You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
podcasts, just go to IH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof
Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number two eighty seven. The best education in film is
to make one. Stanley Kubrick broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood
when we really should be working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting
Podcast, showing you the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how to
make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome,
Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host
Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage. Now.
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Slash Free. Now, guys, today we have returning champion Steven Follows.
Many of you might remember Stephen as the dataman, the man who crunches the
film data like nobody else in the world, and he has been on the
show multiple times and my favorite episode, of course is when we finally proved
for once and for all that Diehard is the greatest Christmas movie all time,
and we looked at the numbers to prove it. Now Steven's back on the
show because he has launched a new website called vod Clickstream, and what he's
done is remarkable. He's been able to go inside of Netflix to see what
is actually going on in all of their data. He's been able to come
up with answers for questions like does Netflix have a long tail? How do
romantic comedies perform on Netflix? How do scipher films perform on Netflix? Did
American audience stream international TV shows? How did The Office truly perform on the
platform? Which TV genres are the most popular on Netflix? And so so
many more. When I heard about this, I called up Stephen. I
said, Stephen, you got to come back on the show. We need
to get this information out to the tribe because it's just, again a snapshot
of what Netflix was doing during the time of twenty sixteen two end of middle
of twenty nineteen. But it is better than nothing, when before all that
information had been hidden behind the walls of Netflix. But we have been able
to get inside of that. Now I do have to have a disclaimer for
this episode. All this information is wholly independent research and is not affiliated with
Netflix or any other streaming platform or studio. Just wied to make that very
very clear. So without any further ado, please enjoy my eye opening conversation
with Stephen follows. I like to welcome back to the show, returning champion
Stephen Follows. How are you doing, Stephen Dan? Very well? You
say that every time, and I'm starting to believe you. Well, that's
what I'm trying to do. A little by little, I'm building. I'm
building you up. So I'm building you up. I'd like it to be
back. And your audience are always awesome as well. Every time I'm on
the podcast, people reach out to me and say, hey, I heard
you. I'm part of the tribe. I heard you an Alex's podcast,
Hey I got And every single one so far has been like really polite but
also with a really interesting question or perspective, and yeah, you've got a
great tribe. So I'm always happy to come back. Thank you, man,
I appreciate that. And last time we were on the show, we
did that die Hard episode which was fairly controversial. Sir, oh was it
did you get pushback? No, well, a couple of people, A
couple of people. I got a couple of dry members of like really Alex
an entire episode about my heart and I'm like, yes it is. But
you know, funny enough is that when I m h where when I m
talk to people now about Diehard because now I'm you know, I'm I'm an
evangelist. Um, I go, you know, you know that hurts it
Christmas movie, and they'll push back up like no, no, no,
no, no, I have data. I have proof that dieharded. So
I appreciate you doing the hard work on that. And so now at parties
or at least Zoom meetings, nowadays, I get to I get to say,
no, no, I have got data, here's the link, and
I send them to our interview and people are just like amazing, and I
just it's always the thing you want to hear a party when you're having a
conversation with someone, when they go, no, no, I have the
data. I know exactly. It's just your life of the party. You
are the life of the party without without question. Um. And then I
just released a link of the top twelve screenplays of unconventional Christmas movies, and
of course Diehards on the top of that list, but I had lethal Weapon
on there. Um, what else did we have on their lethal Weapon?
Gremlins, Gremolin's too good Night? Which one? What's the one with from
ninety seven with oh oh Davis, Oh No, Longest good Night? Yes,
Longest gons Longest good Night is on there as well. A bunch of
a bunch of Shane Black, A bunch of Shane A bunch of Shane Black
episode whatch I'm gonna call it screenplays because he's he just loves, absolutely loves
writing. I mean, I could argue Iron Man three, but I prefer
not. Um, you know, Disney do do list that? And on
Disney Plus on the Christmas movies? Oh, I genuine yeah, I genuinely
don't know if they're doing it to try and stir up controversy or do they
genuinely believe it. And before we start on our current interview, I have
to I'm going to list off the list of Christmas h Christmas unconventional Christmas movies,
Die Heart, Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Uh, Gremlins,
Gremlins to Batman Returns. Yeah, eyes wide shut, Oh you really
went I went there, sir, Yes, Edwards, scissor Hands, blon
Kids, good Night, bad Santa, Black Christmas, and Prampus. Yes,
yes, all quite a list. That is that. That was.
It took me a minute to put it together. But I had to.
I had to. I had to. I had to. I had to
give them love. So so just Leaven, man. I mean, I'm
always so impressed with everything you do. I love. You're just an insane,
insane, insane human being. Um. In the way and the same
way you call me insane for what I do. It's it's a mutual admiration
because I can never do what you do in in twenty lifetimes, I don't
think I'll be able to ever do what you do. Um, But I
was, I was. I don't know where I saw it, because you
kept it, you kept this to yourself. I have to I have to
keep this. I have to. I have to give you props for this.
You told me that you were working on something big, and I'm like,
what is it. He's like, I can't, man, I gotta
keep it. I gotta keep it quiet. And I'm like, all right,
fine, I do the same thing. That's fine. And then I
think I saw a pop up. Somewhere like a few weeks later and this
thing called VOD click Stream showed up. I'm like what And I clicked on.
I'm like, what is this? And and I didn't get Honestly,
I didn't connect that it was yours for a second till I till because I
literally had no idea what this was. And then I went to the about
and the team and I'm like, oh, son of up, this is
this is Stevens. And I emailed you right away. I'm like, what
is this? What's going on? So can you tell? But yeah,
so so I did. Actually I think it's like, what the f So
can you tell the audience what VOD click Stream is? Yeah, definitely.
I'll give you the simple pitch, and then I'll make it more complicated than
nuance because it's got some weird sort of qualities to it. But the simple
pitch is that I've got an access to a huge data set which reveals what
people have been watching on Netflix over a three and a half year period.
So this is yeah, I know, it's It's something I've been chasing for
a while. And we can talk, you know, in a minute about
the history of the whole thing. But it's been something I've been chasing for
a while, and it's it feels it's like almost more of a mission for
me than than just a stats project, because I don't like that we don't
know what's going on on that spot, and I think it matters, I
think, and I think it matters, you know, for your audience and
my audience, which are very similar. We'll be right back after a word
from our sponsor and now back to the show. Like, the studios must
have a better idea than the average filmmaker, and we don't have the kind
of of openness and transparency that we have on theatrical or in other areas.
And crucially, everyone's experience of s FOD is so different. My wife and
I share a Netflix account, but we have our own profiles, but they're
so different. If we're accidentally locked one with hers, I'm like, oh
my god, it's all pink, white Sonutri Bullock and everything. Mind,
Like, why is everything so sad and exploding? And the thing is what
that means is that even two people who like live together still can't get a
sense from their own experience. Whereas when you go to the theater and you
see if it's full. You see lines, you know, you hear about
it, and we have the same shared experience. So because of that,
because of the s FOD is so highly personalized, you can't get any clues
how things are doing. And they started to release a little bits more data
in the last few months and stuff, but compared to what we're used to
getting on the box office, and even that's not enough. Like how a
filmmakers supposed to know what to do, what people want to watch? Like,
what is this new realm that is dominant eating so much of the value
chain is only going to dominate more of it. And obviously COVID and LEFT
I just don't know how else we're supposed to do this. So this is
an answer to that. I guess it's not perfect, but it's it's pretty
unusual and I think really powerful. And we've only just begun. Really,
this isn't a project where I've launched a finished thing. Here's a report,
go read it. It's like, okay, the work begins now. So
this is essentially the wholy gril. This is, this is this is El
Dorado for you as far as data. As far as data is concerned,
no, it's neither is the Holy Neither is the Holy Gril or El Dorado
for that matter. I get the WiFi is terrible in Eldorado. It's horrible.
It really, I've been there. It's not it's not pleasant. Is
that why you left? Yeah? Yeah, I just left. I mean
I grabbed a couple of things along the way, but left. But yeah.
So it's like it's been really exciting. And the volume of data and
the complexity of the data is it's an order of magnitude, much bigger than
I'm used to dealing with. So it's not just me. I've had some
help from some amazing data signs. And most of them, I mean two
of them have PhDs and theoretical physics, you know, they deal with things
like dark matter and whether the standard model of the universe as we understand it
is correct or not. And then I start talking to them about like what
we know about Netflix and and they're like, Wow, we know more about
dark matter. We know more about the origins of the universe than we know
about what a film performed on Netflix. And I was like, ah,
do you want to like join the team, Let's figure something out. And
you're India. You're Indiana, Jones and you're putting together a team. They're
almost all physicists, like we're the team is more I think it has more
theoretical physicists than people who are not a theoretical physicist. And by the way,
I'm one of them not And so it's been kind of bonkers because not
only are they very talented data scientists, but also they're used to dealing with
abstract ideas and abstract numbers, and actually you need to deal with that.
I mean, we'll talk about this later on. I'm sure some of the
ideas in how you analyze this get quite abstracted quite quickly, because it's not
as simple as like, you know, box office. You say how much
money did it make? Even that's a bit flat because you don't know if
it was lots of kids or fewer adults, or peak time or off.
But generally it's comparative, you account for inflation, you can sort of sort
of out with this data. It's so much more complicated than that to try
and get straightforward, simple answers, and so that's why they were so they
just had all the right training for it, and it was just a joy
to work with those just incredibly smart talented people and sort of see if we
can do something interesting for the film community. I have a theory, see
if it. I feel that the reason why people take you seriously, it's
not only because of your work ethic and your talent, but I truly believe
it's you. It's your it's your accent. Because everything you say I mean,
I mean it's it sounds so legit. Like if you if you would
like, listen, my friend, I have some land to sell you,
some swampland to sell you in Florida. I'd be continue. But you know
that you have a voice for excitement. Let me tell you something exciting.
I'll be like, Oh, so if we joined forces, Stephen, we
could rule the war or we could ruin each other. Very true, very
true, served very very true. Okay, So how okay, so you're
essentially going inside the algorithm of Netflix's ex something like that. Not quite that.
So, so this it doesn't come from Netflix themselves. There's no data
breach. We haven't scraped it, we haven't taken it from them in any
sense. What's happened is it utilizes this sort of type of data called click
stream data. And what click stream data is is that people have volunteered,
they've signed up, they've opted in to install plugins and services and things like
that in their browser and other things like that, and that these let's say
plugins are really useful, you know, they maybe they're a really good trend
later tool, or they just do a certain thing really well, and they're
free for the users. And the deal is that in return for that,
the users agree that they're anonymized history. Their click stream, all the clicks
they made essentially can be sent to a server and put into a big bucket
and that sort of fire hose of millions and millions of people. They're anonymized
history allows us to see what the journey they made around the web. And
so the actual raw click stream which I don't have, which is the full,
like epic amounts of data. You can imagine millions of people clicking constantly
or around the world. That is so valuable to so many people in so
many different ways. You know, you could get a sense of how popular
something is before the quarterly reports come out. You could see how people are
buying things on Amazon. All that what I wanted was the tiniest slice of
it, and I just wanted I actually wanted all the spot streamers, but
Netflix was, for various reasons, the best one to go for. And
I've been chasing these guys for a while, and I was like, because
I've known about this for a few years, and I have said, look,
just give me access to the Netflix slice Netflix dot com because it could
be really instructive and very useful for filmmakers and stuff like that. And because
of the nature of the click stream industry, it's a small industry that makes
highly expensive content data, and so they were quoting massive figures, like five
figures a month, a massive high end, and it was just impossible.
And then so I've been talking to them every six months or so, I
catch up and go, hey, have you suddenly sort of decided that your
data is worth far less than it was? And they're like nope. And
then around the summer of twenty nineteen, there was a sort of big shift
in the click stream data world where there was a there was a sort of
a perfect storm of a few different things, like some of the brows that
the big browsers changed some of their rules about what their plugins and extensions could
do and what data they could share. Generally, people were getting tighter on
privacy and so things that they were happy to share in the past they were
less happy to share now. And just so all these sort of things came
together and so the clixtream industry transformed and sort of what a lot of the
business models they had imploded, and some of the companies are still around doing
other things, but basically it kind of that version of it kind of ended
in the summer or twenty nineteen, and so towards the end of last year,
in the beginning of this year, so the beginning of twenty twenty,
I went back to them and said, look, you've got this now of
static data set, and I can't offer you load of money. I can't
there's no I don't know if the values in that, and I can't do
much with it, but I know that it's fascinating and for filmmakers and could
be very instructive. Please can you basically give me the Netflix data? So
I worked out a deal with them, which didn't which was possible to do,
and then so then they gave me about two thirds of a billion data
points. And so first of all, it was it's just the volume is
like it's just and you know, they get they gave me a sample.
You can only have a million rows in Excel before it crashes, and before
it didn't won't load any more rows. And they gave me a sample of
the data and it was like day one, hour one. An Xcel was
like, that was an hour. It was day one, But an excelent
can't can't look at anymore. And so that that volume is amazing because it's
it's really granular. And so what I ended up with was, these are
anonymized users. So each user has a randomly generated ID which resets over a
certain period, and I know what country they're in, and I know what
you r l. They clicked on exactly the time and the day, and
that's pretty much it. There's a bit of metadata that's pretty much it.
And so in and of itself, a click isn't doesn't mean anything, but
when you add them together you can infer meaning. So you could say this
person clicked on the Netflix link that is the watch page for a bit of
content, and the content of twenty two minutes long. They waited twenty two
minutes and then they clicked on the next one. Well that you can reasonably
assume that they viewed it right, And you also can see what people have
searched for and things like that. So we have all this data. It
has sort of three big limitations. The first is it's historical, so our
data starts in the beginning of twenty sixteen and ends in the summer or two
nineteen, so it's like three and a half years. It's a shame it's
not live that everyone asks me, can it be live? And the answer
is always sadly not. But if it were live, I wouldn't be able
to get access to it, So it's kind of it's this or nothing.
Secondly, it's only desktop and laptop users, which Netflix say are about twenty
five percent of their audience, and so we didn't know if that would have
a skew or not, like whether people watch fundamentally different content on their desktop
and laptop than they do another on TV or tablets or whatever. We'll be
right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
So the first thing we did was that we went about recreating the stats
that Netflix had announced during that period. So when they've said bird Box got
x number of views or was the number one film within the first two weeks
or whatever, whatever, it was like any data point that they said in
a press release, we would go back to our data and try and recreate
it. You know, we would perform the same analysis, and time and
time again we were getting the same answers they were getting. So because of
that analysis, I'm very very confident that the big picture we have is a
very very good model of what they have. There'll always been cases where it's
slightly different or whatever, but fundamentally, considering we're starting with nothing, I
think we're very happy with that was wracking period. So then you don't know
how many people actually watched Koba Kai or Tagger Kick, no exactly. That's
what's so interesting is so what we have is we do have a number for
how many people within these panel of users watched it, but we don't know
exactly how that scales up. So what we've had to do is if we
had every single click on Netflix dot Com, then you'd have your viewing figures,
right, you'd have a raw number. But because we have a flecture
eating panel and we've had to account for like different factors, Like first of
all, over the course of these three and a half years, this size
of Netflix subscriber base has changed it's basically grown and it's paunched in different countries.
That the number of people using these plugins and services has changed, gone
up and down, and maybe they break into a new country or a tool
gets taken off, and so that's changed. And then also, how you
compare a piece of content that, let's say it was only available for one
year in twenty sixteen, how do you compare the performance of that film with
another film that was out in twenty nineteen or something, or two and eighteen
or whatever. How do you compare them because they weren't available at the same
time. And so what we had to do is basically normalize all of these
views per day, per country, per type. What that basically means is,
for every single country, we've said, on this particular day, what
was the most watched film, and then comparing all the other films to that
film, So like film number two, the second most popular film got seventy
percent of the views, the first one did and the third one got sixty
percent or whatever. And then that then gives us comparable things because you can
say, within all the films that are available, how did each of them
perform? And then that allows us to then create scores overall over those three
and a half year period. So this is where the scientists were really useful
because they're you know, comparing this content across time and space and different planel
sizes in the dark matter and then the beginnings of the universe and so getta
Okay, So all right, So the last the last limitation is that we
don't have demographic information. We don't have IP addresses, we don't know age,
gender, like we know what country they're in. But that's it's all
right, So all right, so let's um, let's let's ask some some
tough questions and see what you can do to help us, because the reason
why filmmakers are listening is like, we find this very fascinating how you're getting
this data about how does this helped me? So, um, does Netflix
have a long tail? Is that something that that you were able to come
on That's exactly something we're able to look at. So the long tail idea
was was made sort of most famous by an article in Wide in two thousand
and four, and it was this prediction based on the idea of growing digital
platforms like Amazon selling books and DVDs at the time, but the idea being
that previously, when you have a physical shop, you make most of your
money from the top titles, top ten, top hundred, whatever the ones
you can have in the front of the store, right and that's where you
make your money. The concept of the long tail is that the way at
Amazon in the future will make their money is actually through all of the other
inventory, the other hundred thousand titles, some of which that only sell one
or two every every year or whatever, but there's enough of them on total,
and so it becomes about the misses, not the hits, you know.
And so this was an idea that was put out there and some people
support it to people don't. And how it relates to us is that we
already know that the box office doesn't really have a long tail. We know
that three quarters of all of the money made in the box office goes to
the top fifty films each year. Like it's heavily, heavily skewed towards these
top movies. So the other however, many you know, seven eight hundred
movies released that year are competing for the final quarter. And that is not
great because it makes it very hard for us to compete because we're if you're
not big, You're nothing, right. So one of the first things we
wanted to test was, Okay, well, we know that the movie industry
is already top heavy, already massively disproportionately supports the big films. But if
we took on this long tail idea, maybe Netflix would be a place where
lots of the smaller movies would do well everyone, which is something different,
but it doesn't matter overall because Netflix are happy, and maybe that's our savior,
you know, maybe it's a fairer space for us all to compete in
and loads of tiny movies can equally survi. So that was a big thing
for me to look at, and I gotta say it's disappointing but not surprising
news. So basically, the viewing patterns on Netflix are slightly more skewed towards
big films than the box office, which means that most people on Netflix are
watching a small amount of massive bits of content, which was mostly in the
US, it was mostly Disney films. Like Disney, they had a deal
with Netlik which is now finished, but that accounted for a huge proportion of
Netflix's views, and it really was a problem for Netflix when Disneys ended that
deal. I don't know the ins and outs of the deals, but what
I can tell you is that they lost their best performing content in a number
of different realms. Yeah, and the Office and the Office as well got
last because it went over to is it an HBO Max or somewhere else?
Presumably it's peacock because it's right right, right, yeah, And so yeah,
the Office is The Office is a great example because the Office allows us
we've got all the stats on the episodes of the Office, and because all
episodes of the Office were available across our entire time period, it's actually really
easy for us to compare the performance of different episodes. We actually don't have
to worry about accounting for time and availability and stuff. And so we've actually
used that as as a good example to look at how might the nature of
s VOD viewing change the way we think about filmed content. What I mean
is right, So in TV we're used to having seasons, you know,
because of the way that they're funded and broadcast and just the way that it's
evolved. We are used to having a piece of content. So having a
series that has got a beginning, middle, and end. Maybe it's got
an arc across the season, and the beginning and the end of the season
is significant and then we wait and whatever. But that doesn't there's time is
less of a factor with things like Netflix, like it's not relevant, but
it's far less of It doesn't matter whether it's summer or winter. You just
watch them, binging them. So when we looked at all the viewing figures
of all of the episodes of the Office, we noticed a couple of really
fascinating things, which is, first of all, the most popular season was
season four, not seasons one or two, which is kind of interesting and
I think it's about that was where it really hits stride and where people start
watching it or maybe where they rewatch it as well. But we couldn't see.
If you have a look at the chart of viewing figures across, you
know, on the left hand side you've got season one, episode one,
on the right hand one, you've got the last one in season eight or
nine, whenever the last one was, And you have all the viewing figures
as a line, sort of a line going up and down across across those
two points. You can't see where the seasons begin and end. You know,
they may make them as seasons, but people don't watch them as seasons,
so it's much more like a podcast than a radio series. Right,
So you might think a radio series has got a season, and only in
the UK the BBC have like, okay, this will be six or maybe
ten episodes of a radio series. Then they'll be a hiatus and then they'll
come back, whereas podcasts you just think are always going to continue, right
you just it's a long stream of content. It's like a soap opera rather
than a mini series, and that's how people watch the content. And so
I don't know how long it will be, but it seems inevitable based on
data we have that when people start making more content for Netflix, they're going
to move more and more to this sort of soap world where they're always making
them like a churn, like even the expensive ones. From the way people
watch them, it makes sense to just drop a new episode every two weeks
forever. Then it does to quickly go and make ten of them. I
mean, the economics of the production costs might be different. You might want
to film all in one location, but the production costs are not a big
concern if you get a Netflix hit. So maybe we're going to start seeing
seasons of indefinite lengthy break breaking down like how long episodes are, Like I've
just been watching them. There's some brilliant comedians called Auntie Donna, Australian comedians.
They've got a Netflix series it's just come out, which is incredible.
But they some of their episodes are like seventeen minutes long, and it's great
because every second is great, but they don't have to stretch it to twenty
two thirty minutes whatever it would have to be for TV. So, you
know, So with with all this information, are you seeing because I've been
reading a lot that Netflix, you know, is infamous for just canceling shows.
Um, some of the people's favorite shows just get canceled. And they're
like, you know what's grew you. We don't care because we're gonna get
We're gonna put out twenty new shows this month. We'll be right back after
a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. And they
generally don't go past three four seasons, you know, five. I mean,
I think frank Grace and Frankie is one of the longest running shows on
Netflix. Oranges a New Black got canceled ended eventually and they don't seem to
care about letting things go on and on and on and on, because they
just rather just starts filthing from scratch. And I think it's because mostly because
of the talent costs and and thing it's going to say, I don't I
have no inside track to Netflix, and the data doesn't give me all of
what I'm saying here. So some of this is filling in the gaps or
my opinions, sure, but I would say that the cancelation for most of
these things comes down to exactly what you'd expect, which is number one cost
and number two talent, which is a related to cost because they are they
asking for more money each season, and crucially, do they want still want
to do it? And obviously Netflix are going to cancel shows that they don't
think are performing, but they could do with more content almost always, And
if you think about it, what they actually really want. They obviously want
content that everybody watches that's amazing, that would be great, But one of
the other things that's actually really important for their business model is content that's important
to some people, like really important. So let's say that hypothetically, you
and I both have a Netflix account and let's say that you watch loads of
different TV shows every every month, you watch thirty different shows. If I
watch just two shows every month, but both of us pay the same fee,
that those two shows are that I watch are more valuable to Netflix because
if they canceled those two, or maybe even just one of them, maybe
I would leave. But if they canceled ten of the thirty that you watch,
you've probably be watched the other twenty and maybe some other ones. So
the model that they're having to use here is not just not just the number
of people watching it, but it's how valuable they are to that particular audiences.
Yeah, exactly, So that's what I mean. It's a whole different
business model. Whereas on television you're saying how many people are watching it and
what demographic are they in, Like, that's that's what's driving content on television,
um, and what's driving content on Netflix is different, completely different.
And so what I have to ask the question, what does the lowly independent
filmmaker? How did their stats work? I mean, obviously you said that
they're mostly skewed towards the big movies or big stars. I mean I saw
an interview or an article discussing why Adam Sandler is one of the biggest stars
on Netflix and that's and like people like, why does he keep making these
movies? Why why does Netflix keep giving him money? Why? I mean,
like, I'm personally a fan of Adams, so I love his stuff.
Um, not everything, but most of his stuff. And the thing
that they said was in the article was was really interesting and it made a
whole lot of sense. Was the reason why Adam Sandler is is given these
kind of movies and these kind of deals, Because when you're scanning through an
spot platform, there's just so much content that when you see something familiar,
when you see an Adam Sandler movie, you know what you're going to get,
Like there's there's no mystery about Like, I think he just in this
Halloween. They just released Hawley something or other Halloween, Hawley Halloween or something
like that, which was a huge, huge hit. They're going to do
a sequel to it because so many people watched it and it's the same you
know, it's the same stuff Adam Sandler has been doing since Billy Madison and
Happy Gilmore. But because of people's comfortability with they know what they're going to
get. People watch and watch and watch. We see a lot of that.
I mean, there's a lot of brands that do very well in a
brand, Adam Sandler being a brand hit that does very well on Netflix,
and I think that some of it is down to is absolutely what you're saying.
I think with him, there's also not that much competition. You know,
there aren't many substitutes. What's the Adam Sandlers substitute. Well, Kevin
James is in most of Adam Sandler's films, so is David Spade. There
isn't a lot of competition. And I think that there's something you touched on
there which is incredibly important, which is the way that people invest in the
time they're spending watching stuff on squad is a lot more about relax time and
not making a decision and stuff like that. And I think that speaks to
why Adam Sandler's popular, but also why it's the same film as people are
watching, and they're watching the same TV shows again and again rather than watching
new ones. And I think that actually doesn't help independent filmmakers because we're making
stuff that doesn't have famous people, doesn't have existing brands, and more often
than not, is trying to challenge something. I'm not suggesting we're all trying
to pass on a message or communicating, but it's not the same. It's
not the kind of soccer and stuff you might get from Transformers or a Disney
movie or Adam Sandler, where you're like, Okay, I'm just going to
go with the flow. Most independent filmmakers are making something a bit spikier than
that, and I think that doesn't suit most of the way people watch Netflix.
And so I think when your question about what is assuming that Netflix is
what we've learned so far from Netflix, it applies to the other platforms and
continues broadly in the future, I'd say that it's not great for selling independent
content because first of all, what these platforms like Netflix want is the MCU.
They want the Marvel Cinematic Universe because the people will watch it. They
also can do one deal and get loads of it, and that will get
most their views. They don't want to do individual deals. The audience aren't
watching that content the other the independent content, so there's not much of a
drive for that, and so I think that's not great. However, what
I would say is in the same way right now, I wouldn't invest in
any of the companies that own theaters. I would still invest in the concept
of theater going because I think people go on dates, they see their mates.
It's a cheap for it's it's the cheapest, most social form of going
out with the lowest effort. And I think that what's happening right now,
I mean I just happened. I was reading a few days ago that Netflix
have spent two billion pounds in the UK alone on content this year on production.
So independent filmmakers might have many more roots to being employed than they would
have had previously, as in if their previous roots were big movies or TV
shows, they now have a whole new realm they could compete in. I
don't know how, I don't know how fair that system is. I don't
know, but certainly there's got to be more and more entry level people because
there's just more concurrent, more content being made complently. Oh yeah, here
in me here in New Mexico, they're they're expanding. Netflix just got approval
from the state to expand their studios. They're building out a massive studio complex
in that's going to hire people, it's going to high create of course below
the line, and so as filmmakers like that's and also there are some interesting
things Netflix is. It's very easy to think of them as a studio and
they're actually fundamentally not. They are a technology company and they bring a lot
of different values into what they're doing. I mean, I would argue that
they are one of the most forefront of HR in the film industry human resources,
like they actually are able normally when you if you work on if you're
below the line crew member, and you work on six different independent productions in
a year, you can expect to have six different relationships and no concurrent,
no sort of handover really beyond a mild relationship and the sense there's something bad
happens, you just try your luck again and the next one. Whereas here,
because there's a continuity of people being the higher end, you know,
Netflix care whether there's a complaint about somebody, and this is great for things
like sexual harassment or unfair treatment or discrimination. I'm not saying they're going to
solve everything, but there is a continuity there. I mean some of the
studios have tried that. Warner have been doing that for a bit, and
Disney to some degree, but no one to the extent Netflix are doing this,
so they are doing some things very differently, and as individuals it might
be a good thing. As people buying and selling content the way we've used
to doing it, I just can't see it being better than it was because
it's also an oligopoly, you know. I don't I'm not suggesting they're acting
in any way to blisters, but when you have five or six possible maybe
even let's say three or four, actually no, hold them. So Apple
aren't buying existing content. So let's say that it's Amazon and Netflix. Let's
say that they're the only two that could you could sell your content too in
any big way. That's not going to engender you fair prices. And you're
doing a single deal in perpetunity for the world. Maybe maybe, And so
that's that's a simpler to sale. If you get a good price, then
that's that's amazing. But will you get a good price? And I also
think there's some worrying practices. I don't think any of them are illegal,
but I don't like them. It's all I can say. So for example,
I was talking to a lawyer recently who's sort of looked over a lot
of deals to one of the big streamers. I won't say which one,
And this lawyer said, look, one of the problems is that part of
the terms and conditions of the deal between the distributor and the platform is that
the distributor is not allowed to tell the filmmakers how their film is performing.
There has to be some sense of aggregation of the numbers. And you know,
yeah, so it's horrible that. Not only is that horrible in a
human sense, that is also terrible for that deal, and it also and
stifles long term growth, like how can you have a sustainable career on as
you get feedback and your feedback can't be We did a deal, but I
can't tell you anymore. And that brings us full circle back to the Vietly
click stream because that's what we're trying to get a sliver of light in a
dark room. Like it's not like we can illuminate everything, but we're trying
to understand these things that filmmakers need, this feedback loop that needs to happen
with the audience. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show. Now do now our American ARTI this streaming
a lot of international shows because I personally watched a bunch of international shows um
recently because they've been popping up on my on my my feed, so I'm
like, oh, that looks interesting, Oh that looks interesting. And sometimes
they'll they'll pitch me something. I'm like, yeah, no, no,
thank you, I need yea. And it just depends. Like you know,
I'll watch subtitled movies, but not normally because I want to relax when
I'm watching movies unless I'm watching it for for cinematic purposes. But if I'm
just chilling, I don't want to read. I just well, also,
you don't want to be challenged. Like there are some movies that I would
in a heartbeat recommend to other people that I've only ever seen once. I
might see again once in the future, but only to introduce it to someone
else, or because you know some bizarres at second stongs. Yeah, there
are bad movies that I will acknowledge that are bad. That I've seen The
Meg twice. Right, it's you that's the wrong ratio. It is it
is the wrong ratio. And you know what the Meg. You know,
I watched The Meg as well, and it's just a it's a popcorn movie.
It's you know, it's there, it's the it's the reason why I
just it's the reason why my wife and I just sat down and watched all
four lethal weapons in a row because we watched the first one because I hadn't
seen the first one forever, and I'm like, oh my god, that's
so brilliant. Well we have to watch two, Oh, we have to
watch three. Well, well let's just let's just go. Let's make it
the fall four. And in four days we watched for all four of them,
and we're just like, what's next, Let's watch Tango in Cash,
you know, like, like I haven't seen that in twenty years, so
it's like, I'm going But it actually says exactly what you've been saying,
is I'm doing that because I know that I'm comfortable. Those are comfortable viewing
habits, and I'm like, oh, let me go revisit that again because
I haven't seen that and forever I remember here and there, but I haven't
seen it. So that is the true response to being overwhelmed with content,
because you know that there are so many movies been out there, and if
you had to create a list, how would you find brilliant movies you hadn't
seen. It would take you seconds. IMDb score, Meta score one the
best screenplay, and there's loads of movies that you'd be like, Wow,
I'm sure I heard that's amazing, I've not seen it. But that all
takes a lot more effort and commitment than most people are willing to give.
And this is something that I think filmmakers, really independent filmakers really need to
either embrace or realize you're not going to embrace it, and then find other
roots. Both are valid. Like I'm not actually saying make popcorn movies.
I'm just saying you can't make challenging movies and expect them to then survive in
a mainstream environment called world, because that's not how people watch that content,
right, It's just fundamentally and I think the growth of content, sorry,
the evolution of content, and the growth of platforms are massively interlinked. And
the best example I can give you is outside of the film world, but
is kind of makes a lot of sense, which is that the rise of
Kindle the kindled eReader was a massive part of the success of fifty Shades of
Gray, and fifty stades degree was a massive part of success of the Kindle
because you could be on the train reading something, reading basically soft porn and
no one would know. And both of those two things sort of coincided at
the same sort of time. And it's not that everyone reading stuff and Mkindle
was porn, but it did mean that you could read private things. And
it's the same with the rise of sort of portable devices and podcasting. You
know, these things are interlinked, right, And so what we're seeing,
what we're starting to understand with s food is that people don't watch content in
a curated way the way that they might when they go to a certain type
of theater or they go to like you know, they could Draft House,
or they or they watch or they buy a Blue Ray or the Criterion collection.
You know, they considered centiphile way. That's not what people are largely
doing on these big platforms. They're sitting down watching stuff that's comfortable, that
it's easy to understand, that won't challenge them, that they can pause when
there's someone at the door, or they want a cup of coffee or something
that is Adam Sandler through and through. No, there's no there's no question,
I mean. And the other thing is like you're saying movies that challenge
you, you should also you can make movies that challenge you, but you've
got to do it on a budget. If you you know, if you
if you have any hopes of recouping that money, like you can't make it
two or three million dollars. You know Indie film that five people want to
watch, she's just irresponsible. So there's more, you know, the more
it just makes sense. The more you spend them, more you've got to
recoup. But I and I totally agree with that. I think the other
thing that I know you've been screaming at this at people for since way before
Netwix, but it's even more the case now, which is you have to
know your distribution route before you make it. I'm not saying do the deal,
because I appreciate that it's very hard to walk into room and say,
I haven't met, you don't know me, you don't know my movie,
and I haven't made it, but can I have a deal. I appreciate
that as kind of pre sales and happened, but you can't hope that you're
just going to throw it in with the with the sort of stream of content
and including the streamers and it will get swept up and then it will rise
to the surface. It just from the data I've seen here, that just
doesn't happen. That's just not the case. You can't write a book and
expect it to be on the front page of Amazon or in the in the
front of the bookshops, right, we know, and yet filmmakers still think
if it's good enough, it will break through. And I do worry somewhat
that the way the squad platforms are working now, through no fault of theirs,
they're just chasing the subscribers in the bottom line is that it isn't It
doesn't reward films the way that the previous system would to some degree. You
know, maybe we'll see fewer breakouts. Maybe it will be that the where
you really break out is on a much smaller platform, like for example,
film festivals, whether they're physical or online, or maybe it's niche sites like
Shutter or something like that. I don't know why I don't have anything on
that side, but that is nowhere near the volume that Netflix does or Netflix
Compartion appears. So there is we all know that there's huge amounts up in
the air. Partly it was happening anyway, and then COVID accelerated and things
like that, and it hasn't landed yet. But we don't yet know what
this model will be for independent filmmakers. I am absolutely confident independent film will
exist, because it's not It's never been supply and demand. It's always been
supply right where can I find the demand? And that's been part of the
joy of like movies, they've not been made. Some of the best movies
have been made because they want to be made rather than because I know.
I know, I already have a deal in place, but things are going
to get tougher until we figure out what they are. But if I have,
it's never been easy. And you look at some you know, the
crash of cinema tickets in the nineteen fifties, you look at the crash of
DVD, and you look at the uncertainty of sward and all this stuff there.
We'll find a way, but just don't know what that is yet.
And it's not the one. It's not the easy one that's in front of
us, you know. And so you are asking earlier on about TV because
we have we have data for movies for TV and for comedy specials, and
for TV it's it's it's the same pattern in a different format. So what
we saw with movies is that the most watched movies by a huge degree are
the big, famous ones. And when it comes to television, what we
tend to find is that it is the big shows, but also it's the
more familiar shows. So if you go on if you're in the US and
you go on Netflix, there's content from many different countries you could choose to
watch. But what do people watch. They watch it from their own country,
you know, and generally yeah, yeah, exactly. And certainly if
you look at the like the top shows, like the top fifty shows,
they're almost all produced in the US. And you have to even the top
five hundred most watched shows not episodes shows on Netflix over this period, almost
three quarters of them were US produced. The UK does very well, but
that's largely down to the Great British Baking Show and things like things. David
Adam, I would have to say, I've seen both. Well. I
think it's so interesting is that, first of all, I was as proud
as like, great, these these Brits are surviving and competing against that,
and I was like, oh, notes two shows. There's an example like
what this means is though there's an interesting like thought process that goes on here.
If you were being rational, you would say it would make more sense
rather than trying to make three films or trying to make one film that competes
in three areas. It's quite good, it's quite scary, it's got some
films. It makes more sense based on this data alone, to compress all
of your resources and that includes time and money and passion and whatever into one
thing. You know, do one thing incredibly well. And because of the
power law and the sort of nature that if you go from being the second
most the third most popular to the second most popular will mean so much more
for you than going from fourth to fifth, from from fifth to fourth,
that it would argue it's better to make something that's extremely one thing. And
you see this, I mean that we're recording this before Christmas, and you
look at how many Hallmark Christmas shows there are. They're good or well made
or enjoyable. I'm sure one or two are, but what they are is
feel good Christmas like. They are absolutely that. There there's a formula and
again the comfortability factor for a specific demographic of people. That's why those films
generally have a Mario Lopez or or a Dean Kane or a face that people
feel comfortable with because they remember them from you know, they're just comfortable.
They've watched their films or watched their TV shows over the years, and they'll
watch it because it's like, oh, you know what, I want to
feel good. I want to feel good Christmas. Ee, and oh great,
this is a new movie. We'll be right back after a word from
our sponsor, and now back to the show. And there you go,
and all of us like I knew that. I know that Mario Lopez Christmas
movie exploded on Hallmark apparently because people love Mario Lopez because you know it's later.
But and here's here's this thought that we I haven't heard expressed very much.
I'm sure it's not a brand new thought. But in the last ten
years of being an independent filmmaker and working with independent filmmakers and chatting to them,
I've heard people talk about, oh my god, do we have to
hire people actors who've got a bigger social media following or whatever people A people
have often complained, do they have to way up talent and appropriness for the
role on the one and fame on the other. What I haven't heard many
people talk about, but I would argue is perhaps the battle that we're going
for in the next five years is in familiarity, not fame, but how
comfortable are people with that person. So it's like, you know, one
of the reasons that George Bush got in over Goore is that people were happy
to have a drink with George Bush. It wasn't about politics to some for
some people. And I know this because I know some people that vote for
him who actually I think their politics are slightly strange, and they were like,
yeah, I just don't like algor I'm going to have a drink with
Bush. And so when you think about actors, it's not so much their
fame, although obviously that's not a bad thing, and it's not so much
their talent. Although do you feel comfortable do you think your audience would go
yeah, okay without thinking about it, you know, And that's why you
look at actors like, I mean, almost every one of Adam Sanders movies
as a comedy, to the point to which people have been watching uncut gems
and been appalled, whereas there are other actors who you just don't know what
their movie is going to be because they play such a wide spectrum of ca
Yeah. Yeah, Tom Hanks is Tom Hanks, Like he'll play everything.
You know, He's definitely that Adams. Yeah, it's his brand, but
that's fine. But you also feel comfortable within Tom Hanks, or with Meryl
Street. Mill Street plays everything. She's going to be in a musical this
month on Netflix, but yet you know she she also was on HBO Max
doing another film with Steven Starderberg, and you know she she does everything,
but that's her brain, and you feel comfortable. I studied this a while
ago. I studied on my blog like how broad the act the roles the
actors had played across genres, and I found Adam Sandler was the most siloed.
Most of his films have been in one genre. And the actor I
only looked at sort of a couple of hundred really big actors, but the
actor I saw that who had the broadest as in like, who had the
least siloed in one genre was Ron Perlman. Yeah, you know, and
you take there's no one genre that accounts for more than a third of the
roles he's done. So he's done some comedy, but he hasn't done mostly
comedy. He's done some kids stuff, he's done some horror, he's done
some fantasy. And so Ron Perlman as an example here, who I think
is a terrific actor and seems like a good bloke, he is a perhaps
a metric slightly less attractive to hire because he doesn't have that whatever we're going
to call it, comfortability effect, whereas someone like Adam Sandler, who I
wouldn't obviously Ron Perlman take on Ron Perlman take on some certain drama roles over
Adam Sander, but Adam Sander would be a more comfortable watch for more people.
So I don't know what we'll do with that. It's it's it's very
interesting the way this whole, this whole thing is. But I'm really I'm
really happy that you're doing what you've done um with with vo D clickstream H
and I'm I'm just impressed, like I always am with everything you do.
Man, You're insane for what you do, and I know that you're going
to be digging through that data and continuing the league grow and build out more
of a data. Yeah, you just started to go through that, and
that's a good It's it's not exactly what's going on, but man, it's
it's more than we had before. And it's definitely a direction to aim at.
It might not be pinpoint, but man, it's better than you know,
like, hey, I'm gonna go throw a football into a stadium,
I have no idea where it's gonna Now, at least you'll get it on
the field, and maybe you could even get it within a few yards,
you know, maybe, And that's the goal. And also, you know,
filmmakers should use all of these data points and all of these things they
hear and then they know themselves and they talk, they hear on your podcast
interviews. All of these are things you need to weigh up yourself and weigh
them against everything else. No one person or one system can tell you what
to do. And I'm just glad that we have at least one set of
signals about SPOT that doesn't come from the PR Department platform. Well, and
I appreciate you are fighting the good fights are and getting this information to the
filmmakers. Where where can people go and get this infilm? So it's at
via d clickstream dot com. It's entirely free. You if you want to
read more than the beginning of the articles, you need to sign up,
but it's free. But that's the reason we put that barrier in is that
we have got forums that anyone can join, and we wanted to make sure
that there was there was some effort you had to put in, and that
effort is signing up and accepting your email just and what that means is that
we have forums where people can post suggestions because we're still working out what to
do with all of this data, you know, some of it. We
have plenty of ideas and we're churning away at them, but then there's some
deeper things that we don't know what to look at. Yeah, and the
best suggestions for the research I've done over the years have come from audiences.
Like it. If I was to think of the sort of most exciting things
I've studied, they almost all of them come from audience suggestions. So that's
what we're looking to have is like, what have you always wanted to nerve
about squad? I can't give you an immediate answer, and I might not
be able to answer at all, but maybe probably I'm the best shot most
people have, and I'd be delighted to follow those threads and suggestions that we've
had from people. Well, man, I appreciate everything you do, Stephen.
Thank you so much. We have to we have to come back on
the show and talk about our twelve unconventionable Christmas movies and do another episode next
year, but I appreciate everything you do. Brother, thanks again for coming
on and sharing very valuable knowledge with the Tribe. And so thanks again thanks
for inviting me. It's always a pleasure to be here. I want to
thank Stephen for coming on this show and dropping the knowledge data bombs on the
Tribe today. Thank you so much, Stephen. If you want to get
links to anything we spoke about in this episode, including how to check out
the free service vod clickstream, head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting
dot tv for it Slash two eighty seven, Thank you so much for listening
to guys. As always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk
to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof Screenwriting
dot tv.