Actually forget every other post about “primal” feelings and actions, the most connected to my early hominid ancestors i have ever felt in my LIFE is when slowly following an increasingly panicked sheep. I believe that slowly following ungulates is the most primally human activity in existence
That moment when the sheep has run a few times and visibly realizes that you just keep slowly walking at it and are not going anywhere and you can see it thinking “oh fuck this isn’t how being chased is supposed to work” rockets me back in time several hundred thousand years
we need to talk about the fact that for many of the posters in season one, they are literally on opposite sides and/or have a dividing line between them
and now they're literally crossed over in some way for the season 2 posters
Mr. Flanagan, I’d like to ask a question and I deeply hope that it does not offend or upset you. I am strongly considering canceling my Netflix subscription due to their new password sharing policy. However, Midnight Mass is one of my favorite shows of all time and I know it isn’t available on DVD, and I’m also profoundly anticipating your take on my favorite Edgar Allen Poe story. So I wanted to ask your take on people accessing your work through, uh, other means. If it’s something that’s offensive to you or will harm you or the other people who work so hard on these shows, I’ll happily keep my Netflix just so that I can keep supporting your work. I respect you far too much as an artist to do otherwise.
Again, I really hope I’m not upsetting you by asking this question. Thank you for everything, and I hope you’re having a great day!
Hi there - no offense taken whatsoever, in fact I think this is a very interesting and important question.
So. If you asked me this a few years ago, I would have said "I hate piracy and it is hurting creators, especially in the independent space." I used to get in Facebook arguments with fans early in my career when people would post about seeing my work on torrent sites, especially when that work was readily available for rent and purchase on VOD.
Back in 2014, my movie Before I Wake was pirated and leaked prior to any domestic release, and that was devastating to the project. It actually made it harder to find distribution for the film. By the time we were able to get distribution in the US, the film had already been so exposed online that the best we could hope for was a Netflix release. Netflix stepped in and saved that movie, and for that I will always be grateful to them.
However.
Working in streaming for the past few years has made me reconsider my position on piracy. You could say my feelings on the matter have "evolved."
In the years I worked at Netflix, I tried very hard to get them to release my work on blu-ray and DVD. They refused at every turn.
It became clear very fast that their only priority was subscriptions, and that they were actively hostile to the idea of physical media. While they had some lingering obligations on certain titles, or had partnerships who still valued physical media, and had flirted with releasing juggernaut hits like Stranger Things, that wasn't at all their priority. In fact, they were very actively trying to eliminate those kinds of releases from their business model.
This is a very dangerous point of view. While companies like Netflix pride themselves on being disruptors, and have proven that they can affect great change in the industry, they sometimes fail to see the difference between disruption and damage. So much that they can find themselves, intentionally or not, doing enormous harm to the very concept of film preservation.
The danger comes when a title is only available on one platform, and then - for whatever reason - is removed.
We have already seen this happen. And it is only going to happen more and more. Titles exclusively available on streaming services have essentially been erased from the world. If those titles existed on the marketplace on physical media, like HBO's Westworld, the loss is somewhat mitigated (though only somewhat.) But when titles do not exist elsewhere, they are potentially gone forever.
The list of titles that have been removed from streaming services is growing quickly, quietly, and insidiously.
When titles disappear without warning, the whole streaming space starts to seem less stable.
So to answer your question - today, I am very grateful that my Netflix originals are available through - uh - other means.
The issue of password sharing is a different one, but suffice to say I do not blame you one bit for considering canceling your subscription.
I still believe that where we put our dollars matters. Renting or buying a piece of work that you like is essential. It is casting a vote, encouraging studios - who only speak the language of money - to invest more effort into similar work. If we show up to support distinct, unique, exciting work, it encourages them to make more of it. It's as simple as that. If we don't show up, or if they can't hear our voice because we are casing our vote "silently" through torrent sites or other means - it makes it unlikely that they will take a chance to create that kind of work again.
Which is why I typically suggest that if you like a movie you've seen through - uh - other means, throw a few dollars at that title on a legitimate platform. Rent it. Purchase it. Support it.
But if services like Netflix offer no avenue for that kind of support, and can (and will) remove content from their platform forever... frankly, I think that changes the rules.
Netflix will likely never release the work I created for them on physical media. I've tried for years, but have met with the same apathy throughout.
Some of you may say "wait, aren't The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor available on blu-ray and DVD?" Yes, they are, because they were co-produced with Paramount. Paramount retained the physical media rights for those titles, and were permitted to release them (though they had to wait a calendar year after their launches on Netflix). I'm so, so grateful that Paramount was able to release and protect those titles. (I'm also grateful that those releases include extended cuts, deleted scenes, and commentary tracks. There are a number of fantastic benefits to physical media releases.)
But a lot of the other work I did there are Netflix originals, without any other studio involvement. Those titles - like Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, and the upcoming Fall of the House of Usher - along with my Netflix exclusive and/or original movies Before I Wake and Gerald's Game - have no such protections. The physical media releases of those titles are entirely at Netflix's discretion, and unfortunately Netflix has made their position clear.
There was a brief, shining moment when Netflix told me they were going to release a "Flanaverse" (man I hate that word) blu-ray set - I was very excited. But as abruptly as they had told me they were going to do it, they retracted their offer with a casual, dismissive "oh, never mind." There was very little context offered, simply that the company had changed its mind and weren't interested in physical media for my stuff after all.
My movie Hush recently disappeared from the platform, and is currently not available anywhere in the world. That's a slightly different situation, as the reason it disappeared is that Netflix's license agreement ran out, which gave us the opportunity to shop it to new homes - hopefully homes with more support for physical media (and you better believe that's exactly what we're doing right now). But that's a fortunate case - Hush was not a Netflix original. A lot of my other work is, and we'll have no such opportunity to extract them.
As a result, I've gone looking for archival copies of Midnight Mass (and some other work) for myself. And that led me to some "bootleg" blu-rays created by people who operate through - uh - other means.
The result is that I now have three copies of Midnight Mass on blu-ray in my collection. The quality is excellent. The people who created these even went through the trouble to make animated menus and cover art - and I have to say they're quite good. I found these online, it wasn't difficult, and it wasn't expensive. I'm told the quality of torrent sites is pretty great. And honestly, at this point, given Netflix's position on the mater... I'm very glad they exist.
At the moment, Netflix seems content to leave Before I Wake, Gerald's Game, Midnight Mass, and The Midnight Club on the service, where they still draw audiences. I don't think there is a plan to remove any of them anytime soon. But plans change, the industry changes - hell, I've watched the executive structure at Netflix change so many times since I got there I don't even recognize the company anymore.
The point is things change, and each of those titles - should they be removed from the service for any reason - are not available anywhere else. If that day comes - if Netflix's servers are destroyed, if a meteor hits the building, if they are bought out by a competitor and their library is liquidated - I don't know what the circumstances might be, I just know that if that day comes, some of the work that means the most to me in the world would be entirely erased.
Or, what if we aren't so catastrophic in our thinking? What if it the change isn't so total? What if Netflix simply bumps into an issue with the license they paid for music (like the Neil Diamond songs that play such a crucial role in Midnight Mass), and decide to leave the show up but replace the songs?
This has happened before as well - fans of Northern Exposure can get the show on DVD and blu-ray, but the music they heard when the series aired has been replaced due to the licensing issues. And the replacements - chosen for their low cost, not for creative reasons - are not improvements. What if the shows are just changed, and not by creatives, but by business affairs executives?
All to say that physical media is critically important. Having redundancy in the marketplace is critically important. The more platforms a piece of work is available on, the more likely it is to survive and grow its audience. At this point, if a studio refuses to make them available, I am fully on board with any means that protect and archive the work, and to make the work available to an audience outside of that platform's exclusive base.
As I said, things change - my overall deal at Netflix ran its course, and I'm now at Amazon, who have a somewhat different perspective on physical media. Their business model is not built entirely on subscribers; far from it. I'm hoping very much that the work I create with them will meet a different fate, and be supported in a different manner.
As for Netflix, I hope sincerely that their thinking on this matter evolves, and that they value the content they spend so much money creating enough to protect it for posterity. That's up to them, it's their studio, it's their rules. But I like to think they may see that light eventually, and realize that exclusivity in a certain window is very cool... but exclusivity in perpetuity limits the audience and endangers the work.
All to say that if you decide to cancel your Netflix subscription, that's entirely your choice - I'm not here telling you to cancel it, or to keep it, for that matter. On that point, I am utterly agnostic.
But I will say that if you do cancel it, I am profoundly grateful that my work is available somewhere else. And if you take advantage of that, that is absolutely, positively, unequivocally fine with me.
I googled it once and the only reason why the Great Lakes aren’t called inland seas is because they are entirely freshwater, not salt.
By any other metric they’d be seas. Superior especially (the big one in the upper left) behaves like a small ocean, and has claimed at least 250 ships and over 1000 people. Gordon Lightfoot wrote a frankly chilling song about her that I’ll include here:
I remember when 2D faded out, the reason studios kept giving was "it's because 2D is a lot more expensive to produce". I was a child back then so I didn't think too much about it, assuming it was about the process itself, but as I grew up and learned more about art as an artist, and gained friends who were professional 3D artists themselves, I started to question it. Because 3D is very different from 2D, but it's definitely not easier or faster to make. Also, both European and Asian studios kept producing 2D animated movies
The answer was unions. The answer wasn't "this kind of art is cheaper because it's easier to make", it was "this kind of art is cheaper because these artists can't force us to pay them correctly"
Wild parrots tend to fly in flocks, but when kept as single pets, they may become lonely and bored
Once the birds had learned how to initiate video interactions, the second phase of the experiment could begin. In this “open call” period, the 15 participating birds could make calls freely; they also got to choose which bird to dial up. Over the next two months, pet parrots made 147 deliberate video calls to other birds. Their owners took detailed notes about the calls and recorded more than 1,000 hours of video footage that the researchers analyzed.
[ id: screenshot from the linked article: "Two weak, older macaws, for example, became very close and even called out to one another "Hi! Come here! Hello!" from their respective screens" followed by a fucked up crying emoji man. /end id ]
I’m 33 and American. This myth is so widespread here I didn’t know the truth until I was TWENTY-NINE. I was literally taught something similar IN COLLEGE—that the Puritans were so reactionary in America as a result of what happened to them in England. And this was in a class about the history of witchcraft accusations and the Salem witch trials. Like, we were taught that they were horrible HERE, but the narrative was still that they faced injustice in England.
This wasn’t a stupid teacher, either. She had her first doctorate and was pursuing a second. Basically everything else I learned in that class checks out. The myth just runs THAT DEEP.
humans will see a soft cellulose plant material or downy animal coat and say is anyone going to twist that staple fibre in order to make a cohesive thread and then not wait for an answer
Seriously, spinning as a craft is ancient. Archaeologists recently discovered three-ply fiber that’s around 46,000 years old, blowing the previous “oldest fingers” out of the water by thousands of years.
But get this: It’s made from fucking TREE BARK. Can you imagine the dedication, foresight, and experimentation involved in figuring out how to harvest and spin that? On top of everything, it’s also lace weight. What the fuck, Neanderthals?
it’s very cool that neanderthals managed to get yarn out of bark fiber, but i think you might be under the impression that all tree bark is like, oak, or sycamore, or something, and only exists in ‘thick chunk of wood’ or ‘flake of wood’ form. but there’s lots of bark like elm and cedar that peels away from the tree in long, tough strips, like so:
like, look at it. it’s string. it’s obviously string. you don’t actually have to be a genius to look at this and think ‘ah! string time :)’
i’ve picked up shed pieces of elm bark on a golf course, stripped and combed out the fiber with just my fingernails, and started hand-twisting good strong cordage right then and there as i walked. you don’t even have to soak it first, though i think if you want finer/softer cordage it helps to soak, beat, and comb the fibers.
the people of the pacific northwest, where there’s so many cedars, developed really wonderful textiles out of cedar bark fiber, pounding and soaking and combing it a bit like linen. i’ve never gotten to touch any, though i’d really like to.
Many plant fibers can be used to make cordage. Here I'll demonstrate how to process different kinds of plant fibers from the inner bark of t
here’s a whole page on all the different stems and barks that can be used for cordage! how cool is that?
so, not to denigrate the skill and intelligence of ancient people, but if you already know how to hand-spin grass and hair, then spinning bark is an extremely obvious and easy thing to do as soon as you encounter the right kind of bark.
Not allowing people to say ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ on your app? I thought ‘woke capital’ was going to subvert worker efforts and such a thing even substantially exists!! Huh!!!!
This is the same company that offer to support Pride ONLY is they could put their mark on everything and change the name to Pride bring to you for Amazon
Pointing out silly and dubiously useful effective altruist projects and orgs (of which there are plenty) can kind of obscure just how low the bar is in American philanthropy. For comparison, 41 of the 100 most donated charities in the US in 2018 were colleges/universities, and No. 2 on the list is the much-reviled Salvation Army
Deworming initiatives probably do not provide the economic boosts that 1 paper touted and it is not great givewell still highlights them despite this but handing out anti-parasite pills is on the margin almost certainly a better use of yr money than further lining Harvards pockets (no. 4!!), which for that matter is essentially as much funding a playground for the rich as any of the embarrassing stories about longtermist orgs writing effectively blank checks to transhumanist techies they think are cool. Don’t make the competition out to be stiffer than it is!
In conclusion, consider sending direct cash transfers to the worlds poorest today with GiveDirectly!
GiveDirectly allows donors to send money directly to people in poverty with no strings attached. Our approach is guided by rigorous evidence
andulkaphoto
prguitarman
titsay
stormborns
jbbartram-illu
jacobvanloon
blakekathryn
