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- How "The Pitt" Keeps Viewers Engaged
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How The Pitt Keeps Viewers Engaged
Last year I wrote a bit about The Pitt, HBO Max’s mega-hit hospital procedural that has achieved ratings success by the mysterious alchemy of… replicating successful TV releases of the past. As Vulture amusingly described at the time:
As satisfied as Max execs are to have launched a new hit show, the success so far of The Pitt also validates the somewhat risky decision to take a chance on a linear network-style procedural — something which, until recently, the conventional wisdom held wouldn’t work in streaming. Execs were so hyperfocused on finding “noisy” shows and concepts that could get people to become subscribers, they didn’t also try to find shows that could keep audiences watching — or, in industry parlance, “engaged” — for months at a time.
That’s right, our galaxy-brained streaming execs had decided a “linear network-style procedural” was “risky,” despite these very types of shows continuing to draw large audiences. It is to my ongoing amusement/frustration that the people running our business are so focused on disruption they are constantly shocked and surprised by “business model that worked in the past can also work in the present.” I guess you need an MBA to understand why that’s confusing!
Anyway, The Pitt is so popular that it has even generated its own toxic fandom, always the marker of a show that’s truly broken through. One thing I’ve been impressed by while watching the show is how engaging it is, time blows by quickly and I never look at my phone. Turns out, that’s very intentional, as this (spoiler-filled) GQ interview with Pitt star and executive producer Noah Wyle describes:
“It’s a couple of things that work beautifully in concert. First: no music. Audiences are so sophisticated, but what they’re not accustomed to is not being told how to feel,” Wyle says. “You take all that out and it forces a level of engagement where you’re now looking for clues within the frame of the screen, which forces you to look up from your phone. And I think that is extremely engaging, especially to young viewers who aren’t accustomed to being asked to participate in a nonpassive way in the viewing experience.
“Second point, shooting it with almost exclusively 50-millimeter or 65-millimeter lenses, which is the most comparable to the human eye—and only shooting from the point of view of a human being that’s present in this space. There are no cameras on gurney wheels going in the hallway. There’s no cameras on the ceiling looking down from a God point of view. You are limited to the perspective of a participant. You can look away, but you can’t leave, and it becomes an endurance test for you to stay on your feet as long as we’re on our feet. Which [brings me to my] third point: real time. Real time has an aggregate sense of tension that you don’t get in any other form of storytelling. What happened before is happening now, and these two things are going to add up to the next thing. And if we throw more ingredients into this cooker and keep ratcheting it up, it’s going to pop.”
I love how a show that is a sort of traditional procedural can also be innovative in the ways it engages the viewer. No wonder I tuned in every week!
“Tilly Norwood” Goes Back to School
Sometimes I complain about “Tilly Norwood” stories in the trades and readers will email me and say “But Steve! Aren’t you contributing to the problem by also writing about this so often?”
Good question! I try to couch all of my Tilly Norwood writing as media criticism. There will always be grifters in entertainment. I respect the hustle! When I first moved to LA I called myself a “music video director” because I had recorded home videos of myself lip-synching to Soundgarden songs in the mid-90s. I still know all the lyrics to “Pretty Noose”! The problem is our industry trades seemingly abandoning all cynicism and giving frankly shocking amounts of news hole over to the promotion of an “AI actress” who has never done any acting.
So: it gives me great pleasure to highlight this Deadline article “Tilly Norwood Sparks AI Outcry At Duffer Brothers’ Former Film School” which despite its clickbait title (and who am I to judge that) does not utilize the preferred framing of Tilly Norwood’s parent company Xicoia that Tilly is a sentient being of some kind. Instead:
The so-called “AI actress” may be little more than a piece of provocative marketing, but her presence has become a vector for existential handwringing about AI in the entertainment business. And she was not welcome on college campus. When Dodge promoted her talk on Instagram earlier this month, the post attracted nearly 1,300 comments, many of which were written by disquieted Dodge students and alumni.
You know what, hell yes Deadline! “A piece of provocative marketing” is a perfect way to describe Ms. Norwood.
I encourage everyone to click through and read the entire piece, the film students at Chapman University have a much clearer view of AI than seemingly anyone in power in Hollywood:
“Gross and irresponsible,” was the take of one commenter. “When is Dodge gonna learn we don’t want AI slop,” another added. “Do better,” chimed a third student. Norwood has been created to revel in this kind of backlash (you can find her happily s**t posting on Instagram despite her creator saying she’ll never replace humans), but for the students of Dodge, her arrival signalled something deeper about their place of education and its growing embrace of artificial intelligence.
Kernels (3 links worth making popcorn for)
Here’s a round-up of cool and interesting links about Hollywood and technology:
Netflix’s big bet on Korean dramas. (link)
Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s forgotten AI summit. (link)
Writing advice from Project Hail Mary’s Andy Weir. (link)