It’s been said about creativity – the more you use, the more you have – an encouraging thought when compared to film making today and our taste for binge-watching. In recent years, distribution platforms like Netflix have made a greater assortment of documentary film more readily available to us than ever before….
It’s been said about creativity – the more you use, the more you have – an encouraging thought when compared to film making today and our taste for binge-watching. In recent years, distribution platforms like Netflix have made a greater assortment of documentary film more readily available to us than ever before.In 2015, for example, there were two films about Grunge icon Kurt Cobain in IMBD’s top 20, proof that the more interpretations there are, the merrier – as far as the audience is concerned. For film makers, VOD presents huge challenges within the opportunity, it is after all, new territory. Our viewing habits have encouraged less restraint with subject matter as well as the traditional dimensions, the films are changing shape.
The recent Making a Murderer series is the embodiment of that change. For their 10-part epic story of Steven Avery and his family’s fight for justice, directors Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos filmed the series over the course of a decade. Each episode leaves you emotionally exhausted and unable to resist the next. Forbes magazine claims it is the most significant series Netflix has released to date, and the evidence of its power is everywhere. You only have to look as far as your Facebook newsfeed to find a scathing still of a vacant looking law enforcer asking the vulnerable Brendan Dassey “Did you plan 9/11?” to which he says “Yes”. The public’s reaction was to petition for his exoneration, yet although 170,000 signatures were collected, President Obama was not in a position to overrule the state law. That hollow feeling we’re left with at the end of the series can only be consoled with the information that Avery has since hired a new team of lawyers and is now beginning the process again, one that has already taken his life and family from him. Given the effect Making a Murderer has had, one more likened to The Hunger Games than a crime documentary, we should probably be entertaining the idea that this is the first of many more like it – a binge-changer, if you will.
Our viewing habits are in no small part responsible for an explosion in popularity of these films. With documentary evolving into a genre that challenges Hollywood’s reach, watching them has become an everyday, mainstream pastime. As linear television becomes a thing of the past, so does a system that wouldn’t have seen Making a Murderer available to the world – CBS turned it down before Netflix was approached. The flip side to all this excitement is that the world of distribution is still notoriously difficult. The flat fee system employed by many platforms continues to make film makers uncomfortable, and rightly so, viewing data is often simply unavailable. The cons aside, film makers are free to experiment, and that can only ever be an exciting prospect. The more widespread platforms like Amazon Prime, NewVideo and SnagFilms become, the more of what we watch is personal to us. Whether that promotes creativity, segregation or both, we may watch when and where we want and share the instant the mood takes us – VOD seems built for revolution.
It might seem slightly overwhelming, but luckily help is at hand for film makers attempting to navigate the world of distribution, increasingly major platforms are shedding light on how to be profitable. In a society increasingly fixated with fact over fiction, there are undeniably exciting times ahead for film makers and viewers. In our director James Rogan’s own words:
“VOD represents a liberation of documentary from broadcast schedules. Suddenly running times are not bound by the conventional 60′ or 45′ running slot. That’s more revolutionary than it sounds. They allow stories to play longer or shorter. The nature of focussed viewing that VOD creates promotes quality.”
