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      In the Shadow of Nollywood, Filmmakers Examine Boko Haram

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      “The Milkmaid” and other African productions are putting extremism under the microscope and drawing diaspora audiences in the process.In the moving Nigerian drama “The Milkmaid,” Aisha and Zainab are Fulani sisters taken hostage by Boko Haram insurgents, the extremist group that in 2014 kidnapped more than 250 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok. With sweeping landscapes shot in Taraba State in the northeastern part of the country, the film, written and directed by Desmond Ovbiagele, deftly tells a story both hopeful in the possibility of reconciliation and harrowing in the journey to get there.The film is the latest entry in a growing body of African cinema focused on the grim toll exacted by the terrorists of Boko Haram. In addition to “The Milkmaid,” there’s Netflix’s “The Delivery Boy”; “Stolen Daughters: Kidnapped by Boko Haram” on HBO; and “Daughters of Chibok,” a documentary short that won Best VR Immersive Story at the Venice Film Festival in 2019. Each has examined the magnitude of violence the extremist faction has inflicted on northern parts of Africa’s most populous country and the neighboring countries of Niger and Cameroon.When Nigeria’s film regulatory board recommended that 25 minutes of footage be cut from “The Milkmaid” and then curtailed showings in theaters there in the fall, the producers and director sought to cultivate audiences in Zimbabwe and Cameroon; the drama eventually earned the prize for best film in an African language (the story is told entirely in Hausa, Fulani and Arabic) at the 2020 African Movie Academy Awards. It was also Nigeria’s selection for the international feature Oscar, though the movie did not make the final cut.Despite the censorship and truncated distribution, however, “The Milkmaid” and other movies in this emerging genre have found a diasporic audience abroad.“‘The Milkmaid’ is anchored to a certain social discourse we’re seeing unfold currently,” said Mahen Bonetti, founder of the New York African Film Festival, which chose the drama as the opening selection last month for its 2021 edition. “We’re seeing a rise of extremism and religious fanaticism, particularly amongst youth, and witnessing the disintegration of families and bonds that once held communities together. And young filmmakers are being brave and telling these stories.”The amplification of these stories, namely those of Boko Haram’s female victims, was especially important to Ovbiagele, who also produced “The Milkmaid” over the course of three years.“I felt we didn’t hear enough from the victims of insurgency and who they really were,” Ovbiagele said in an interview by phone from Lagos. “They’re not always educated” like the Chibok schoolgirls, he added, and “most don’t get international attention. But despite that, their stories deserved to be heard too.”Kalunta, front, and Maryam Booth as sisters captured by Boko Haram.The Milkmaid/Danono MediaAnd so, Ovbiagele sought to recreate the plight of Boko Haram victims the best way he knew how as someone with little intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the organization. After a community of survivors from northern Borno State relocated near his home in Lagos, he spent months gathering first-person accounts from survivors — women and girls who were piecing their lives together, he said, and making sense of their new realities as orphans, widows and victims of sexual assault. He also asked local nongovernmental organizations who were working with Boko Haram victims to properly assess the challenges faced by the survivors.In “The Milkmaid,” the young title character, Aisha (Anthonieta Kalunta), is captured, along with her sister, Zainab (Maryam Booth), by Boko Haram insurgents who turn the women into servants — and soldiers’ wives — in a terrorist camp. Aisha is able to escape but eventually returns to the settlement to find Zainab, hardened and indoctrinated with zealous devotion, now enlisting female volunteers for suicide missions.But creating a movie in Nollywood — the nickname for Nigeria’s thriving movie industry — is not without challenges. Certain elements of producing a full-length film — financing, endless paperwork and audience building — would be familiar to filmmakers everywhere. But making a serious drama about Islamic fanaticism — in a country where roughly half the residents are Muslim and where recent instances of religious terrorism have gained unwelcome global attention — makes such a task especially daunting. And driven to make a movie that appealed to a larger international audience accustomed to sleek, big-budget Hollywood productions, Ovbiagele reasoned that “The Milkmaid” wasn’t a Nollywood production but rather its own form of cinema in Nigeria.The Nigerian movie business has its origins in local markets, where storytellers on limited budgets readily met the sensibilities of local viewers. Eager to generate profits and offset rampant piracy, filmmakers would quickly churn out full-length, shoddy productions.However, the sometimes hackneyed movies served a purpose, explained Dr. Ikechukwu Obiaya, who, as the director of the Nollywood Studies Center at Pan Atlantic University in Lagos, studies movie productions. Nollywood has always been “a chronicler of social history,” he said, paraphrasing the Nigerian film scholar Jonathan Haynes. Obiaya added, “During Nollywood’s early years, often something that happened one week would be depicted in a Nollywood film available at the local market the next.” And the industry has made movies about Boko Haram. But productions like “The Milkmaid” have “shown greater creative growth in the industry as a whole and in turn, demonstrated a greater interest from the rest of the world in Nigerian stories.”Ultimately, Ovbiagele wants to continue making films he feels passionately about and hopes the film will impart a lasting impression on viewers. “I hope audiences will leave with a deeper insight into experiences and motivations of both the victims and the perpetrators of terrorist organizations and specifically the resilience and resourcefulness of the survivors.” More

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      How Chinese Dramas Helped Me Build a Relationship With My Sister

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyLetter of RecommendationHow Chinese Dramas Helped Me Build a Relationship With My SisterAfter our mom died, I turned to her beloved pastime for comfort. It opened up a new way to communicate with my family.Credit…Illustration by Joey YuMarch 16, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETWhen I tell people my sister is 14 months older than me, some marvel at how close we must be. Others joke that my parents got busy fast. The joke is true, but my sister and I have never been close. We couldn’t be more different. I’m louder, taller and blunter. She’s quieter, shorter and sweeter. When we were young, I barreled through Michigan forests on my bike while she buried her head in Nancy Drew books. Because my sister was more obedient and a better student than I was, I perceived that she was the favored child. While my sister and I have always gotten along, our relationship bears the tension of that childhood dynamic. For years we weren’t especially friendly and spoke only when necessary. Twelve years ago, our father had a stroke and suffered from aphasia. Around the same time, our mother found out she had pulmonary fibrosis. My relationship with my sister soon worsened. Because I lived closer to my parents, I managed all the day-to-day caretaking; from afar, my sister lobbed suggestions that felt like criticisms. After our mother died in 2015, it was hard to imagine that our relationship could ever improve. When the pandemic descended, I turned to Chinese dramas to ease my anxiety. That felt natural: My mother also loved watching dramas. When I was young, she and her friends would share entire VHS tape sets of shows sent from Taiwan. Before my mother died, she was constantly hunched over her laptop, mesmerized by her favorite shows. Perhaps these dramas were a form of escape, her only connection to her childhood in China and Taiwan. Without my realizing it, Chinese TV — which dates back to 1958 — had become an enormous export over the past decade. One research firm estimated in 2019 that over half the world’s new TV dramas were now coming from China. China is the second-largest market for TV programming after the U.S., and Netflix has been ramping up production of Asian dramas because of booming demand. Apps such as Rakuten Viki and iQiyi have been feeding this bottomless appetite, with the subscription base of Rakuten Viki growing by more than 80 percent since the pandemic began. While Asians are often relegated to bit and stock roles in American television, these shows put Asians at the heart of the action. I started with one of the most popular dramas. “The Story of Yanxi Palace” takes place during the 18th century in Beijing and tells the story of Wei Yingluo, a palace maid who enters the Forbidden City to investigate her older sister’s death. Along the way, she falls in love with Fuheng, a palace guard, becomes a concubine of the emperor and gets entangled in all the deceit and machinations of palace life. Within two weeks I watched 70 episodes.Funny as it might seem, what moved me most was the simple fact of seeing an entire cast speaking Mandarin. I grew up in a mostly white town where survival meant assimilation. Whiteness came to organize my consciousness, as it has for large swaths of the world. After all, American culture and Hollywood have long been the lingua franca of global entertainment. I began to understand why Asian dramas are so popular: While Asians are often relegated to bit and stock roles in American television, these shows put Asians at the heart of the action, participating in the full spectrum of human drama. All the while, as I watched “Yanxi Palace,” I found myself missing my mother more than ever. One day, I decided to text my sister what I might have normally told my mother — that she had to watch this show. At that point, my sister and I only texted once every few months, usually to discuss our father’s caretaking. Maybe she was feeling a sense of loss, too: Surprisingly, she began to watch along with me. Soon we were live-texting as we watched, and I marveled at the ornate costumes, detailed settings and nuanced performances that graced the show. Our appetite grew until we were consuming other dramas, like the hit “Go Ahead,” an exceedingly heartwarming story about three children from unstable households who come together and form a new kind of family. The more dramas we watched, the more involved our conversations became. We wondered what it would be like to grow up in China with Chinese people like us.Over the past year, my sister and I have watched so many Chinese dramas together that I’ve lost count. At the end of a day spent teaching via Zoom, we’ll fire off texts to each other, trying to understand a bizarre plot point: Did that kiss really happen, or was it a dream? Or I might confess that one of my favorite actors is the 21-year-old heartthrob Song Weilong in “Go Ahead.” Recently, to my chagrin, we figured out that his parents are the same age as us. We laughed. It has been a long year of repeated losses for us all, but amid these losses, I’ve gained a sister. I never could have imagined how my mother’s absence would lead me to yearn for my Chinese roots; how Chinese dramas could fill that void; or how dramas would help me build a new relationship with my sister — a chance to make up for lost time. As I search for something new to watch with my sister, it dawns on me: Our mom would have loved watching these shows with us too.Victoria Chang is a writer living in Los Angeles. Her latest book of poems, “Obit” (Copper Canyon Press), was longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award in Poetry.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Netflix Tests a Clampdown on Password Sharing

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNetflix Tests a Clampdown on Password SharingThe company said a feature was being tested with a limited number of users, a move that might signal a broader crackdown on the common practice of password sharing among family and friends.Netflix has been asking some users of the popular streaming service to verify that they live with the holder of the account.Credit…Jenny Kane/Associated PressMarch 14, 2021Updated 11:43 a.m. ETWant to watch “The Queen’s Gambit” or “Lupin”? If you’ve been borrowing a Netflix password from a family member or friend, you may now have to pay up.Netflix has started testing a feature that could prod users who are borrowing a password from someone outside their household to buy a subscription.The company said the feature was being tested with a limited number of users. It may signal a broader clampdown on the common practice of sharing passwords among relatives and friends to avoid paying for the popular streaming service.“The test is designed to help ensure that people using Netflix accounts are authorized to do so,” the company said in a statement.Some users began to notice the feature recently when they logged onto a shared Netflix account and saw a message on their screen that read, “If you don’t live with the owner of this account, you need your own account to keep watching.”To continue watching, these users were asked to either verify that it was their account by entering a code that was sent to them by text or email, or join with their own account to Netflix. They also had the option to complete the verification process later.A basic Netflix subscription, which allows customers to watch on one screen at a time, costs $8.99 a month. Customers who pay more can watch on additional screens simultaneously.Netflix declined to discuss its new feature, previously reported by The Streamable, an industry news site, in detail. But industry analysts said it might be part of an effort to enforce Netflix’s frequently overlooked terms of use, which state that its service and content “are for your personal and noncommercial use only and may not be shared with individuals beyond your household.”The test also appears to be more of a nudge to buy a subscription than an iron-fisted crackdown. For example, someone who was borrowing a password from a friend or family member could ask for the verification code that had been sent by Netflix.“I’m not convinced this is an all-out assault,” said Michael D. Smith, a professor of information technology and marketing at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “It could be a warning shot over the bow of some pirates.”But, he said, merely reminding people that password sharing is not allowed could persuade some people to buy subscriptions, rather than continue to use the ones that are paid for by their friends or relatives.“Even minor signals that piracy isn’t acceptable could change people’s behavior,” he said.The test comes as Netflix viewership has drastically risen during the coronavirus pandemic.The company said in January that it had added 8.5 million customers in the fourth quarter, for a total of 203.6 million paying subscribers by the end of 2020. The company has about 66 million customers in the United States and anticipated adding six million total subscribers in the first three months of this year.Netflix had earlier hinted that it was looking at ways to stop password sharing. Gregory K. Peters, the company’s chief product officer, said during a call to review the company’s earnings in October 2019 that Netflix was “looking at the situation.”“We’ll see, again, those consumer-friendly ways to push on the edges of that,” Mr. Peters said, adding that the company had “no big plans to announce at this point.”Professor Smith said the company clearly loses a significant amount of revenue through people using the service but not paying for it.“Sharing your password is piracy, and it could be costing Netflix a good deal of money if people who would otherwise subscribe are using their friends’ passwords, so that’s no doubt a problem,” he said. “The real challenge for them is finding who the password sharers and who the legitimate accounts are.”Beyond the business concerns, requiring users to enter a code that is texted or emailed could also have security benefits, said Lorrie Faith Cranor, a professor of computer science and engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon.Hackers could in theory change the settings of a customer’s Netflix account and start charging the person more, she said. They could also gain access to information that could help them break into other accounts, especially if the customer uses the same password for multiple accounts. “That’s a very common thing,” she said.But requiring a user to enter a code that is sent via text or email — a process known as two-factor authentication that is used by many social media and banking apps — makes it harder for attackers to break in.“I’m not sure it’s a huge benefit,” Professor Cranor said, “but there is some benefit.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The Swag Must Go On: Hollywood’s Pandemic Oscar Campaign

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonOscar Nomination PredictionsOscars Dos and Don’tsOscars DiversityDirectors Guild NominationsBAFTA NominationsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Swag Must Go On: Hollywood’s Pandemic Oscar Campaign“There is a why-are-we-even-doing-this feeling,” one industry insider said of jockeying for nominations, to be announced on Monday.Billboards like this one in Los Angeles are recommending films for Oscars as usual, but Hollywood is feeling its way through other promotions.Credit…Tag Christof for The New York TimesBrooks Barnes and March 14, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETLOS ANGELES — As a potential Oscar nominee for film editing, William Goldenberg should be feeling dizzy right about now. So many tastemaker cocktail parties to attend. So many panel discussions to participate in.So much flesh to press.Instead, his tuxedo has been gathering dust. Mr. Goldenberg, who stitched together the Tom Hanks western “News of the World,” has participated in get-out-the-vote screenings on Zoom, and that’s about it. During afternoon walks with his dog, a handful of neighbors have called out from windows and driveways to say they liked the film. Mr. Goldenberg, an Oscar winner in 2013 for “Argo,” described those impromptu encounters as “really fun.”Such is life on Hollywood’s virtual awards scene, where the pandemic has vaporized the froth (Champagne toasts! Standing ovations! Red-carpet reunions!) and created an atmosphere more akin to a dirge. There is a dearth of buzz because people aren’t congregating. Screenings and voter-focused Q. and A. sessions have moved online, adding to existential worries about the future of cinema in the streaming age.And some film insiders are privately asking an uncomfortable question: How do you tastefully campaign for trophies when more than 1,000 Americans a day are still dying from the coronavirus?Oscar nominations will be announced on Monday, but almost none of the movies in the running have even played in theaters, with entire multiplex chains struggling to stay afloat. “In terms of campaigning, there is a why-are-we-even-doing-this feeling,” said Matthew Belloni, a former editor of The Hollywood Reporter and co-host of “The Business,” an entertainment industry podcast.Ever since Harvey Weinstein turned Oscar electioneering into a blood sport in the 1990s, the three-month period leading up to the Academy Awards has been a surreal time in the movie capital, with film distributors only ever seeming to push harder — and spend more — in pursuit of golden statuettes. In 2019, for instance, Netflix popped eyeballs by laying out an estimated $30 million to evangelize for “Roma,” a film that cost only $15 million to make.But it’s not as easy to influence voters and create awards momentum during a pandemic. Roughly 9,100 film professionals worldwide are eligible to vote for Oscars. All are members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which has nine pages of regulations that campaigners must follow. Film companies, for instance, “may not send a member more than one email and one hard-copy mailing” per week. Telephone lobbying is forbidden.The 93rd Academy Awards will take place on April 25, pushed back by two months because of the pandemic.Calling off the campaigns is not an option for Hollywood, where jockeying for awards has become an industry unto itself. Stars and their agents (and publicists) also pay keen attention to campaign parity: Hey, Netflix, if you are going to back up the Brink’s trucks to barnstorm for “Mank,” you’d better do it for us, too.“There are so many egos to serve,” said Sasha Stone, who runs AwardsDaily, an entertainment honors site.Contenders, wary of tone-deaf missteps, have been feeling their way.Sacha Baron Cohen, for one, has been openly mocking the process, even as he has participated in Zoom events to support “The Trial of the Chicago 7” (Netflix) and “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” (Amazon). Asked by phone how the virtual campaign trail was going, he quipped, “I imagine it’s much better than being on an actual one.”At least no one has pushed him to break into song, he said, recounting how, in 2013, he was asked to belt out a number from “Les Miserables” at a campaign stop. (He declined.)At times, however, Mr. Cohen has been willing to play along. In a skit on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” this month, he pretended to be moonlighting as a black-market vaccine procurer for desperate celebrities. “It seems like you should be focused on your Oscar campaign,” Mr. Kimmel said at one point. Mr. Cohen responded dryly, “This is my Oscar campaign.”There is business logic to the seasonal insanity. The spotlight generates interest from the news media, potentially increasing viewership. For streaming services like Amazon, Hulu, Apple TV+ and Netflix, awards bring legitimacy and a greater ability to compete for top filmmakers.“The business benefit is that we will win deals that we wouldn’t have otherwise,” Reed Hastings, Netflix’s chief executive, told analysts on a conference call last year.Because in-person events have been scuttled this time around, less money has been flowing into the Oscar race.“In a good year, the awards season represents 40 percent of our annual business,” said Toni Kilicoglu, the chief executive of Red Carpet Systems. “And it’s gone. Just gone.” Last year, Red Carpet Systems handled more than 125 awards-season events, including Golden Globes parties and the SAG Awards.Caterers, chauffeurs, florists and D.J.s have also suffered major losses. All after a year when more than 36,000 motion picture and sound-recording jobs were lost in Los Angeles County, according to a county report that was released last month.At the same time, studios and streaming services are still spending heavily on “for your consideration” spreads in trade publications. For $80,000 to $90,000, for instance, campaigners can cover Variety’s cover with voter-focused ads. Hulu recently promoted “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” that way. (“For your consideration in all categories including BEST PICTURE.”) Netflix and Amazon have given films like “Da 5 Bloods” and “One Night in Miami” similar treatment.“It has been a huge, really strong season for us,” said Sharon Waxman, the founder and chief executive of The Wrap, a Hollywood news site. The Wrap hosted 40 virtual awards-oriented screenings in January, underwritten by film companies.“We have another whole round on the way,” Ms. Waxman said.The price for events can be steep. A virtual panel discussion, hosted by Vanity Fair or The Hollywood Reporter, costs around $30,000, the same as last year, when receptions accompanied the events. Studios normally pay $15,000 to $25,000 for a table of eight at the Critics Choice Awards, an additional opportunity to solidify a film’s place in the awards conversation. This year, each guest was charged $5,000 for a “virtual seat,” which some saw as an exorbitant price for a square on a computer screen. (Joey Berlin, chief operating officer of the Critics Choice Association, said it was needed to produce a three-hour TV special and come out even.)With fewer people out on the roads, the billboards don’t appear to be hitting the eyes of as many Oscar voters this year.Credit…Tag Christof for The New York TimesAnd don’t forget the for-your-consideration billboards. One eight-block stretch of Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles has nine of them, with Netflix pushing “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and Warner Bros. extolling “Judas and the Black Messiah.”Those blocks are typically brimming with voters; Paramount Pictures is there, as is Raleigh Studios, where Netflix rents production space. With most people in Los Angeles still holed up at home, however, the thoroughfare was eerily quiet last Monday at 5:30 p.m. Actual crickets were chirping at Paramount’s closed Bronson Gate, which bore a sign reading, “Per government direction, access to the studio is now restricted.”Comical at best, absurd at worst?“The public must be so confused,” Ms. Stone said.None of the studios or streaming services angling for awards would comment for this article. Campaigning, while commonplace, remains a taboo subject. No film company wants to look as if it is trying to manipulate voters.It is easy to understand where they are coming from, though.“Like a political campaign, you have to crest at the right moment,” said Paul Hardart, director of the entertainment, media and technology program at New York University’s Stern School of Business. “You need the maximum exposure at that time. And that’s a hard thing to do. How do you become top of mind at the right time?”So the swag must go on.As part of its promotional effort for “Nomadland,” about an impoverished van dweller, Searchlight Pictures sent a bound copy of the screenplay to awards voters. The Hollywood press corps received “Nomadland” wine glasses, a “Nomadland” license plate, “Nomadland” keychains, a “Nomadland” T-shirt and a 5-by-2-foot “Nomadland” windshield sunshade.To celebrate the film’s Feb. 18 virtual premiere, Searchlight teamed with local small businesses to have a “curated concessions crate” delivered to the homes of invitees. It included artisanal beef jerky, wild berry jam, oranges, pears, dried apricots, dill pickle slices, banana bread, salami (“humanely raised”) and a canister of chocolates.Still, it is hard for publicists to know if such buzz-building efforts are working. They don’t know what academy members are talking about with one another because academy members aren’t talking to one another.“People are relying more on what the critics are saying than what their friends are saying, because people aren’t congregating,” Mr. Goldenberg, the “News of the World” editor, said.On the bright side, the pandemic has made it easier for studios and streaming services to attract voters to awards-oriented screenings, which are followed by Q. and A. sessions focused on various specialties: art design, editing, song composing.In years past, when attendance obstacles included Los Angeles traffic, filling the 468-seat Writers Guild Theater for such an event involved sending out more than 5,000 invitations. Similar events — held virtually — have recently had a higher turnout rate: 1,000 invitations might yield 200 attendees, most of whom even stick around for the post-screening discussion, organizers said.Campaigners have been generating interest with celebrity moderators. Oprah Winfrey interviewed Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”) at one. Former President Barack Obama participated in a chat to support the A24/Apple documentary “Boys State.”Netflix paired Amanda Seyfried (“Mank”) with Cher. It may not sound like an intuitive coupling, but even if you weren’t terribly interested in “Mank,” wouldn’t you tune in just to get a peek into Cher’s living room?AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Subway Product Placement Makes It a Star of Korean TV

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyKorean TV’s Unlikely Star: Subway SandwichesThe sandwich chain’s aggressive use of product placement has made it a ubiquitous presence on the country’s television shows.Subway has appeared in at least 17 Korean shows, according to an informal tally by The New York Times.March 14, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETIn an episode of the Korean television show “The K2,” which takes place in a world of fugitives and bodyguards, a man is being treated with a defibrillator when he enters into a dream state. On the fringe of death, he recalls taking a past love to a Subway restaurant and to a park for a picnic, where he gently feeds her a sandwich and soft drink with the Subway logo facing the camera.The detail is not a narrative quirk. It is a result of South Korea’s broadcasting regulations and the aggressive use of product placement in the country’s shows by Subway, the American sandwich chain famous for its $5 foot-longs.“People joke, ‘If I had a drink every time Subway popped up, I’d be drunk before the first half is over,’” said Jae-Ha Kim, a journalist in Chicago who reviews Korean dramas. “Everyone here’s like, ‘I never got a Subway sandwich that looked that good, with that much meat.’”Product placement in TV shows is a reality the world over. But South Korea’s terrestrial stations are prevented from inserting commercial breaks during programming, meaning many Korean companies must be creative about getting their wares in front of viewers. As Korean dramas have become more popular with international audiences, global brands have pushed to be part of the action.And no company has pushed harder than Subway, which has grown into the world’s largest fast-food chain by store count since its founding in 1965 in Bridgeport, Conn.Colin Clark, the country director for Subway in South Korea, said product placements in popular dramas like “Descendants of the Sun” had a positive impact on global sales, specifically citing markets in China, Taiwan and Singapore.“I swear to you, it was a difference between night and day — before the product placement and after the product placement — the effect it had on the customers,” said Mr. Clark, who declined to provide specific sales figures.Subway’s country director in South Korea credits product placement in Korean dramas with a positive impact on global sales.Credit…Jean Chung for The New York TimesSubway did not provide a total of how many Korean dramas its products had appeared in, but an informal tally by The New York Times counted appearances on 17 shows. That can add up to a lot of people seeing the company’s cold cuts. Netflix, with over 203 million worldwide members, has become a leading portal for Korean dramas. When the highly anticipated Korean drama “Sweet Home” was released on Netflix in December, 22 million viewers watched the show in its first month.By sleekly presenting its products on Korean dramas as a harbinger of cool, Subway is also presenting a fresh image to American viewers who are increasingly watching the shows.Recently, the company has faced scrutiny of its bread, which an Irish court ruled is not bread, and its tuna, which a lawsuit claimed is “anything but tuna.”But on TV, pristinely clean Subway shops pop with bright colors serve as the setting for business meetings, social gossip and dates for beautiful couples. Instead of cookies and tea, elderly Korean TV characters keep freshly wrapped Subway sandwiches at the ready — you never can know when an unexpected guest will drop by and crave an Italian sub.On the popular Korean drama “Crash Landing on You,” North Korean soldiers and a South Korean businesswoman find common ground through Subway sandwiches.Product placement in Korean shows began in earnest in 2010, when South Korea’s stringent broadcasting laws eased restrictions on the practice in an effort to increase network revenues and promote Korean goods. In 2018, South Korea’s networks sold $114 million worth of product placement, up 15 percent from the previous year, according to Soobum Lee, a mass communication professor at Incheon National University.Shows collect an average of about $900,000 from product placements, although 2016’s “Descendants of the Sun” sold triple that amount, Mr. Lee said. It was also criticized by some viewers for excessive product placement.Other American companies, like Papa John’s Pizza, have used product placements in Korean dramas, but none are as ubiquitous as Subway.Ms. Kim said these kinds of shoehorned ads had become popular topics of discussion online, with some fans claiming they disrupt plots and threatening to stop watching altogether.She pointed to criticism of the show “Guardian: The Lonely and Great God” (also known as “Goblin”) and a scene where it’s inferred that the protagonist prevents a man from committing suicide; in an effort to cheer him up, the suicidal man is handed a Subway sandwich. Subway is also celebrated in death; in another episode, the Grim Reaper is shown enjoying a meal from the chain.“I know in the U.S. people are sick of it,” Ms. Kim said of the product placement. “We’ve had Subway, we know it’s not good. Stop trying to make it seem good.”While American viewers may roll their eyes at Subway’s being portrayed as haute cuisine, Seung-Chul Yoo, a communications professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said product placement had been proved to work.Subway “tastes way better in South Korea,” said Seung-Chul Yoo, a communications professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.Credit…Jean Chung for The New York TimesWhen the actress Jun Ji-hyun wore red lipstick on the 2013 series “My Love From the Star,” similar products sold out in stores throughout Asia. Books featured on Korean dramas have become best sellers.Marja Vitti, who covers Korean television for the website Dramabeans, said some fans had watched dramas to spot new products from companies before they were released to the public.“I seem to notice a new Samsung feature in every drama,” Ms. Vitti said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, I guess we’re getting folding phones soon.’”Keeping up with trends, Subway has begun teasing new sandwiches on shows. In October, the company released its own mini-drama on YouTube, “Someway,” about a young woman who develops a crush on a Subway employee and regularly eats at his location to win his affection.Each episode begins with a character expressing fondness for a new sandwich variety, like one made with Altermeat, a meat substitute. The first episode of “Someway” has more than 1.3 million views.“There’s humor in the advertising we’re doing,” Subway’s Mr. Clark said. “As a brand, if you take yourself too seriously, you’re going to end up always getting into trouble.”Subway opened its first South Korea location in 1992. Now there are more than 430 Subways in the country, its second-largest footprint in Asia behind China.To continually appeal to its target demographic of 15- to 25-year-olds, Subway is also becoming more inventive with how it is presented. On the drama “Memories of the Alhambra,” gamers competing in an augmented reality game collected valuable swords and coins by going to Subway.In real life, newer restaurants with digital menu boards display the chain’s appearances on shows.Product placement “was a relatively cheap way to get us brand awareness,” said Mr. Clark, who has also overseen collaborations with the K-pop star Kang Daniel and a limited-edition Subway streetwear release with Fila. “It was something the other brands were doing, but weren’t really kind of owning that space the way Subway started doing.”Mr. Yoo said that in South Korea, Subway was generally viewed as a healthier option than burger chains, which added to its appeal. During the decade he lived in the United States he rarely ate at Subway, he said, but now he regularly enjoys its sandwiches in Seoul.“To be honest, it tastes way better in South Korea,” Mr. Yoo said.Brands like Subway will soon be able to do more traditional advertising on South Korean television. In January, the Korea Communications Commission announced plans to allow commercial breaks on terrestrial stations.Product placement is not likely to disappear, though.Mr. Clark said that terrestrial advertising was too expensive and that those stations didn’t reach Subway’s desired young customer base, who frequently stream episodes on their phones.Besides, the practice of product placement has already become a plot point.On the show “Because This Is My First Life,” the lead character dreams of becoming a television writer. When she lands a job in the industry, her assignment is to jam product placements into the scripts of popular Korean dramas.In Subway’s YouTube mini-drama, a young woman develops a crush on a Subway employee and regularly eats at his location to win his affection.Credit…Jean Chung for The New York TimesAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Harlan Coben, Suburban Dad With 75 Million Books in Print

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to ReadNew Books to Watch For This Month25 Book Review GreatsHow to Raise a ReaderListen: The Book Review PodcastAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHarlan Coben, Suburban Dad With 75 Million Books in PrintWith a 33rd novel on the way and deals with Netflix, Amazon and Apple, the prolific author writes in Ubers, at Stop & Shop and just about anywhere else he can.“Every book I write, I still say, each time, ‘This book sucks, and the one I did before was great. How did I lose it?’ And then five minutes later, I’m like, ‘This book is great!’” Harlan Coben said.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesMarch 10, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETRIDGEWOOD, N.J. — The thriller writer Harlan Coben has some free advice for anyone who cares to ask: “If it produces pages: good. If it doesn’t produce pages: bad.”With 32 published books and an estimated 75 million copies in print worldwide, he has produced many pages during the course of his career. His 33rd novel, “Win,” will be published by Grand Central on Tuesday. He recently added streaming media to his portfolio in the form of a 14-project deal with Netflix.For all his success, Coben, 59, remains as unfussy as his favorite writing tip. A 6-foot-4 former college basketball player with a Bic’d head and an oeuvre full of kidnapping, murder and narrative twists, he is also a menschy suburban dad who likes to talk about his four children and dotes on his two shaggy Havanese, Winslow and Laszlo, who trail him around his New Jersey house like eager little mops.“You meet him, and he’s really tall and maybe a little intimidating,” said his eldest daughter, Charlotte Coben. “But I’ll walk down the stairs, and he’ll be lying on the floor with the dogs around him going, ‘Who’s the cutest dog in the world? Who’s a puppy? Who’s a puppy?’”“Win,” the latest from Harlan Coben, is out on March 16.Harlan Coben met his wife, Anne Armstrong-Coben, when they were starting power forwards on their respective teams at Amherst College. (“She was better than I was,” he said.) They celebrated the 39th anniversary of their first kiss on Feb. 10.They married in 1988, and about a decade later moved to an old Victorian in Ridgewood. The gray and white home is accented with friendly touches of royal blue, but from the curb it still looks like it could be the set for a vintage horror movie. (When you Google “Victorian houses,” one of the related questions supplied by the algorithm is: “Why are Victorian houses so creepy?”) The house was maybe a little “on the nose” as a place for a mystery writer to live, he said, but he and his wife bought it anyway and have lived there ever since.Because Armstrong-Coben is a pediatrician — today, she is also a senior associate dean for admissions at Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University — before the pandemic, she had a daily commute. Coben stayed home, so he drove the kids to school, picked them up and took them wherever they needed to be.And in between, he would write.“I’m not great at writing in the house, though I’m better now,” Coben said in an interview last month, nearing the one-year anniversary of the Covid-19 shutdowns in the United States. “I would take them off to whatever school, and then I would find a coffee shop or a library or any weird place. I keep changing places. Most writers have a set routine, a set place. My routine is to not have a routine.”While one of his sons was in high school, Coben spent six months writing at a Stop & Shop deli counter with a coffee stand next to it. “I came home smelling like olive loaf,” he said, but the pages were good. For his book “The Stranger,” he spent three weeks taking Ubers everywhere he went because he found he was writing well in the back seat. He finished the book that way.“I like to ride a horse until the horse collapses, and then I look for another horse,” he said.Siobhan Finneran and Kadiff Kirwan in “The Stranger,” a Netflix series based on Coben’s 2015 novel.Credit…NetflixCoben starts each book with an idea, rather than a character, and by the time he sits down to write, he already has the ending in his head, a habit that he said allows him to plot out better surprises for the reader. He takes about nine months to write a novel, with the ending often pouring out of him because he has imagined it for so long. He said he wrote the last 40 pages of “Win” in a day.“At the end of a book, I’m crazy,” he said. “I grow a playoff beard. I don’t shower.”“Win” is a new spin on an old franchise for Coben. The title character, Windsor Horne Lockwood III, has been the sidekick in Coben’s 11-part Myron Bolitar series since the first of those books was published in 1995.Coben describes Myron as “me with wish fulfillment.” They are both tall Jewish guys who play basketball, he said, but Myron is funnier, better on the court, smarter, stronger. The character of Win was originally modeled on Coben’s best friend from Amherst, a handsome blond who was a member of all the right golf clubs.In the new book, Win acts as a rich vigilante untangling a murder mystery that has ensnared his extended family. It is peppered with Coben’s customary bombshells and surprises, from dark secrets to a fearsome gangster who has lost his taste for revenge, and that page-turning special something that keeps readers up too late.Coben tries to stick to a schedule of publishing at least a book a year, a timetable he has kept up even as he’s added a new dimension to his working life: TV and streaming. In addition to Netflix, he has deals with Amazon Studios, MGM International and Apple.Coben in his New Jersey home. He tries to stick to publishing a book a year, a schedule he has maintained even as he’s struck streaming deals.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesThe Netflix deal takes advantage of Coben’s international appeal. He sells more books abroad than in the United States, he said, and is one of the biggest contemporary writers in France, period, according to his agent.“I’m the Jerry Lewis of crime fiction,” he proclaimed from the sunroom at the back of his home, Winslow and Laszlo asleep in warm patches of light near his feet.His 2007 novel “The Woods” (as Coben described it, “20 years ago, four kids disappeared, and now one of them comes back”) became a show on Netflix Poland last year. “The Innocent,” from his 2005 book about a former inmate’s attempt to shed his past, was produced by Netflix Spain. “The Stranger,” from 2015, was produced by Netflix in the United Kingdom, as was “Stay Close,” from 2012, which is filming now.Coben is an executive producer on these shows, not a writer, but his daughter Charlotte has written for “The Stranger” and “Stay Close.” “Adding that professional aspect was a lot easier than I think either of us expected,” she said of working with her father on the Netflix shows. “He’s so supportive of my ideas, but not the bad ones. I appreciate that.”Larry Tanz, who oversees Netflix’s original programming for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said that most people who have achieved Coben’s level of success tend to surround themselves with associates and handlers who get things done. But Coben does the work himself, Tanz said. He comes up with the ideas, he watches the rough cuts of scenes, he joins the phone calls.“He’s very flexible, and you don’t see that a lot with creators of his stature,” Tanz said. “There’s quite a lot that gets added or modified from the original book, and Harlan is always like, ‘Great, I love it!’”“Stay Close” started filming in the north of England last month, Covid protections and all. Coben regularly jumps on calls to field questions from actors or the writers’ room, even as he works on his 34th novel. “It does not get easier,” he said from behind a black mask decorated with a pink, red and white XO pattern.“Every book I write, I still say, each time, ‘This book sucks, and the one I did before was great. How did I lose it?’ And then five minutes later, I’m like, ‘This book is great!’” he said. “All that insecurity goes on and on and on. I don’t think that’s ever going to go away. I think when that goes away, it’s probably time to stop.”Follow New York Times Books on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, sign up for our newsletter or our literary calendar. And listen to us on the Book Review podcast.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      'I Care a Lot': The Inspirations Behind the Movie

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMood Board‘Jackie Brown’ and Tangerine Dream: What ‘I Care a Lot’ Is Made OfThe writer-director J Blakeson behind the blade-sharp Netflix thriller shares the films, images and sounds that guided him in crafting the movie.Credit…Seacia Pavao/Netflix, via Associated PressMarch 9, 2021Updated 7:03 p.m. ETRosamund Pike recently earned a Golden Globe for her portrayal of the cunning, utterly amoral Marla Grayson in the Netflix thriller “I Care a Lot.” Marla shrewdly, confidently games the system to con elderly folks out of their savings — until her latest victim’s son (Peter Dinklage) starts paying close attention. It is a dagger of a performance that is of a piece with the writer-director J Blakeson’s film, a “slick, savage caper” dominated by bold visual and sonic choices, and humor as black as Marla’s outfits are bright.In a video call from his home in London, Blakeson discussed some of the photos, songs and movies that inspired him when he was working on “I Care a Lot.”‘Jackie Brown’ (1997) by Quentin TarantinoCredit…MiramaxCredit…Seacia Pavao/Netflix, via Associated PressLike Pike’s Marla, Pam Grier’s title character is a smart master of the double cross and steers this vastly entertaining crime movie. “This is a film that I talked a lot about with both my cinematographer [Doug Emmett] and my production designer [Michael Grasley],” Blakeson said. “It felt like a good touchstone, tonally, for where we might end up.”As a flight attendant, Jackie Brown spends quite a bit of the film in her uniform. “She has that blue suit that she wears and now and again you’ll see that just against this bright green wall,” Blakeson said. “The joy I get from that is similar to the joy I get from seeing some of those Godard films where you have people in bright yellow or bright red or bright blue against a neutral background, and they really pop out in this sort of Technicolor/Kodachrome palette. In ‘Jackie Brown,’ she has a job where she’s always kind of wearing the same clothes, but you get this iconic look that she carries through the whole movie. And I really wanted Marla to feel iconic and memorable as a character — a very cinematic character rather than a realist character.”Harry GruyaertCredit…Harry Gruyaert/Magnum PhotosCredit…NetflixA major influence on the visual language of “I Care a Lot” is this acclaimed Belgian photographer. “It’s street photography, more or less, but the real world is really colorful and really interestingly framed,” the director said. “There’s a photograph where the yellow lines are really bright and somebody’s walking down the street wearing a brightly colored coat. It looks orchestrated, but it’s not. Our world is colorful, we just don’t see it because we don’t stop and look at it very much.”Marla herself benefits from people not looking, which feeds her confidence. “She has big windows in her office and you can just see in; she knocks on the door of a blue house in a yellow suit,” Blakeson said. “She’s not hiding away in a dark corner — she’s doing it out in the open.”‘Rid of Me’ by PJ HarveyCredit…NetflixBlakeson was listening to music at the gym when the title track of PJ Harvey’s second album (1993) really hit him. “The beginning of the song is very quiet, so you’re turning it up to try to hear, and suddenly it gets to the chorus and it blows your head off,” he said. “I started thinking about somebody trying to kill Marla, and she’s not going to die. The section where she escapes from a car underwater was written in my head while I was listening to ‘Rid of Me.’ Just a basic idea of, ‘I’m not going to go away, I’m not going to be beaten.’ When she gets out of the water, she screams — it’s like singing along to ‘Rid of Me.’”Pike asked the music-loving director to put together a list of songs Marla would have listened to as a teenager, and he included a lot of 1990s rock titles from bands like Ministry. “She sent me a text saying, ‘I think I just got caught speeding because I was listening to your playlist,’” Blakeson said.‘Ace in the Hole’ by Billy WilderCredit…Paramount PicturesCredit…NetflixA longtime admirer of the director of “Double Indemnity” and “The Apartment,” Blakeson singled out his 1951 pitch-black film about a corrupt journalist, Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas), who exploits an accident in which a man is trapped in a cave-in, even prolonging the ordeal. “He was so mercenary, would do such disgustingly manipulative things for his own gain,” Blakeson said of Tatum. “His ambition is driving and he’s just a passenger.”This, of course, is very much like Marla, whose ruthlessness and fearlessness fully emerge in a confrontation with Dinklage’s character. “Usually in the movies that’s where the woman is weeping and begging for her life, but Marla sees it as an opportunity to give her elevator pitch to a wealthy person,” Blakeson said. “There’s a bit in ‘Ace in the Hole’ where he’s trying to reassure the guy underground, and he’s lying because he could actually just get him out really quickly. That sort of manipulation of people is really interesting to me.”Alex PragerCredit…Courtesy Alex Prager Studio and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul and London.Credit…NetflixAnother photographic influence was this American artist’s meticulously staged pictures. “There is a sense of the surreal, but it is dramatic and melodramatic,” Blakeson said. “There’s a forced absurdity about it that we wanted to bring to this [film] a little bit. Like when Jennifer [Dianne Wiest] goes into the care home with those muted colors — all these nurses offering their chocolates and smiling at her, that sort of seems odd and surreal and disconcerting. Also certain moments in the scene with Peter and Rosamund facing off in the quarry. The lighting is kind of blue and red and like giallo [films] or something. We really wanted to push it.”‘Love on a Real Train’ by Tangerine DreamCredit…Warner Bros.Credit…NetflixThis German electronic band started off as an underground purveyor of so-called cosmic rock before bursting into the mainstream with its dreamy, repetitive contributions to such 1980s movies as “Risky Business” — where this track appears.“‘Love on a Real Train’ makes me think of the future and the past at the same time,” Blakeson said. “You feel like there’s ambition in there: The world is going to be a better place somehow if we join the American dream.”That feeling is echoed, often with menacing undertones, in Marc Canham’s pulsating electronic score for “I Care a Lot.” When working on the film, Canham, the composer, and Blakeson brought up the minimalist composers Philip Glass and Steve Reich, early-1980s tracks like Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman,” and more recent abstract electronic work by Aphex Twin and Orbital, but Tangerine Dream was a constant. “There’s a very dreamlike quality, which is sort of nostalgic and yearning but also kind of cold and calculating, and that’s a film about capitalism and business,” Blakeson said of “Risky Business.”“Obviously, it’s a very different version of business than in ‘I Care a Lot,’” he added, laughing.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Making Chess Sing: ‘Queen’s Gambit’ to Be Adapted for the Stage

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMaking Chess Sing: ‘Queen’s Gambit’ to Be Adapted for the StageA creative team has not yet been set for the proposed show, which would be based on the 1983 novel that spawned the hit streaming series.Anya Taylor-Joy and Thomas Brodie-Sangster in the Netflix adaptation of the novel “The Queen’s Gambit.”Credit…via NetflixMarch 8, 2021, 11:02 a.m. ETBeth Harmon is making her next move.A production company led by a Disney heir is planning to adapt “The Queen’s Gambit” into a stage musical. The fictional story is about an orphan girl — that’s Harmon — who becomes a pill-popping prodigy in the overwhelmingly male world of chess.Level Forward, a company whose founders include Abigail Disney, a grandniece of Walt Disney, said on Monday that it has won the rights to adapt Walter Tevis’s 1983 novel, which has become newly noteworthy thanks to the enormous success of last year’s streaming series adaptation on Netflix.Level Forward is not yet announcing a creative team or any other details of the project.The company has a decidedly progressive bent (it describes itself as “an ecosystem of storytellers, business people and social change organizers”), and is a relatively recent but active player in the theater industry, co-producing four Broadway shows in 2019: “What the Constitution Means to Me,” “Slave Play,” “Jagged Little Pill” and a revival of “Oklahoma!”The game of chess, although seemingly unlikely fodder for song-and-dance, has inspired at least one other musical: In the 1980s, the lyricist Tim Rice collaborated with Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of Abba to write “Chess,” a fictional account of a tournament between an American and a Soviet grandmaster. The show had a well-received score that remains an object of affection and fascination for some, but, despite repeated efforts at revisions, it has not found success onstage; it ran for two months on Broadway in 1988.“The Queen’s Gambit” project is just at the start of its developmental life, and it’s not yet clear when or where there might be a production.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More