Film to Television

Changing tastes based on social media behavior

This was Oscar week. Leo finally won. Most of the skits referenced the absence of any African-American nominees in major categories by being all about African-Americans. There was a big emphasis on not asking ladies who they were wearing, though as Chris Rock mentioned in his monologue maybe guys would be asked the question too if they weren't all wearing the same thing. There was a Girl Scout cookie feature.

In recent years I've watched the Oscars with more and more detachment. I still see the show every year out of tradition, having done it ever since I was a kid. But the habit has moved from being a huge family practice to one of more detached monitoring.

We were a huge movie family, a passion passed down to us from our father. We were schooled in all the necessary trilogies, many of the classics, a lot of musicals and a healthy dose of Disney. Even when I was too young to see the nominated movies, my older sister followed industry news and I caught the bug. We knew the actors, directors and films nomintaed every year. For a long time I watched the ceremony looking forward mostly to seeing how the year's Disney offering would be represented, usually a major variety number, and one year with extra pride as it featured our very own Lea Salonga. On Oscar mornings (because of the time difference) we would all gather to watch the red carpet interviews and then track the winners. One of dad's best gifts was a movie journal which included a listing of all the historical top category Oscar winners, with spaces for upcoming years. Every year I would diligently fill in the blanks as awards were given out. We even started printing out the New York Times Oscar ballots as a family challenge. (I was terrible at picking winners.)

Over the years however our interest in film has waned and television programs have become a bigger passion point. We all still watch movies, but starting with the (pirated) DVD revolution going to the cinema became less appealing and was suddenly saved for major blockbusters. We started joking with a way to review movies by deciding if they were worth going to the theater for, "pang DVD lang" ("DVD at home will do"), or worse, "pang treadmill". Huge movies still get me excited - Avatar was one of the most captivating theater experiences I've had in recent-ish years. The family waited for me to come home last year from Singapore so we could all watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens together.

But when we Skype on Sunday nights, what always comes up are updates on what TV we've been watching. I have a few programs in common with my sibilngs and parents, and those are always hot topics. Recent debates in our family have included whether you're on Team Mama Pope or on Team Papa Pope, which house you fall under whether Stark, Targaryan, Lannister, or worst of all Greyjoy, etc. When Heroes was new and still good out my sister, brother and I would crowd around the computer together to see the latest episodes. We watched quite a few seasons of Top Chef that way also. There was one weekend where my younger sister and I, who shared a room and TV at the time, watched The OC all night until three or four in the morning, went to bed, and resumed the season as soon as we woke up and all throughout the day. She and I have also done this thing where we "trade" TV pilots to try and get the other person watching a favorite show. I succeeded in hitching her to Mad Men, while I didn't take as well to her offering (Band of Brothers). Reacting to major TV moments and trading recommendations continues to be a running thread on our family Whatsapp.

After I moved away from home I became a 100% cord cutter relying on streaming and digital options completely, and becoming my own content programmer. That habit continues to this day. I follow maybe 20+ shows at a time, with varying degrees of attentiveness. Some shows like Mad Men are watched strictly mobile-free, while other programs are on while I monitor e-mail and Facebook, cook, clean, etc.

Even among wider social circles, in person and on social media, TV watercooler moments seem to have become the buzzier topic than film. I'm looking for stats to validate this. But even by virtue of the number of hours in a given TV season, and the length of time a season runs, compared to the 90-120 movie minutes, there is more to react to on TV. I still watch movies, but I would give up movies forever over TV, any day.

Outside of my own personal behavior, I can't validate for sure that TV has overtaken film. It certainly isn't an apples-to-apples situation. But the preoccupation with television has grown for sure. It is now a strong writers medium, and attracts even movie talent, while catapulting fresh new faces to fame, whereas TV used to feel like the poor man's silver screen. I remember, going back to when I was a kid watching award shows, the Golden Globes seemed like such an awkward ceremony becuase the TV actors were just so clearly on a lower fame and cultural acceptance level compared to the movie stars. But watching the Globes now, I cheer even more for the TV categories than for the film ones.

I plan to look in to this, but it seems plausible that we can use some of the new behaviors created by new social and digital habits that have impacted the preference for television.

• Through the social media feed, audiences have been taught to consume more content, in smaller chunks. Although digital takes "byte-size" to a new extreme, with Vine videos for example now down to six seconds, this theme fits with television versus film. TV is cut into episodes that build the story over time, instead of investing in one single longer-form piece of content.
• Social has also taught us to express and appreciate a depth of personality. Digital celebrities have built their fame on their personas, while today's actors and actresses, even musicians and models, are forced to show theirs through personal content feeds. Films have still been able to create iconic characters, but nowhere near the same way that television characters are not just established but tested against so many different situations. I'm sure there are arguments that TV's episodic nature doesn't necessarily lead to more character depth, but if I think about the evolution of someone like Walter on Fringe, Tyrion on Game of Thornes, even Lady Mary in Downton Abbey, there is potentially more to a character when there are more hours of potential screen time to get to know - and become attached to - them.
• Not just social but the whole digital space is catered to exploring and going deeper in to our passion areas. Whether you're intersted in knitting, citizen science, sous vide recipes, YouTube musicals, or almost literally whatever, you can find communities and spaces online to explore and express those interest areas. TV plays on this by potentially adding complexity with every episode. It's always a case-to-case basis - there are crap shows just as there are crap films. But based on the medium potenial, this is better achieved with TV. 

I still enjoy movies and haven't given up on film, that isn't the point. (As I write this I'm listening to my Movie Themes playlist which features scores from Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Little Women, Mighty Ducks... more of my chidlhood favorites that make anything feel epic.) But it is interesting to note how alive the medium has become and how our tastes and preferences are evolving in a way that I think is more affected by our growing exposure to social and digital media. As these habits evolve, it will be intersting to see any the new dimensions and levels of craft in television, but also whether, as we leave the confines of the programming schedule and even potentially geographic boundaries of IP contracts, what new channels and formats will be created.

re-formatting

Despite new viewing habits, television content still sticks to old formats

Wet Hot American summer was released in one eight-episode go, the whole series immediately available to binge on. Netflix releases all their original content this way, starting with House of Cards in 2013. Un-Real, though aired on Lifetime, released the show's first four episodes onilne along with the on-air season premiere. 
I watched the first four episodes of Wet Hot in one shot, stopping only to find and view the original film. I am a TV binge-r, and habitually watch shows straight. I remember when my sister and I first binged on an entire season of The OC. We were sharing a room and even if she hadn't seen much of the show prior she started watching when I put the DVDs in. At the end of every episode we couldn't stop the machine from automatically playing the next one. We had started in the afternoon, stopped only to eat dinner and then continued to watch straight until 4 am the next morning. When we woke up we just resumed watching until we were flat out of episodes.

Straight shot viewing seems to be part of the engagement model. It is tough to watch one episode at a time, and unless I am deathly afraid to be spoiled (e.g. Game of Thonres), I prefer to hoard episodes. What is the reason behind this behavior? It could be loneliness or feeling like you just need to finish a show that you've already invested in.

Given this mode of viewing that studios feed by releasing entire seasons at once, it makes me wonder if episode specs will be maintained as viewer habits shift. Wet Hot still shows opening and closing credits, and the episodes fit the half-hour format. At 28 minutes per episode, they don't need to leave time for ads but still fit within that standard timeslot. House of Cards fits within the hour-long time slot. These are the two typical episode lengths aligned with how programming is planned and scheduled. However when people are watching television online and often practically as a mini-series, will episode lengths eventually change beyond these uniform durations? To mini-clip shorts or even feature length episodes?

Entertainment formats are platform-driven. Except for cable shows, most television programs run for 22 or 44 minutes, leaving time for ads, as standard lengths that can be programmed into a pre-determined time slots. To signify the start of an episode there is often a summary of relevant events in previous episodes ("Previously on..."), which you might have forgotten if you're watching on a weekly basis. Many shows also have opening and closing credits that we associate with the start and end - which have to be in the show material itself becuase there is no external webpage that could include that information.

This reminds me of the intermissions that were once standard in movies. I remember seeing this when we were kids watching classic films on laser disc. As someone who usually has to leave the theater to go to the bathroom (thanks, RunPee), I wouldn't mind if more movies had an offical break. But on the other hand, why cut the action and lose momentum? It turns out that they used to need this time to change reels. "In cinema’s early days, intermissions were necessary to allow projectionists to change out film reels. When the French silent film The Loves of Queen Elizabeth opened in New York in 1912, it consisted of four whole reels and an individual intermission accompanied each." (The Outtake) Intermissions were a necessary, platform-driven spec.

I suppose that when the technology evolved there was suddenly no need to stop a film to change the reel, and this is one platform spec that has been changed.

Movies have always had a much freer rein on length and duration. To qualify as a film a material must be at least ninety minutes long, but they can go to LOTR lengths of three hours and counting. Will television programming eventually evolve this way as well?

While there are online-only content networks like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, most television programming is still tied to linear and ad-driven programming schedules. We still have "late night" TV, shows are still scheduled during a supposed "prime" time, morning programming is largely news-led and "daytime TV" consists of soap opears. Episode lengths are determined by the number of ads that will be run. It is still one timeline being mapped out by networks, with content and cost per hour, per minute, per second. In advertising time determines cost, a 15s material costs much less than a 30s vs. a 60s or, the ultimate TV luxury, the 90-second commercial.

As someone who views shows often by the season, hasn't seen a TV ad on TV in years, never watches the morning news and views late night shows at any hour of the day, I wonder what changes lie ahead for this particular platform. As we move online where units of time become less as we select our own non-time lines, I wonder what innovations we will see in entertainment formatting.

Inception for Marketers... and Planners

Inception resonated with me because it hit on many of the challenges I face as an advertiser. Characters in the film mentioned inspiration, ideas and creation, which advertising folks tackle everyday.

The Team

In a new kind of corporate espionage, Leonardo di Caprio's Dom enters people's subconscious (so marketing-aptly referred to as "targets") to extract guarded bits of information. A challenge is posed to him by Saito (Ken Watanabe), a leading energy trader with a unique request: "If you can steal an idea from someone's mind, why can't you plant one?".

The idea is controversial even for other characters in the film. "True inspiration is impossible to fake," asserts Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Dom's long-time partner. But of course Dom accepts because [see film for sub-plot], and puts his team together by recruiting an architect, a forger and a chemist. Enter charming (but manly walker) Ellen Page, very hot Tom Hardy and Dileep Rao.

The Brief

Saito briefs them on the task at hand: a strong competitor is about to take a monopoly on energy trading. This competition is a family-run business threatening to buy Saito out. The only way to prevent this is to target the magnate's son and convince him to split up the empire, which he is soon to inherit since dad is about to kick the bucket.

The Strategy

My favorite scene in the film is when the team gets together to discuss their strategy - how to translate a bigger business issue into an idea that will take root? I loved this part since it felt  similar to the process of strategic planning in advertising.

When we start a new project, we outline the objective and target market then try to figure out an insight that will make our brand or product resonate. Another major part of the strategy is the Engagement Plan - this echoes the journey we would like to take the consumer on for their path to purchase. The plan is usually split up into phases, each with a different objective: e.g. Awareness, Trial, Loyalty, and corresponding messaging or executions.

This is an important tool since consumers increasingly need to be remidned of a brand or product's relevance in their lives. This is often a lengthy process that requires many phases of communication to increase the brand's relevance on many different layers. Just like in the film, there are often barriers that each layer has to address before a brand or idea will truly adhere.

The Engagement Plan

My favorite, favorite part was when Eames (again, the hot Tom Hardy) was taking the team through his thinking on how to reduce the complex outcome (of splitting up father's empire) into a much simpler idea. I imagine that if Saito, as the "client" had asked for a one-pager summing up the task at hand and executional phases, it would have looked something like this:




***SPOILER ALERT***
Inception EP

What do you think?!

I imagine that other advertisers and planners would have noticed that intersection of the concepts in the film with the meat of our daily professional lives - the art of persuasion.