Getting Back to Movie Basics

29th March 202229th March 2022 William Dever

Article courtesy of William Dever, Chief Creative Officer at Harena Data Inc

When movies work and work well, a dialogue is created between the filmmaker and the audience who views the movie. I long ago realized that the real viewing of a movie is an internal one and the screen in a theater at best only acts as an intermediary. The viewer’s body of experience and their life lessons all go into the viewing of a movie. If there is truth and honesty in a story the viewer embraces it. If the truth is so poignant then often the movie becomes part of the viewer’s ingrained experience. I still remember that June day when I watched Star Wars and how the moments in that movie were woven into my own experience.

Movies as a medium are the most linear artform. Streaming as a platform is ideally non-linear. As a result, when movies are placed on a streaming platform there is a conflict; a contradiction between product and platform occurs. It is not a natural offering. A movie should have some level of “marquee value” in order to sustain it. Netflix is offering titles like “The Adam Project” which quickly is premiered and then is relegated after a week into the dump bin of offerings which Netflix serves up to its customers.

One of the fascinating things is that the market is evolving to the truth of serving smaller, more defined audiences. Anime and Indian language movies are ending up in the top five in the box office during the past couple of weeks. Funimation, which has long served the fervent anime crowd, had a top three box office. This speaks to the significance of touching your community then drawing them into the movie. The anime fans out there, and there are many, know what they like and are passionate about their fandom.