Netflix continues to shit the bed

To Mr. Reed Hastings:

I can understand your position.  Netflix looses money on every disc mail out to its subscribers,  the cost of acquiring media for the streaming service is expensive, and there are growing doubts over solvency of the United States Postal Service. 

But a streaming only Netflix service as it now stands is full of B level content, that is unstable.  A movie you may want to watch at some point may not be available when you finally have a chance to watch it.  One of the excuses for the price increase was to allow Netflix to pay more for its content and hopefully lengthen the contracts, but with many other services competing for exclusivity of content Netflix will never have everything you may want to watch.  The dvd/blu-ray que was the answer.  The depth of the library insured that if it wasn’t streaming it was only a couple of days away.  And if you put it in your dvd queue, it would automatically appear on the streaming queue if it happened to become available.  That has been a huge bonus for a cinephile such as myself.  

Dividing the service now means I have to have separate queues on two websites.  For a Netflix subscriber from 2001 that is extremely annoying.   You have basically doubled the bullshit I have to sort through in order to strategically plan my movie enjoyment.  This move seems more like added bureaucracy than convenience.  

If we look at the future of Netflix just as a streaming service a subscriber loses access to a host of films that are amazing but will never have enough viewers to justify streaming.  This also opens the door for Amazon, Block Buster, Hulu, and a host of others compete directly with your streaming service without having to worry about the depths of the mail library.

If you look just at Quickster.com as a business.  Which is merging the services of Gamefly.com and the original Netflix model. Offering disc based media by mail.  The flaw with games is that already we are seeing the growth of download ability of affordably priced games across all three major consuls.  With the video game industry trying it’s damnedest to destroy the rental market, the growth and price structure of downloadable video games will only continue to increase getting cheaper and more available.   

As far as the movie side goes, how can it not become a niche market for Cinephiles and Technophobes that will more than likely shrink as time goes on.  

For me and many other loyal Netflix subscribers the value was in the cheap and fast access to pretty much any film or TV show.  The instant access was deep enough to find something interesting on a whim and the library was there if a film wasn’t available streaming.  And now that this hard pivot of the company has alienated so many us, only time will tell which company I will go with for my streaming content.   

Compulsions

List of screenwriters I’ve met or head speak in the last year -

Tom Rickman         John August          Debra Granik
Mike Urban         Paul Tamasy          Andrew Kevin Walker
Steve Mazuer         Eric Johnson          Rick Jaffa
Dan Vining         Keith Dorrington  Amanda Silver
Karen Jansen         Lisa Cholodenko  Ben Ripley
Mike Ellis         Stuart Blumberg  David Seidler
Gill Dennis         John Sayles           Ashley Miller
Frank Pierson         Nicole Holofcener   Zack Stentz
Melissa Rosenberg Steve Kloves          J. Michael Straczynski
Katie Wech          Peter Craig          Mark Protosevich
Heather Hach          Paul Feig          Jon Lucas
Wesley Strick          David O. Russel  Scott Moore
Larry Karaszewski  Mark Fergus          Allen Estrin
Aaron Sorkin          Roberto Orci


I am marveling at the caliber of writers on this list.  I feel very lucky to have been in a position to listen to them speak and ask them questions.  Golden Age Hollywood writers to those just starting out all having sold multiple scrips.  Some having influenced the direction of a specific genre.  All bringing their own voice to movies.  They all write compulsively and most are incredibly insecure.

The question that they all get asked without fail is - how do you break in?  And the answer generally is I don’t have a clue.   They all worked hard, got their writing in front of someone who took a chance on them.   That’s about it.

I think the key component is the working hard, writing compulsively, and being willing to send out your stuff.  Being willing and actively seeking someone to rip your writing apart.  To get you to think in different ways.

The biggest challenge for me is the writing everyday part.  I procrastinate like you wouldn’t believe.  The reasons behind this procrastination is something that all writers deal with including the ones on the list.  They have just developed a compulsion to write.  I kind of equate the compulsion to alcoholism.

Imagine:  You wake up in the morning still drunk from the night before.  You get in the shower and crack open a beer.  As your day progresses you start to analyze what you are doing to yourself.    You think maybe I shouldn’t drink anymore.  But as night time rolls back around you just can’t stop yourself.   You don’t bother to count the number of drinks you’ve had because you know you’ll just forget before the night is over.

For a writer it seems to be more like this:  You wake up at 7am with an imprint of the keyboard on your face still exhausted and a little hungover from a long night of writing.   You think, “Jesus I only got 3 hours of sleep,” as you crack open that beer in the shower and start to feel guilty about having not written anything yet today. Just out of the shower you write for a couple of hours - not bothering to take the time to put on clothes.  At lunch you start to analyze what you’ve been writing.  You decide that you hate it. It all needs to be thrown away.  Fuck! I really suck at this.  The next few hours are spent surfing the internet.  But within a couple of hours you are back at that keyboard typing away, only getting up to get another drink. You don’t even bother looking at a clock because you know that time is going to fly.  It doesn’t matter anyway because you’re going to write until you pass out.

If you, like me, are having trouble developing that compulsion I suggest three things - all of which are incredibly hard to do.

 1. Drink less Alcohol
 2. Use the don’t break the chain calendar found here for free - http://www.writersstore.com/dont-break-the-chain-calendar
 3. Use the program Freedom a well spent ten dollars - http://macfreedom.com/

It seems to be working for me so far.

Still Images from my Cycle Two Film

For Cycle two I wrote a dark fantasy ghost story, that the korean director fucked up beyond belief.   Between key scenes not being shot, and the incompetence of someone who doesn't speak english, The Skull Cup ended up like most of the cycle films - horrible.   

But at least it looks pretty.  

Props to the Editor and Cinematographer who made the film at least coherent.  

My latest Comic Book Obsession - Morning Glories

I know I haven't been updating my blog as much as I should, but I thought I would quickly throw this up. 

This is still a relatively new indie book focusing on a group of super smart teenagers, all with the same birthday, who are invited to attend the Morning Glory Academy.   

Great Characters, smart writing with a sprinkling of playful WTF.

Here's a scene from the first issue.

An AFI grad. I don't want to admit why I love this short.

THAT's LIFE from Martin Wichmann Andersen on Vimeo.