Convenience and Flexibility

With reference to one or more examples of your choosing (single films or franchises) describe and discuss the industrial and textual features of the ‘tentpole’ model of filmmaking. How and why is this model characteristic of millennial Hollywood? What are its opportunities and limitations?

The modern-day scenario is changing rapidly and the change is felt in almost each and every scenario of life. The life of this modern 21^st century has become nothing but a rat race. The life is changing rapidly in the modern 21^st century. People are very busy with their life and their work and they actually keep on looking for some kinds of shortcuts that will help them to fulfill their objectives and at the same time also manage their time accordingly. So, web series has several advantages for them and have rapidly influenced their lives. The millennials are the ones who have a great affinity towards the web series[1] It helps them to get quality and informative experiences without any interruptions. This is also a great advantage over the traditional television shows.

In this monotonous lie, watching television is one of the major attractions that they have. So, it is for this reason that they always want to bestow some time from their extremely busy schedule for watching some of the other shows of their choice[2]. However, the millennial group of are the ones who have a good affinity towards the watching of the television shows. However, they often face a major problem if their favorite shows are being telecasted only on the normal traditional television. They will face the problem of getting to watch their favorite show at the right time and most importantly at the time of their choice or as per their feasibility. It can so happen that they want to watch a particular episode of their favorite show at a time of their choice but they cannot do so because this episode will come only at a particular fixed time. A good example can be the television series. For an instance, it can happen that a particular show on the television comes at about 9 am in the morning and it is at this point of time that an individual has to leave early for school office or any other important work. So, he or she may not b able to watch it at all or can watch only some parts of it. So, they might try to see the episode during the repeat telecast of the show[3]. The repeat telecast might be shown at about 6 pm in the evening. This time is again spent either in the office or while getting back home from the office. This is one of the major drawbacks that the millennial face at this point in time. So, they are much more inclined towards the web series that they can readily watch on the internet. The internet TV or the web series helps the millennial to watch their favorite shows very easily and also at the time of their choice. Also, this is a major advantage because most of the millennial in this 21^st century are tech-savvy people and they are very much well versed in the usage of the electronic gadgets like desktop or laptops. They are also very active in the world of internet. It is the internet that occupies a major portion of their time. So, they are actually very comfortable in viewing the web series through their smartphones, laptops and other such devices. They can easily see these during the free time or the office breaks that they get. Another advantage is that they will also not be missing any particular episodes[4]. Even if they miss a particular episode of a series of a particular season, they can watch the same later. They will be able to watch the shows on the web series on a 24/7 hour basis.

Millennial and Traditional Television

The other problem that they face in the traditional television is the repetitive advertisements. These ads often hamper the essence and the charm of the actual television series that the viewers are trying to watch. The millennial often gets very irritated when they are continuously being interrupted while trying to watch a show peacefully. The millennials are the ones who have reached their adulthood in this 21^st century. The two important points that are to be noted here are that they are all adults and have crossed the teenage. So it is quite obvious that their interest and preference patterns will change a lot. They now look for something meaningful and informative in the content of the show that they watch. A major feature that is seen in most of the modern household is the fight between the parents or the other elderly or younger family members and the millennial over watching the television. The parents and the grandparents are often interested about watching the popular daily soaps or the serials that are shown on the television channels while the younger siblings are mainly interested in watching the cartoon shows or the other such comedy shows. These shows do not really interest the millennial as they want to see something different and something very informative[5]. With the arrival of the new entertainment companies like the Netflix, the millennial have got easy to access and interrupted series of shows and episodes that can be seen at any point in time. The other advantage is that the content of these web series is not like the same and traditional concepts of the daily soaps that are telecasted on the television. These shows are made with good graphics and are of a very rich and informative content as well. These shows are usually made on some very current and informative topics that help the viewers to get some very good and interesting facts. One of the very good examples of the web series is the House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, the Catering Show and many other such series.  It has also been seen that the targeted audiences of these web series shows are mainly the millennial. In other words, these adults are the individuals who have reached the age of 18. They are the tech-savvy people and they spend the major portion of their time sitting in front of their laptops, desktops or other such electronic aspects and like to spend their time by surfing the internet. In the entire time of a day that is 24 hours, they send about more than 32% of their time in searching the net and using the apps and the web series. So, they are very much inclined towards the creating and using of these web series.

Web Series as a Better Alternative

 These are being used largely by the students of media and filmmaking as well. They find these platforms to be very interesting and very useful as well. These students saw mainly the millennial who find interest in making something based on the current affairs or the issues of some public interest and public concern going on in the country around them. This not only gives a good opportunity for the career prospects of these students but also for providing some quality content for the benefit of the other millennial as well[6].  Some of the reasons that are inspiring the millennial to create web series are

The major advantage is that these web series can be made at a very low or affordable low cost. Funds can be collected easily through crowdfunding[7]. Creating a television series is much more expensive than making web series[8]. The funds can be gathered easily by a group of young aspiring students of any media or film study department. Some young entrepreneurs may also start making some web series of their own. The mode of gathering the funds is very easy. The funds can be raised through crowdfunding. This has a twofold aspect as it is the same group of people that gave the funds will also become the audiences and will help in promotions of the same[9].

There are no hard and fast rules of the network that the web series makers need to follow. They can make the web series of their choice with their freedom and the only thing that they have to do is abide by the terms and conditions of the website of the video-sharing[10].

One of the other great advantages is that the time required in making a web series is much less than that of making a feature or a traditional film. Traditional filmmaking needs years of expertise, training, writing, shooting, developing and other such stuff. However, one can make a web series just within a month and present it to the audiences. There is also no tension regarding hitting the targeted audiences. The targeted audiences are the youth and the millennial to be precise. It is known that the targeted audiences will surely show their interest towards the series and will eagerly wait for the next season to arrive.

There are several reasons that had made this concept of web series gain such a huge popularity among the millennial. There are several brownie points that the web series enjoys over the feature films or the daily soaps that are telecasted on the television. One of them is that-

Web Series: A More Informative and Current Platform

There is the reassurance that no time is wasted and people are investing their time in some quality content

The targeted audience of this web series is mainly the youth or the millennial. They have this assurance that the show they are binge watching or are about to binge watch is not a flop show and has been liked by many viewers by them[11].  A very good example can be the web series called Orange is the New Black[12]. This show is based on the real-life incidents of a woman called Piper Kerman who belongs to a god and well to do family. She has been portrayed as serving her trial period for a period of about 15 months for the allegation of drug trafficking.  Apart from her, this web series has also featured many other female characters who display the so-called taboos of the society like homosexuality, religious boundaries and extremism, homophobia and other such aspects. In a nutshell, it is a feminist show the has changed the ways in which the society often views the female characters[13].

This is one of the most popular web series by the entertainment company Netflix[14]. It is made on a very current and informative topic that takes place every now and then. Women are often taken to prison for crimes of many sorts. However, they are not taken to the jails first before being taken to the prison[15]. It is the place where they must be given proper help and support but they are actually denied the same. It has instantly developed a very strong connection with the targeted audiences that is the millennial. This is because the portrayal of the female characters has set a path-breaking change in the ways the women actually seem me the real world. They have portrayed the women as very strong, rebelling and powerful characters.

These women are strong and are bold enough to break the traditional conventions. They never give up and never really adhere to the social conventions. They know how to challenge the stereotypes. These women display a huge valor and do not really believe in the aspect of being sorry or being unapologetic for their flaws[16]. They feel that they are not really answerable to anyone for speaking their minds out. It also dealt with the subject that was being taken up like wildfire in the academic subjects and also by many of the journalists and activists. The theme is that of the privatization of prison and the ill effects of the same on its inmates. This web show not only deals with the current topic but also aims at bringing a social change by breaking the stereotypes.

Easy Access and Availability

The very obvious reason is the fact that this whole thing is entirely a new concept and it will take a long time to make a proper appeal to the masses. Apart from this, the cost that is involved in accessing the same often is huge.

One can easily watch the daily soaps and the regular shows on the traditional television by paying a one-time cost. However, the scenario is very different while one is trying to watch a web series[17]. This is because while watching a web series or even while binge-watching one needs several other additional components. The first among them is a proper internet connection, wireless receivers, and adaptors as well. The web series will be not be running properly without the net connection. However, people watching any show on the television will just rewire the electrical connection and the cable line or the channel connectivity. However, in case of web series, the viewers have to keep a check on the proper internet connection as well. Without a proper internet connection, they will be unable to watch the series properly. Then there is also the problem of lack of varieties and lack of options. This is because of the fact that not every channel has been successful in making their way into the internet till date. Not every millennial have the same taste and preference pattern. It is for this reason that they might still have some interest in watching some episodes that are telecasted on any particular television channel[18]So in order to watch those serials, the users have to keep a backup. They have to still pay for their cable connections or their satellite connections. Apart from this, people who use the internet for binge-watching might not be able to keep up or maintain the interest of watching the movie as it is likely that someone somewhere has already watched it and will already tell them the secret or the storyline of the movie. Apart from this can also happen that some of the other episodes of a particular movie may not be included in the episode on the internet TV[19].  It can also happen that when someone is watching a web series they may feel that they are falling behind than others as they have already see the movie and the posters and photos of the movie are put up everywhere by now. 

Conclusion

Web Series and Filmmaking

So, it can be concluded that the choice of watching web series via the internet or watching any episodes of the series on television depends entirely on personal choice and preferences of people. So, there are pros and cons of both television watching and web series watching as well. However, the concept of web series is a very new concept that is gaining importance rapidly. Efforts are to be made the internet entertainment companies follow the process of constant development and make it more popular among the millennial.

References

Austin, Craig. “Orange is the New Black.” Education 95.11 (2014): 23.

Barroso, Alicia, et al. “Crowding, satiation, and saturation: The days of television series’ lives.” Strategic Management Journal37.3 (2016): 565-585.

DaCosta, Behram Mario. “System and method for internet TV and broadcast advertisements.” U.S. Patent No. 8,776,107. 8 Jul. 2014.

Desbarats, Carole. “Orange Is the New Black.” Esprit 11 (2016): 53-57.

Fontanini, Giulia, Marco Bertini, and Alberto Del Bimbo. “Web video popularity prediction using sentiment and content visual features.” Proceedings of the 2016 ACM on International Conference on Multimedia Retrieval. ACM, 2016.

Harris, Lauren Carroll. “What are our stories worth?: Value, the culture wars and the’Screen currency’report.” Metro Magazine: Media & Education Magazine 192 (2017): 120.

He, Xiangnan, et al. “Predicting the popularity of web 2.0 items based on user comments.” Proceedings of the 37th international ACM SIGIR conference on Research & development in information retrieval. ACM, 2014.

Jenner, Mareike. “Binge-watching: Video-on-demand, quality TV and mainstreaming fandom.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 20.3 (2017): 304-320.

Kassaye, W. Wossen, and Alexandra Hutto. “Advertising Implications of Millennials’ Motives and Device-Platform Consideration Sets: An Exploratory Study.” Journal of Promotion Management 22.1 (2016): 16-33.

Kuppuswamy, Venkat, and Barry L. Bayus. “Crowdfunding creative ideas: The dynamics of project backers.” The Economics of Crowdfunding. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2018. 151-182.

Latiff, Dzaa Imma Abdul, et al. “A study of usage patterns and TV shows analysis on Internet TV.” Journal of Education and Social Sciences 3 (2016): 111-117.

Louis, Eunice. “The Prison System and the Media: How “Orange Is The New Black” Engages with the Prison as a Normalizing Agent.” (2015).

Matrix, Sidneyeve. “The Netflix effect: Teens, binge watching, and on-demand digital media trends.” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 6.1 (2014): 119-138.

Matrix, Sidneyeve. “The Netflix effect: Teens, binge watching, and on-demand digital media trends.” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 6.1 (2014): 119-138.

McKeown, Janet KL, and Diana C. Parry. “Women’s Leisure as Political Practice: A Feminist Analysis of Orange Is the New Black.” Leisure Sciences 39.6 (2017): 492-505.

Paluck, Elizabeth Levy, et al. “Does product placement change television viewers’ social behavior?.” PloS one 10.9 (2015): e0138610.

Rezaeenour, Jalal, et al. “Developing a New Hybrid Intelligent Approach for Prediction Online News Popularity.” International Journal of Information Science and Management (IJISM) 16.1 (2018).

Wall-Series, Pete, and Philip Rayner. As media studies: The essential introduction for AQA. Routledge, 2016.

Williams, Cameron. “The streaming arms race: Original VOD programming in Australia.” Metro Magazine: Media & Education Magazine 195 (2018): 116

Kassaye, W. Wossen, and Alexandra Hutto. “Advertising Implications of Millennials’ Motives and Device-Platform Consideration Sets An Exploratory Study.” Journal ofPromotion Management 22.1 (2016): 16-33.

Barroso, Alicia, et al. “Crowding, satiation, and saturation: The days of television series’ lives.” Strategic Management Journal37.3 (2016): 565-585.

Latiff, Dzaa Imma Abdul, et al. “A study of usage patterns and TV shows analysis on Internet TV.” Journal of Education and Social Sciences 3 (2016): 111-117.

Paluck, Elizabeth Levy, et al. “Does product placement change television viewers’ social behavior?.” PloS one9 (2015): e0138610.

Rezaeenour, Jalal, et al. “Developing a New Hybrid Intelligent Approach for Prediction Online News Popularity.” International Journal of Information Science and Management (IJISM) 16.1 (2018)