Long Tail, Big Data: On-Demand Culture and Media SpectatorshipChuck TryonMay 12, 2013Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

On-Demand CultureChris Anderson : no physical barriers to media distribution (The Long Tail)

David Bordwell: “films have become files” (Pandora’s Digital Box).

More people watch films via Internet than on physical media (DVDs, Blu-Rays)

“Promise that media texts circulate faster, more cheaply, and more broadly than ever before.” But at what price?

Ira Deutchman: distribution as central problem of movie industry today

Platform Mobility

Platform mobility—“far more than the mere technological changes that allow mobile access. It also includes the social, political, and economic changes that make mobile access more desirable.”

A question of how screens, texts, and viewers move through space and time (encompasses limits to mobility as well)

Mobile Spectatorship

Imagines an active, engaged, but individualized viewer

Move from Lynn Spigel (“Make Room for TV”) to platform mobility (“Make Any Room Your TV Room”)

Often sold as a means of promoting “family harmony” through personal viewing http://vimeo.com/23328990

New Distribution Models/Logics

National Association of Theater Owners: by the end of 2013, movies no longer distributed on celluloid

3D as “Trojan Horse” that supported conversion

Social media (Twitter, Facebook) open up new modes of engagement, but also allow studios to measure audience interest and create participatory activities to involve audiences in the “work” of marketing films

“Sentiment mining”

Crowdsourcing and crowdfunding through Kickstarter

Unlimited storage space makes “shelf space” irrelevant: The Long TailBut this does not eliminate production or promotion costs

New models that alter the distribution “windows” in which films and TV series are made available.

In some cases festivals (SXSW, Sundance, Tribeca) deliver films via VOD

On-Demand Spectatorship: Major

U.S. Players Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD): Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, Warner Archive Instant, Redbox Instant

Transactional Video on Demand (TVOD): Amazon, Vudu, YouTube

Ad-supported (ADVOD): Hulu, SnagFilms, Crackle

Download to Own: iTunes, Vudu, UltraViolet

Big Data“The ability of society to harness information in novel ways to produce useful insights or goods and services of significant value” (2).

Role of Google Search terms in tracking the movement of H1N1 Virus, Amazon Recommendations in making book buying predictable

Big data works by taking “huge quantities of data in order to infer probabilities” (12).

Not interested in why something is happening; instead focused on documenting what is happening (correlations, not causation)

Predictive analytics: “widely used in business to foresee events before they happen” (58).

Big Data: A Revolution that Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think, Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier (2013).

House of Cards: Binge Viewing

Produced by David Fincher (The Social Network, Fight Club), starred Kevin Spacey

Calculated to attract reviews from tastemakers in film, tech press

Reported $60 million budget for 13 episodes

Not the first example of SVOD original programming (Hulu’s Day in the Life)

All episodes released simultaneously on February 1, 2013

Defies traditional distribution models based on scarcity

House of Cards and Big Data

Audience behavior can be measured, calculated, predicted, commodified (also used by Amazon and other retailers)

Netflix knows when, where, what you watch, when you pause or fast-forward

Netflix records “hundreds of millions” of events on a daily basis

Collective screenings and shared accounts introduce Big Data challenge for recommendation algorithm

Allows Netflix to market directly to consumers rather than paying for expensive TV advertising

Big Data and Production

Potentially allows studios to calculate what narrative techniques should be included in a given film or TV show

Worldwide Motion Picture Group: use of data analysis to assess script marketability

Potentially arbitrary: Company has calculated that movies with scenes in bowling alleys less likely to be profitable

Similar model with Amazon Pilots: 14 original TV series and audience votes on which will get produced

Mobile/Monitored Spectatorship

New media technologies “provide the media and culture industries with the means of surveillance and control” (Bolin 2012).

Mark Andrejevic: “monitored mobility”

Andrew Leonard, Salon.com: Big data turns audiences into “puppets” (February 1, 2013).

But these models fail to account for non-monitored activities, as well as attempts by fans and independent producers to use data for alternative modes of distribution

Reintroduces but complicates classic juxtaposition between active viewers and passive audiences…

From Audiences to Crowds…

On-Demand Movie screenings: Gathr, Tugg, Rain (Brazil)

Girl Rising: generated 100,000 reserved tickets

Star-driven feature about girls’ experiences across the globe

Crowdsourcing: Wreckamovie, Snakes on a Plane, social media, Amazon pilots

Crowdfunding: Kickstarter, IndieGogo.

Kickstarter and Crowdfunding

Allows “long tail” creators to solicit funds for a creative project (movie, web series, music, games, software) online

Continuation of older practices: we are accustomed to paying for films before seeing them

Currently available only in the US and UK

Most projects raise less than $10,000 US (see chart below)Film and music by far the most common projects

Kickstarter and Documentary

Three of the best-reviewed films of 2012 used Kickstarter

Recent Sundance favorites: American Promise, Citizen Koch, etc.

Allowed filmmakers to leverage existing social networks (social capital) built around causes

Indie filmmakers use data to target potential supporters (and audiences)

Kickstarter and “Independence”

Romanticized ideal of the independent artist pitching her passion project

More recently, boundary between studio and independent has been blurred

Paul Schrader, The Canyons

Rob Thomas/WB, Veronica Mars

Zach Braff, Wish You Were Here

On-Demand Spectatorship

Active, mobile, individualized viewers who blog, tweet, remix, and share movies

Content can be accessed on multiple devices and viewed on-the-go

Monitored audience that is rendered readable, analyzable, and predictable through Big Data

This “freedom” thus enables the very condition of monitored mobility

Questions or Comments?Chuck Tryon, Fayetteville State Universityctryon@uncfsu.eduhttp://chutry.wordherders.net/wpGrazie!