Hacker News Reader

> …it is simply so cheap to pump out middling quality documentaries. Stock photography and interviews and cheap-but-good editing. You’ll notice solo YouTubers are making great documentaries.

Reminds me of this hilarious video - https://youtu.be/9BUrNe3Vhtk

That was great thanks for sharing.

lol

Someone, SOMEone, someone should make the radio? Radio, RADIO, RadioLab how to.

That was must see TV. Thanks for sharing.

Not only that was hilarious, but also grabbed at the same time the essence of Netflix, and all that is wrong with it. 300K a year Netflix producers...take notes.:-)

Yup. This is exactly what we do at work. At least the past few years, most people couldn't tell the difference. We pump them out. It's 80% as good as something way harder to make. But by now people have seen so many, maybe they're starting to tire of it.

That was hilarious btw.

Never saw this video before. It absolutely made my day. Brilliant!

> My business produces storytelling videos for e-commerce and we almost got into the television/entertainment business at one point, as it is simply so cheap to pump out middling quality documentaries.

Funny, I stumbled upon a documentary “Meltdown”, which is about the Three Mile Island nuclear incident in 1979.

I expected something along the lines of HBO’s Chernobyl, but it just seems like a very cheap, Discovery-style documentary?

It’s very poorly done, and I stopped watching after 2 episodes.

HBO's Chernobyl is not a documentary...

I don't see a claim that it was.

Chernobyl is historical drama based on real events, not a documentary. Some characters are entirely invented, sometimes multiple different people are merged into one and so on. The authors even made podcast where they explain what is made up and why

It realistic and quite close to what went on, but not documentary at all.

Maybe the story just isn't as exciting as Chernobyl. I mean, nobody died. Nobody even got sick with radiation poisoning. Not to be morbid, but that just isn't going to be as compelling a story.

I wonder if they just greenlit it because they had such a success with the Chernobyl series and wanted to do it again.

> There must be thousands of talented directors who haven’t been given their big break yet who have artistic ideas and would almost work for free to be given a chance to make a name for themselves.

You're assuming the general population wants artistic, fresh ideas rather than the same re-hashed tried & true stuff.

Disney pretty clearly proves rehashing the exact same thing over and over again is a never ending gold mine.

Disney probably makes $1M for every $1 A24 makes.

> Disney pretty clearly proves rehashing the exact same thing over and over again is a never ending gold mine.

And yet, Disney's business itself was once a brand new, revolutionary idea.

Perhaps the table stakes aren't just "making something innovative", but creating opportunities for themselves to build the next Big Thing.

Isn't this true of the broader media marketplace? If you look at Prime, once you're past some recognisable movies, you'll see a hilarious list of 3-4/10 IMDB movies you've never heard of before. They're out there and they get no buzz and are largely ignored.

On Netflix, they're throwing stuff at the wall to see what will stick. And they're doing it in various genre because it's a diverse world out there (an Indian soapie is different to a British one, for example). While your bar might be high, someone starved of space x zombie crossovers will like something just enough not to cancel their subscription for a couple more months.

I had CuriosityStream for a year, and used it for about two weeks. It's also just formulaic drivel accompanied by stock B-roll. My day is much better, and bears more fruit, when I don't waste any of it in front of a TV.

Yeah, I am little confused by all of this as well. Maybe because I don't "stream". But from the article:

> “We have to have an Adam Project and a Bridgerton every month and to make sure that that’s the expectation of the service constantly,” he said.

Are there people to watch an "Adam Project" and a "Bridgerton" (I assume these are interesting shows) every month? Are there people that are some kind of stream-receptacle?

Bridgerton is middling costume, fine for insomnia

> Are there people to watch an "Adam Project" and a "Bridgerton" (I assume these are interesting shows) every month?

In case the specific shows threw you off, those were meant just as examples of quality. They don't mean that people would literally rewatch the same show.

As for are there people who watch shows every month? Absolutely, many people watch an episode of a show or a movie every evening.

Our family cut off all of Netflix, Disney, etc. and now I have just CuriosityStream[1] (I think after hearing it on Curiosity Daily Podcast). I watch that. Our family rarely watch TV.

1. https://curiositystream.com

Curiosity Stream + Nebula App are a great deal together.

The deal is too good. They need to raise prices at some point. This company is making $3 per year per user lol.

So stream cutting is the new cord cutting.

Maybe something like Steam Greenlit for Netflix. But as some have pointed out already Netflix is in the streaming business, not the risky content creation business.

(I still fucking miss the OA and Sense8 if you follow my comment history)

> Netflix is in the streaming business, not the risky content creation business.

You could say this about anything. “Walmart is in the selling business, not in the food business.” But in the end, when, in a remote village in France, 3 dads discuss at a bar about how Netflix has probably gone below TV level (which is quite a performance), then you business opportunities dwindle pretty fast.

It’s known. People discuss it for lunch. Everyone’s looking for a Netflix alternative and is discussing their experiments. Only young teens without much taste are satisfied, and not that much.

The OA, in particular, was one that I loved. It lived in this niche that I really like. Abstract supernatural horror? Lynchian stuff.

Dark was around the same time as well.

My perception of the untouchable Netflix was changed when they cancelled The OA. For one, I didn’t really trust them with multi-season serialized content anymore and, two I started to notice good content on other streaming service.

I sort of wonder if every faithful Netflix subscriber had an OA moment over the last few years? Where they lost faith in the service because of a poorly-handled choice for a show they enjoyed.

(By the way, if you dig the OA and Sense8 you might like Severance on Apple TV.)

I had that OA moment. I loved it and they cancelled for no apparent reason when there were so much more to be told. It made me wary of getting involved in a Netflix story again.

> I’m bored of Netflix. They have simply gone the assembly line direction instead of the direction of art, at least for some big niches. For example, every True Crime docuseries on Netflix is the same crap.

My benchmark for this genre is Forensic Files. I have yet to find another one that is this concise and informative.

I agree. Though slightly off topic, Forensic Files was pretty biased. The educational aspect mostly makes up for it, but they make forensic science appear way more rock solid than it was back at the time. Many of the crimes featured were solved because the perpetrator was so incompetent. But every episode had to end with something along the lines of "this would have been the perfect crime if not for the science!"

Would be nice to have a show like that again with a similar format but eased back on the law enforcement propaganda.

I thought I noticed this in one of the Netflix movies I watched with my wife:

* audio sounded odd, like it was dubbed but it did match facial expressions. It lacked any reference to culture or geography, like it was made to simply swap out sound tracks in another language. * the settings were minimized: house, hospital, vet… and not much else. This also was unnerving because it felt like it may as well have been shot in another planet.

I assumed the dialogue and the sets lack of references resulted from an effort to make it really easy to just swap audio tracks and launch it in another country with as little work on their end. I understand they’d want to do that but their cookie cutter formula resulted in a terrible movie.

> shoot them in 4k

What’s the issue with 4k?

4K is not the issue. The issue is that they achieved a standard style of filming that is entirely unremarkable, and the only thing they have going for them is the fact that the image is crystal clear. Competently shot 4K has a certain aura of legitimacy.

I always thought that when the likes of David Attenborough get awards for their natural world documentaries - the award should really go to the camera makers Arriflex, Red etc. who enable the gorgeous footage.

I would say the photographers that spend 6 weeks in the arctic to get 5 minutes of footage might be even more deserving.

Tbh half the stuff I watch on Netflix was taken away an out on put on the many “new developed streaming platform for IP owner” sites.