Netflix is Shifting Its Focus To Audiences, Not Auteurs 不再垂青導演 Netflix望向觀眾


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2024/06/14 第489期 訂閱/退訂看歷史報份
 
 
紐時周報精選 Netflix is Shifting Its Focus To Audiences, Not Auteurs 不再垂青導演 Netflix望向觀眾
U.S. universities struggle to calm campuses torn by the Gaza war. 動用警力驅除抗議者 美大學維穩至上
紐時周報精選
 
Netflix is Shifting Its Focus To Audiences, Not Auteurs 不再垂青導演 Netflix望向觀眾
文/Nicole Sperling
譯/高詣軒

不再垂青導演 Netflix望向觀眾

Back in, say, 2019, if a filmmaker signed a deal with Netflix, it meant that he or she would be well paid and receive complete creative freedom. Theatrical release? Not so much. Still, the paycheck and the latitude — and the potential to reach the streaming service's huge subscriber base — helped compensate for the lack of hoopla that comes when a traditional studio opens a film in multiplexes around the world.

若回到像是2019年,一名電影創作人與Netflix簽約,這代表他或她會得到優渥酬勞並享有完整創作自由。要在院線發行?這倒未必。不過這筆報酬和自由度,加上可能觸及該串流服務業者龐大訂戶群體,有助彌補其欠缺,也就是傳統製片廠在全球各地影城上映電影時伴隨的浩大聲勢。

But those days are a thing of the past.

但那些日子已是過去式。

Dan Lin arrived as Netflix's new film chief April 1, and he has started making changes. He laid off around 15 people in the creative film executive group, including one vice president and two directors. (Netflix's entire film department is around 150 people.) He reorganized his film department by genre rather than budget level and has indicated that Netflix is no longer only the home of expensive action flicks featuring big movie stars.

Netflix電影部門新主管林暐4月1日走馬上任,他已著手改變。他裁撤了創意電影執行團隊約15人,包括1名副總裁和2名主任。(Netflix電影部門全體約150人。)他將其電影部門依照電影類別而非預算等級重新編組,並指出Netflix不再只是主打電影巨星的高成本動作片產地。

Rather, Lin's mandate is to improve the quality of the movies and produce a wider spectrum of films — at different budget levels — the better to appeal to the varied interests of Netflix's 260 million subscribers. He will also be changing the formulas for how talent is paid, meaning no more enormous upfront deals.

林暐的要求則是改善電影品質,並以不同預算等級拍出更加五花八門的電影,以便更能抓住Netflix 2.6億訂戶形形色色的喜好。他也會改變提供人才報酬的規則公式,這意味大型的預付合約將不復存在。

The company declined to comment for this article.

該公司婉拒對本文置評。

Lin's predecessor as Netflix's film chief, Scott Stuber, took the job in 2017. To succeed, Stuber spent lavishly on talent, promising filmmakers near-complete creative freedom and hefty budgets. It worked — to an extent. The directors got to make their passion projects, and their films earned Oscar nominations (though few wins.)

林暐前任的Netflix電影部門主管斯圖柏在2017年就任。為了成功,斯圖柏在人才上揮金如土,承諾給電影創作人近乎完全的創作自由及豐厚預算。這達到一定程度的成果。電影導演得以滿腔熱血地拍片,他們的電影也博得多項奧斯卡獎提名(不過鮮少摘金)。

Under Lin, who once ran production at Warner Bros., the aim is to make Netflix's movies better, cheaper and less frequent. Lin, who declined to comment for this article, also wants his team to become more aggressive producers — developing their own material rather than waiting for projects from producers and agents to come to them, according to two people familiar with his thinking.

曾管理華納兄弟製作部的林暐,任內目標是讓Netflix的電影更優質、成本更少並降低出片頻率。林暐婉拒評論本文,而根據兩名熟知林暐思路的人士透露,他也想讓旗下的團隊成為更具進取心的製作人,自行開發素材而不是坐等製作人以及代理商帶著案子來找他們。

Netflix was reconsidering its pay structure before Lin's arrival. Since the company began sharing performance metrics last year, there have been discussions about basing pay for filmmakers and actors on a film's performance, similar to how the traditional studios reward them when movies perform well at the box office.

Netflix在林暐赴任前即在重新考量其獎酬結構。自從去年該公司開始分享績效指標,就開始討論基於電影績效來提供電影創作人及演員報酬,類似傳統製片廠在票房表現亮眼時獎勵他們的方式。

 
U.S. universities struggle to calm campuses torn by the Gaza war. 動用警力驅除抗議者 美大學維穩至上
文/Alan Blinder
譯/周辰陽

動用警力驅除抗議者 美大學維穩至上

At New York University, the police swept in to arrest protesting students on Monday night, ending a standoff with the school's administration.

在紐約大學,警察周一晚間突然清場逮捕抗議學生,結束一場跟學校行政部門的對峙。

At Yale University, police placed protesters' wrists into zip ties Monday morning and escorted them onto campus shuttles to receive summonses for trespassing.

在耶魯大學,警察周一早上將抗議者手腕綁上束帶,將他們押上校園接駁公車,領取非法侵入的傳票。

Columbia University kept its classroom doors closed Monday, moving lectures online and urging students to stay home.

哥倫比亞大學周一維持教室大門關閉,將課程移往線上,並敦促學生留在家。

Harvard Yard was shut to the public. Nearby, at campuses including Tufts and Emerson, administrators weighed how to handle encampments that looked much like the one that police dismantled at Columbia last week — which protesters quickly resurrected.

哈佛校園對大眾關閉。附近,在包括塔夫茲大學跟愛默生學院校園,行政人員斟酌如何處理抗議者營地,營地跟警察上周在哥倫比亞大學拆除而抗議者很快重搭的很像。

Less than a week after the arrests of more than 100 protesters at Columbia, administrators at some of the country's most influential universities were struggling, and largely failing, to calm campuses torn by the conflict in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

哥倫比亞大學超過一百名抗議者被捕不到一周後,美國一些最具影響力大學的行政人員,都在力求安定因加薩走廊衝突跟以色列而撕裂的校園,但多半失敗。

During the turmoil Monday, which coincided with the start of Passover, protesters called on their universities to become less financially tied to Israel and its arms suppliers. Many Jewish students agonized anew over some protests and chants that veered into antisemitism, and feared again for their safety. Some faculty members denounced clampdowns on peaceful protests. Alumni and donors raged.

周一的動盪伴隨逾越節開始,抗議者呼籲他們的大學,減少跟以色列及其武器供應商的財務聯繫。許多猶太裔學生因部分抗議跟口號轉向反猶主義,感到極度痛苦且再次擔心他們的安全。一些教職員譴責鎮壓和平抗議。校友跟捐款人勃然大怒。

And from Congress, there were calls for the resignation of Columbia's president from some of the same lawmakers Nemat Shafik tried to pacify last week with words and tactics that inflamed her own campus.

國會則有人要求哥倫比亞大學校長沙菲克辭職,發聲者包括一些她上周力圖安撫的議員,而她當時一些言論和策略激怒自己的校園。

It is all but certain that the demonstrations, in some form or another, will last on some campuses until the end of the academic year, and even then, graduation ceremonies may be bitterly contested gatherings.

幾乎可以肯定,示威活動會以某種形式在一些校園持續下去,直到學年結束,即使如此,畢業典禮可能成為備受爭議的聚會。

For now, with the most significant protests confined to a handful of campuses, administrators' approaches sometimes seem to shift from hour to hour.

眼下,因為最嚴重的抗議局限於少數校園,行政人員的做法似乎一直在轉變。

Protesters have demonstrated with varying intensity since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. But this round of unrest began to gather greater force last Wednesday, after Columbia students erected an encampment, just as Shafik was preparing to testify before Congress.

去年10月7日哈瑪斯襲擊以色列以來,抗議者已經用不同的強度示威。但這一輪的騷動上周三開始加強,正當沙菲克在準備出席國會作證,哥倫比亞學生搭建了營地之後。

At that hearing in Washington, before a Republican-led House committee, she vowed to punish unauthorized protests on the private university's campus more aggressively, and the next day, she asked the New York Police Department to clear the encampment. In addition to the more than 100 people arrested, Columbia suspended many students. Many Columbia professors, students and alumni voiced fears that the university was stamping out free debate.

在華府舉行的那場聽證會上,面對共和黨領導的眾議院委員會,她誓言要更積極懲罰在這所私立大學校園進行的未經許可抗議。隔天,她請求紐約警局清理營地。除了超過一百人被捕,哥倫比亞大學還將許多學生停學。許多哥大教授、學生和校友擔心這所大學正在鎮壓自由辯論。

 
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