Turkish Cinema and Television Industry in the Digital Streaming Era

Foreword

Hasan Kemal Suher and İdil Karademirlidağ Suher

Like any other art, cinema and television are influenced by society’s politics, philosophy, or economics, as well as technology. Variations in demands and needs, changes in expectations, and developments in communication technologies have changed the message’s content, nature, and conveying method. Although modern perception claims that there is an uncompromising conflict between art and technology, these two are closely related. Because cinema and television are not only about “what” to convey but also about “how” to convey, how a scene is shown is as critical as what a scene is all about.

Turkish Cinema and television industry vastly transformed during the digitalization of the media. The filmmaking process and releasing methods have changed. Although digital media platforms, delivering online media using SVOD, AVOD, or TVOD, models caused newsworthy discussions in the Turkish Cinema and television industries, it is fairly straightforward that they serve the demands of today’s audience. Each and every day, the viewers’ expectations increase due to environmental conditions, such as pandemics, busy work life, and economic reasons. Sometimes digital transformation was inevitable for internal reasons, including the appeal of home comfort, the desire to utilize time effectively, and the power of on-demand control on the publication.

Netflix, which has affected and diverted the TV and new age media streaming, has changed the expectations and habits of the viewers. As viewers preferred digital platforms offering flexible hours and options and websites offering streaming services, digital television production companies rapidly created new streaming platforms. As the Netflix subscriber numbers increased and Netflix became popular, some phrases have been created and used in daily conversations.

“The Netflix effect” includes, but is not limited to, streaming content to any place, device, or desired time. One of “the Netflix effects,” “binge-watching,” or more common usage, “Netflixing,” means watching the episodes of a TV series all at once or in a short period of time. Moreover, this behavior is not only limited to young generations. When did the masses waiting for a new episode for a whole week become impatient? As the viewers felt the power of control, they realized the power that they hold. For the content producers, the content consumers’ viewing needs and demands are still not too important. However, platforms cannot oversee these requirements. The art and aesthetics of the content ←17 | 18→are still significant. The viewer holds the right to like or dislike a production. However, any production, served as a service, should consider the demands and expectations of the consumer.

Chapter 1: Local Narratives and Global Sequences: An Analysis of the Sequence Structure of Netflix Turkey Films

Abstract: Digital platforms are transforming the way of watching in national and international media, both experience and content. In particular, these platforms produce content by broadcasting from locally to globally, allowing local content to enter global circulation. For this reason, the international circulation of local narratives is increasing. Therefore, narrative structures can also change. In this chapter, the sequence structure of Netflix Turkey films is examined with the sequence approach applied to traditional narrative films globally in order to understand the narrative connection of local productions with the global. In addition, the selected films are compared with the films that were screened in movie theaters in Turkey and later released on Netflix with the same directors. Finally, the findings are categorized and discussed in the context of the selected films’ narrative, production, and content. As a result, the sequences in the narrative structure of the selected films are discussed, their similarities and differences are revealed, and the variability of the sequence structure is interpreted.

Keywords: Sequence, Genre, Narrative, Netflix Turkey, Turkish Films, Script

New Presentation of Classic Narratives

Cinema is discursive by nature, and its discursive aspect always comes to the fore, although the production process, the devices used, or the way it is exhibited and consumed change. The story that is wanted and told amid the growing content crowd becomes even more critical, as technological facilities in production, consumption, and access can make the production of a film easier. As the ways of producing and watching films change, works reaching from the local to the global, and the global penetrating the local, the cinema’s narrative structure enters into circulation, reaches more audiences, and thus gains visibility. The audience, who used to only go to the film theatre or reach the physical product of the film they want to watch, can now access the film content with any device they carry or have at home with an internet connection. In particular, developing projects in the national arena, and presenting these projects to all countries where they broadcast has brought their narrative diversity to a different level.

In the context of cinema, the first thing that draws attention to the differences between the offline and the online areas seems to be the quantity of the content. ←21 | 22→Film theatres are affected by the combination of many factors such as physical facilities, venue, screening schedules, number and types of films released, and box office revenues. However, it is not possible to talk about the huge impact of these elements on online on-demand platforms. These platforms do not only produce content in the countries where they were established. They increase the number of content by producing productions in the countries where they have users.

Although they are the productions of a global platform such as Netflix, the films examined are not films that can be included in Western cinema because some films can be classified even in the category of world cinema, considering their screenwriters and actors and those who do not have Netflix productions. Sue Clayton (2011, p. 176), a director and writer, emphasizes a more complex situation in terms of authorship and cultural influences, production, and ←22 | 23→consumption of cinema, apart from traditional methods, in the context of world cinema. In addition, Clayton (2011, p. 177) draws attention to the scarcity of studies and writings on screenwriting in world cinema, apart from directing, cinematography, production, audience, and censorship, regarding film criticism. Based on this idea, Clayton (2011, p. 178) also states the importance of questioning the narrative process of screenwriters outside of Western or Hollywood and how they create narratives. On the axis of this thought, it becomes even more important how the contents produced by a western company but which cannot be considered western in the context of the production actors and the story universe, are narratively created and how they are presented. For this reason, I think that the acts structure, which is considered universal, and the sequence approach, which is more applied to western films, are more suitable for examining films.