed, showcased the pitfalls of space exploration in all its glory, in which, whether you live or die is a matter of the choices you make. This and several movies later you realize that films are much more than just crucibles of entertainment but actually educational channels. Another movie I’d definitely to mention is the awesome Apollo 13.

In much the same mould of depicting space endeavours, Salyut 7 is a masterpiece portrayal of events surrounding the salvaging of the doomed space station Salyut 7 in 1985. You might have already guessed it from the image, but the noteworthy aspect of this defining blockbuster is that it comes from Russia and not Hollywood as most might have expected it. It begins with a spacewalk by Svetlana Savitskaya, the first woman to perform a spacewalk ever, and cosmonaut Vladimir Fyodorov. Later, a cosmic occurrence renders the ill-fated space station without power and disaster strikes. At which point, the Soviets are wondering whether to shoot a missile at the floating metal and prevent it from falling it into the hands of the Americans or take the unprecedented route and bring it back to life. Although, at the heart of the mission is a complex issue of docking with a 20-ton metal structure in space that spinning on its axis faster than a Ferris wheel. So the cosmonauts are trained in a simulator with the exact parameters, they keep failing until Fyodorov is included in this impracticable mission partnering his fellow cosmonaut Viktor Alyokhin. They are foretold they only have enough fuel for 3 attempts but it’s so critical for the rendezvous to happen flawlessly unless the Soviet military shoots down the ‘dead’ space station hurtling metal debris into low space orbit, or risk falling it into the hands of the Americans who are launching a Space Shuttle to salvage it.

Continue reading…

Chef And A Dil Chahta Hai Moment

Bollywood offers myriad stories & sequences including in refashioning original Hollywood movies for the Hindi audiences for diversion, however, there has also been a crop of official remakes in recent times, such as Bang Bang, Players, just to name a few. There was a moment in one such recent movie with Saif Ali Khan called Chef that caught my attention and which was probably missed by many viewers.

Chef is an official remake of that Jon Favreau 2014 classic of the same name which I probably watched a couple of times, about an uncompromising chef who quits his respectable job at a prestigious Los Angeles restaurant to go back to his roots and rediscover the happiness in his cooking. The remake follows the same course, save for Roshan Kalra (Saif) who embarks on his path to enlightenment from the USA to pristine Kerala, but alas, the movie loses the plot somewhere between Goa, Delhi, and that “Rottza” whatever, that people thronged to relish. In all the munching, the heartwarming, ‘slice-of-the-life’ delight which Favreau’s Chef provided was clearly lost its way in its Indic avatar raising more questions than amusement. As an instance, why do all of Bollywood’s ‘reputed’ chefs come from the UK (Cheeni Kum) or ‘Umrika’ and not from the Taj Mahals or the Oberois in India while experiencing the boredom of metro-life, moving to a rural place in India and rediscovering their true passion? I suppose it’s not prudent to decode Bollywood’s logic of life so regardless I just enjoy or dislike the show.

The Dil Chahta Hai Connection

Dil Chahta Hai - Chef Connection
Saif Ali Khan as Sameer and Beatrice Gibson as Kristine in a still from Dil Chahta Hai.

In the second half, there’s a fleeting mention of the Saif Ali Khan classic Dil Chahta Hai when Roshan Kalra recalls an embarrassing moment to his assistant Nuzrool in Goa about visiting the place twenty years ago with his two friends and getting robbed. Saif’s actually talking about his character Sameer visiting Goa (with Akash & Sid) and succumbing to his desires for Kristine who plunders his personal belongings in an outlandish situation. His mention of 20 years is a tribute to 2001, the year when Dil Chahta Hai was released! Chef may have truly gone south but this tiny detail provided the only bright spot for me.

The Facts vs Fiction In ‘Steve Jobs’

Steve JobsHaving enjoyed Walter Isaacson’s insightful book ‘Steve Jobs’ ages ago, and after amassing enough confidence, I was left disappointed watching its cinematic version recently. Especially after a feeble attempt was made in the ‘Jobs’ movie wherein Ashton Kutcher helmed the legendary Apple founder’s role my expectations from the official film had peaked. In the book, Isaacson has detailed the vibrant journey of Steve Jobs; personal and professional, and his varied mix of emotion, passion, vision, and an unfettered streak of wisdom which distinguished him from his contemporaries and enabled him to build Apple and NeXT. As a long time devotee of Steve Jobs one thought that the biopic written by Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) failed to do justice not just to the Isaacson book on which it was purportedly based but to Jobs as well who continues to captivate the industry even today, pathetically reducing his awe-inspiring story into a dramatized narrative.

The movie outlines 3 events which shaped the life and times of Jobs beginning with the launch of Apple’s flagship Macintosh computer in 1984, Steve Jobs’ famed departure from the company after his tumultuous association with CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels), and his grand comeback to Apple with the iMac launch. Throughout, the film captures the complex relationship with his estranged daughter Lisa and his colleagues all of which was truthfully captured in the Isaacson book though regrettably, that content has been sensationalized on the big screen. For instance, scenarios such as Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen) having an argument with Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender) and Jobs’ badgering of Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg) 40 minutes prior to the launch of the Mac to fix the voice demo never happened in reality, likewise there is a list of instances where the movie deviates from the book itself. Alas, with a personality such as Steve Jobs, the film could have ended up becoming a splendid saga of triumph & trials, instead, the makers could only manage a burlesque version to keep the audiences entertained.