Please note: more important than any specific length for your answer will be that you answer the overall question and each sub-question within it thoroughly.
1. Consider our screening Project Greenlight. As a program about the entertainment industry, how does it engage with the potential issues and values found in contemporary labor conditions of the TV industries? In developing your answer, consider the following: what is development, and potential development hell, and how is that process depicted here? How does the depiction provide insight on the “world world” of Hollywood, both as a publicly- disclosed deep text and as a depiction you can critically analyze? And how does it repeat aspects of industry lore or other values held with this work culture with tangible results (i.e. who is hired, who is “in the room,” whose opinion is most valued, etc.)
2. We looked at recent (and rare) released viewership numbers from Netflix in week 7, but they also recently announced they will no longer report overall subscriber numbers. How does Netflix’s approach to data and viewership numbers differ from past delivery models use of similar data? Why? What does Netflix’s shifting relationship with audience measurement data suggest about how they are valuing their audience? And what potential challenges, in both commodifying their audience generally and in streaming delivery specifically, might account for these shifting strategies?
3. We have discussed how the TV programming that is produced is in large part a product of how TV content is monetized and produced in the most cost-efficient manner. Using one of the following screenings from class – Tale of the Nine-Tailed, Survivor, Star Trek: Lower Decks, or Saved By The Bell – discuss how you see the show participating in the economy of repetition. How do you see repetition within the storytelling content of the series? How do you see repetition within the show’s larger industrial context? And how do you see the use of repetition in how the show saves money and/or finds ways to serialize its production?
