Why does everything on Netflix look like that?

I tried to read this article, but I have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. Why aren't there any example images? I have never noticed this supposed phenomenon, and I was curious enough to try and read the article, but the article does not even make an attempt to showcase this "issue." Am I missing something so obvious that the author didn't even feel compelled to slightly elaborate on what that "something" is?

This article makes no sense.

For some reason this has been some kind of meme going around in the last 2 to 4 weeks, that Netflix shows all look the same because of a limited camera list. And somehow it's turned into a full article now.

But it makes no sense because different shows on Netflix are all made by different studios with totally different senses of taste, Netflix doesn't impose any aesthetic, and modern digital cameras don't generate an aesthetic at all. They mostly simply impose limitations around resolution and noise that limit or expand what you can do with dark shots. Everything around aesthetic is cinematography and color grading which has essentially zero to do with your camera.

At most, we can say that Netflix chooses to buy a lot of middlebrow drama shows, and middlebrow drama shows today share a similar aesthetic, in the same way that soap operas from the 80's share a similar aesthetic, or gritty HBO crime miniseries share a similar aesthetic, or network cop shows share a similar aesthetic. Directors and cinematographers figure out what works most effectively for a genre and copy what works.

None of that has anything to do with Netflix imposing anything or any list of approved cameras, or minimum resolution or HDR or anything else technical.

For me the biggest issue in modern movies and tv isn’t the “Netflix aesthetic”, but the overwhelming prevalence of what I think of as the perpetual golden hour.

It used to be that by virtue of the golden hour being necessarily a very short slice of time in which physical sets could make use of that especially dramatic lighting it was only used it some scenes. Now it feels like every outdoor scene in every film is shot with that lighting because it’s all just CGI and they can make the light look however they want. The result is a massively distracting (to me) effect of the lighting looking over-engineered, I guess I’d call it? It seems like every single scene is either a night scene or shot at 6pm on a sunny summer day. It’s more off-putting than badly done cgi.

I was exited for Sandman. It had the potential to be very good, good actors, good budget, decently long timeline, etc. Unfortunately it got "Netflix'd" and suffers for it. It's kind of bland and boring. Visually it's not very interesting and the music is alright but could have been lifted from something else entirely. Listen here [1]

The best comparison I can think of is the BBC's Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Similarly fantastic source material, the show had a lower budget but is far more interesting to watch and that comes down to set design, cinematography, editing choice, etc.

It's like the Sandman production crew picked the safest possible choice at every opportunity.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2gCRK-f1pM

I wish there were more, you know, images of what they claim.

I think they've done well to make audiences oblivious to the dozens of independent teams shooting for them, making things "Look Netflix".

There's an incredibly detailed set of guidelines that helps them achieve this: https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/categories/3...

Haha, not to take anything away from the article but I found it funny that it starts with saying that the colors are "extremely saturated", but the image they chose for the article looks actually somewhat de-saturated to me (or if not de-saturated, at least not unnaturally saturated).

I have a different problem: I hate everything shot in Canada as a stand-in for american cities. Everything looks wrong: the streets are clean, there's almost no cars, and everybody is well-dressed. Even the people who are dressed up to look homeless look well-dressed.

I can really annoy my wife by shouting out where something was filmed -- "that's obviously toronto!" and "that's obviously british columbia" but you could easily train an ML to do the same thing.

I reject the premise that all Netflix shows have the same look. Just a theory, but it's possible the author is viewing HDR shows on a non-HDR TV/display, leading to a similar look as the HDR is tone mapped to SDR. Consistent tonemapping could also explain why they feel the content is dark or over-saturated.

But honestly, the other reality is that cinematography is an art, and there are trends in art. Right now, cinematographers are embracing the shadows—maybe because they're finally able to. For most of film history, cinematographers had to avoid deep shadows due to technical limitations (including film latitude, VHS, DVD and lack of color consistency on TVs).

I first heard about network styles listening to Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould on the _Better Call Saul Insider_ podcast. Many studios have them.

A unified style streamlines production at the cost of artistry. A typical television episode has just a few days to film. So the more creative a crew becomes in their framing, lighting, audio recording etc. the less time they have to move through the shot list. It takes a talented (and expensive) crew to make this magic happen within 5-10 days.

It's to the credit of Sony and AMC that they gave Marshall Adams et. al. the flexibility to make a masterpiece out of _Better Call Saul_. But it was expensive and risky. Not every script justifies that risk and expense. Without a style guide to fall back on I think we would see fewer series overall.

Back in the day, you could always tell ABC, CBS, and NBC shows apart by their lighting and coloring. Watch Rosanne and Happy Days (ABC) and compare with old Magnum PI and 60 minutes (CBS) and Cosby Show or Cheers (NBC).

It's funny to me that Netflix has such strict standards for cameras, but their content delivery is usually such low quality. Maybe my friends with netflix just aren't paying enough to get decent-looking video?

One example that I remember is a horror movie where a bogey comes out of a dark doorway. I was totally distracted from the scene by the atrocious brightness levels. I won't even call it "banding", because that implies a sort of geometric layout to the levels - this was more like "blocking". It was even worse than I would normally expect from dark bt.709 content. I assume the issue was something like their compression eliminated any natural dithering that would make dark zones look OK in SDR content.

Hopefully their compression strategy does a better job with dark content using bt.2100 transfers.

There's definitely a Netflix aesthetic - if you watch a lot of Netflix you'll see it. Especially in Indian/Bollywood circles, "Netflix movie" is a pejorative. It means its shot in a certain high-res way, favoring aerial shots & cutaways, with a certain unnatural ( unnatural to the Indian mileau/culture) point of view, which is not reflected in the Indian society on average. A certain casualness about foul language, obscenity, adultery etc... all of which certainly has its place if the content is some gangster flick or deals with the seamier side of life. But even if the show is about say the education sector (eg. Kota Factory on Netflix ) - they manage to make it very Netflixy. I don't know how else to describe it. Lots of drone shots. Frequent focus on the abnormalities of the place. Its certainly more dramatic. But its mining for drama that isn't naturally present in the subject matter. I like parts of it but it becomes too much to take after a point. I have to consciously turn it off and walk away, shaking my head. They make a hash of it.

The cameras are a total red herring. Any competent DP can get any looks they want (short of maybe 70mm IMAX) with any of those cameras.

The issue lies elsewhere.

For Netflix, I know what he means, but the article has a hard time describing it. It's kinda like you know what a tiktok video looks like, even when the logo is absent.

But here is a better phenomenon. Star wars tv series are all shot in a circular room. Everything is arranged in a virtual circle even when they are outdoors. When you see it, you can't unsee it.

Ps: having a hard time finding images from the shows. But here is the set.

[1] https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/forging-new-paths-fo...

[2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bErPsq5kPzE

this is what happens when you're making "content", as martin scorsese described it.

it's like every new show they make feels like the final season of a show that lost it's spark many seasons ago - just made out of obligation to a contract. conveyor belt tv.

Who is the audience for this piece?

>Most annoying to me, everything is also shot in an extremely conventional way, using the most conventional set ups to indicate mystery or intrigue as possible—to indicate that something weird is going on the framing always has a dutch angle, for example—or more often just having everyone shot in a medium close up.

I have zero idea what the "conventional way" or the "most conventional set ups" are. Likewise, who know what a "dutch angle" even is?

I have to assume this was written for an audience of film students or people in the industry, because nobody else knows about this kind of stuff or cares.

IMO a big issue with a lot of modern productions is that they are too clean and colorful. You have a movie set in 1910 and everyone is wearing colorful died fabric and their clothings are spotless, not a hair out of place, when in reality their feet would be covered in horse shit and their hair mattled with sweat from wearing all those layers, plus a lot more smoking and drinking.

I think this comes from shooting in a sound room constantly and having every shot run by hair/makeup/wardrobe to make sure everything is perfect. Meanwhile, back in the day when they would shoot, e.g., a western, that would feel a lot more real because it would be shot on an actual movie ranch. You'd feel the heat of the sun, the characters are all sweaty and dirty. Buttons may be loosened on shirts just to make it more comfortable for the actors in the heat, just like they would be by the real character in the scene due to the heat. E.g. this shot from Once upon a time in the west is a good example (1). The sun is beating down with hard shadows. The main characters shoes are dusty, his coat is dusty from brushing on the ground, his hands are dusty, his sleeves are dirty, there is dirt all over his face, he looks sunburned, he looks like he probably smells. It feels so much more authentic.

1. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTgzNDM5NTY3NF5BMl5B...

Why does everything on Vice read like that?

How is there only one picture in this article discussing visual features?

Serious question - why does this place still tolerate Vice?

They attacked Stallman on utterly blatantly false pretenses, egregiously misquoting him. Their page is a GPDR violation. And if they've managed any quality journalism in the past ten years or so, I haven't seen it.

I'm liking The Sandman so far, being a fan of the source material like many others watching it I guess, but this critique is spot on.

I skimmed the article to see if it mentioned the "Hallmark look", and was not disappointed to see it did. One can instantly recognize the bright, bland, inoffensive and boring look of any Hallmark production, and quickly zap out of it. TFA also mentions Syfy, which is also instantly recognizable as "cheap CGI".

I can't help but feel like article kind of beats around the bush with the answer, i.e. that there are tradeoffs between artistic freedom and streaming performance/compression. I'm guessing Netflix did their best to find cameras that worked well with the compression and streaming infrastructure that Netflix has. There's probably no perfect answer, and I can understand why they'd want to specific hardware for their productions.

It's kind of fascinating that it's ended up forming a certain style, but I wouldn't be surprised to see engineering concerns start to permeate other streaming services in terms of style.

The thesis that Netflix has a prescribed look & feel is misplaced in my view. Instead, my money is on the idea that it is similar to the Instagram effect on contemporary esthetics and artists.

The critique from the author doesn't apply to many many titles. For instance the neon / indoor thing is clearly absurd in the case of Grace & Frankie. They also don't apply their "common characteristics" to animated fare...

Ozark has a very different look & feel to Atypical.

Couldn't find the point of this article, like others have claimed. But I did find it interesting they messed with the aspect ratio in The Sandman. I watched the trailer and it's incredibly obvious. A weird creative choice if you ask me. It would annoy me so much to watch that. Reminds me of my dad. Going to his house and seeing his nice large 16:9 TV showing stretched 4:3 content. And me being too polite to tell him that he's being uncivilized.

'Extremely saturated', immediately below an image from The Sandman that is very clearly neutral at best, perhaps even undersaturated....

I've always thought the Apple TV + shows exhibit the most uniform "look" of any of the streaming services. Ted Lasso is probably the most pronounced example with vibrant colors, bright/uniform lighting, and a consistent "clean" look. I guess it makes a lot of sense given Apple's design aesthetic. Has anyone else noticed this?

I don’t think this is just Netflix movies, it is almost every movie shot today. The problem is everything digital cameras and modern lenses are too “perfect.” On top of that there is a trend towards extremely bright color grading. And then when you run that and put it on a brand new HDR tv it all looks a bit insane.

Clean perfect lenses with clean digital images displayed on blindingly bright HDR TVs.

Different films and older lenses create different looks. Film studios will still rent old lenses to get certain looks and a lot of serious filmmakers are adamant about using film only. Hell, even the director of Anchorman 2 talks about how he doesn’t like the look of the movie compared to the first because he was convinced to shoot digitally. And you know what, I thought the same thing watching that movie.

Some cinematographers seem to have figured out how to make digital look like a lot like film, but that has to be a very conscious choice.

> Sandman.... fans of the show have also gotten frustrated by the show’s aspect ratio, which makes the frames look like they’ve been stretched upward.

This is an intentional choice, the elongation. Secondly, this has nothing to do with "the Netflix Look" and the author doesn't even try to make a connection...

I've been complaining for a while that Netflix shows look like video games. While my partner counters that it's just the TV we have.

> “One of the weird things that happens when you have a very high resolution image, in general, when you shrink the amount of information the edges get sharper.”

I guess this means I'm onto something. I thought at first that this was just because NF series might have been going for a video game aesthetic (Witcher, Stranger Things), but even Peaky Blinders does it now. It's not just look either, shows also feature that excessive camera shake while in vehicles (Call of Duty), the over the shoulder fly behind common in games like Gears of War, and that very generic close up shot games use during dialogs to ensure they can use the ultra-hi-poly models at high frame rates.

Whats so bad about Netflix 4K?

Yes, it's compressed. And yes, it loses some information and quality. But the picture quality is still good. Superior to most other sources. (Yes, Blue-ray will be better, but I really don't want to jiggle disks).

I don't think that 1080p with the same bitrate would look any better.

Just skimmed the article but I've said for decades that I can recognize a German TV show or movie with any 5s clip because it just looks weird(to me), versus any Hollywood or British production. At some point I stumbled over an article that blamed the lighting technique, and I guess there are now actual German productions that do not like this, but still funny. (I guess I'm mostly talking about daily soaps, but also crime series, nearly everything produced in the 80s and 90s).

The fake-ass Depth of Field effects are what drive me nuts. Some series have the top and bottom thirds of the screen blurred to hell with a sharp dividing line for no discernable reason.

What I noticed on Netflix is a lot of show have that blur in some shot, the focus part is clean but all the rest is blury / distorted.

I have had so many 4k screens for so long that filming in 4k to be "future proof" felt like a slap in the face!

I have one 8k screen and am only waiting to upgrade other screens until content expands and hardware prices come down.

To me, saying 16k is the future, would have not sounded unusual. We are going to have cheap wall screens long before a show like Sandman loses its audience!

If you think this is annoying (whatever it is, the article didn't make a lot of sense to me), then DON'T look up one of the many articles on the preponderance of "orange and blue" as the standard color palette for virtually all Hollywood movies made in the last decade and going forward. Once you see it, you will start seeing it everywhere.

A/B testing? They have so much data about the behavior of watchers that they can optimize, which will lock them into a look.

In part, they blame compression of 4K HDR images. So how do things look on the 4K Netflix plan, with fast internet and a 4K TV?

It makes me sad that there's so much focus on image and VFX on Netflix while having a below average story in most cases. There are movies that consist of a person talking on the phone in a room that are more enjoyable than Netflix's feature film of the week like Day Shift.

Everything on CBS looks the same, too.

IMO, where Netflix productions really fall short of their Hollywood counterparts is sound design.

On a similar topic

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/why-movies-so-dark-hard-t...

"Extremely saturated" as in extremely de-saturated and then highlighted? Looks just awful. Even worse in 4K. That incorrect shallow focus range that does not exist outside N is also a pain.

The screenshot in the article pretty much sums it up. Looks terrible.

Branding. Netflix is simply more interested in furthering their brand and associated content than the artistic value of their content.

This isn't really any different than traditional movie producers or record labels developing cohesive content.

What’s always stuck out for me more than the visuals is the audio in Netflix shows, it’s like they’re all pulling from the same standard library. Netflix is the Bootstrap of the movie world.

Its not only netflix. Its just 4k cameras (RED and friends, I guess?) - not sure what brands actually exist.

I watched my first movies in the 90s and it took a while to adapt to the new looks but I actually love it. Its so detailed and still many elements from classical movies are adapted (if you read about them, you never forget and begin to actually see them used. Hitchcocks dolly zoom as prominent example.)

At least I am visually pleased and on my PC I actually start edge to watch 4k netflix, besides sometimes it just freezes my windows PC and just make them reboot).

It's the final death of cinema as an art form outside the avant garde. The visual equivalent of clickbait blogspam.

This article does not include images to demonstrate the point, which means the article is not worth reading.

Cinematography by committee.

Netflix has too much low quality content.

Occasionally, there's something good. When that happens, I subscribe, watch the content, then unsubscribe again.

There might be a lot of hidden jewels in there but they're hard to find because they're buried under a mountain of unwatchable stuff.

That's why you watch HBO instead.

at least it isn't all blue-orange with gimmicky made-for-3D shots

Is there an article hiding somewhere in that rat's nest of advertisements?

“a Hallmark movie by it’s bright, fluffy, pastel look”

Argh… editor… where’s the bloody editor!!!

this is ad.