First-day-first-show experience, but on a TV/mobile screen

Back in July, as I was looking for something else on YouTube, I stumbled on one of the recommended videos on the right-hand side that said that a new song from the Hindi film Mimi, , was going to premiere at 12 noon. Considering Mimi had music by A R Rahman and because I had already liked snatches of the song from the film’s trailer that was released three days before that day, I thought I’d catch up with the premiere.

And then I realized that it was my first premiere experience on YouTube despite watching so many videos on the platform!

It was a frenetic experience. The chat window on the right was on fire, with tons of people sharing totally random, pointless, and excited messages and a flurry of emojis. I found it difficult to concentrate on the song playing on the left while being distracted by the flurry of messages, so I eventually hid the chat window.

But that experience remained in my mind. It was probably the closest that I have experienced to what one goes through in a crowded cinema theater playing a mass masala movie as we call it in Tamil Nadu.

The theater experience of a star film in any of the Indian languages is a phenomenal multi-sensory blast. The amount of whistling, shouting, confetti-throwing is usually relentless, far beyond the hero introduction scene and song, and goes on for every punch dialog and ‘mass’ scene. You may need to watch the film again, later, in a calmer theater/mode to make sense of the film (if at all!) and enjoy the film for the sake of the film.

The theater experience, beyond the large screen and mega sound, is a communal experience because we watch something together, at the same time, and live that enjoyment together. It’s hugely infectious.

I clearly recall watching films in Ishq, Dil Toh Pagal Hai, and Mr. and Mrs. Khiladi in crowded theaters during my college time and thoroughly enjoying them (they make me cringe now) only because all my friends from college were there with me shouting and thoroughly enjoying the nonsense unfolding on the screen 🙂

All this brings me to the way we watch, or experience, anything through a screen. It is usually a solitary experience. Even when there are a lot of people watching something together at the same time, technology has not caught up adequately to even trying to replicate the offline communal experience through a device screen.

Take for instance the IPL matches streamed via Hotstar. The OTT platform displays a viewer count at the top right corner (usually in double-digit millions). But that number, despite being massive, doesn’t evoke the sense of collective euphoria that a crowded stadium can generate. At least there were scenes of the stadium crowd and their noise before the pandemic; now the stadiums are near-empty and the crowd noise is simulated, and that makes the whole thing so very sad. The simulated noise does help ‘get in the mood’, though, just like the pre-pandemic crowd cheering at the stadiums.

Or consider the example of multiplayer games. I’m not a gamer but I have seen my son play multiplayer games while talking (not text-chatting) to his friends at the same time. But movies and live sports are not interactive content – they need to be consumed passively. The crowded theater or stadium makes them a quasi-interactive experience where we give (in terms of multi-sensory feedback) as much as we get.

Two related thoughts, in this context.

1. The live experience online

On-demand content, by definition, is the opposite of live content that plays once, at a pre-defined time. OTT platforms have made on-demand content cool because we do not need to manage our time to suit the content’s timing (like broadcast TV content) – the content would suit to our time.

There is perhaps a business model in allowing in-demand content to be played live at a pre-defined time, even on OTT platforms, for a premium fee/price, and then opening it up for the on-demand content library after a week (for instance; it could be any time window).

Those who cannot wait at all would pay the premium and watch the premiere. But those who can afford to wait, or don’t particularly care to catch the first outing, would know that the on-demand version is anyway coming up. This is not very different from the offline experience – there are people who are very keen to watch new movies on the first day/week and there are many who wouldn’t mind waiting for the calmer/less crowded subsequent weeks or even wait for the OTT/TV premiere after the theatrical release window expires.

But, the reason the live premiere experience on a device screen does not make sense for a premium fee is also because it lacks the offline experience. Only a small set of hardcore fans may pay, I reckon.

2. Replicating the multi-sensory experience online

That brings me to the ways a multi-sensory experience can be executed online. Right now, YouTube’s chat window is perhaps the best execution of the offline euphoria online through a screen.

Are there better ways to generate the offline communal watching experience?

For instance, live videos on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter work a bit like the YouTube chat window, though there are extra features like tons of emojis and heart symbols floating rapidly across the screen. But all these methods involve us also focus on typing something on the screen while watching the content playing live.

Consider a Zoom/Google Meet call where every participant has the sound on while all of them are watching something in the commonly shared window. As we watch together and react vocally, physically, and can watch and hear each other doing so (albeit in tiny stamp-sized versions), that is probably the closest it comes to the group watching experience.

Is there a way OTT platforms can recreate even a fraction of the offline, communal, group experience on TV/mobile screens? When they crack that, the possibilities may open up for the live premiere option with a premium price. That could help replicate the first-day-first-show experience to some extent on a home/mobile screen.

But right now, given the limitations of technology, that is not possible. I do hope we find some way to mimic the offline experience on our personal screens. Would it require VR headsets and metaverse to achieve that effect? Imagine wearing your VR headset and finding yourself inside a crowded, noisy theater… and watching the first-day-first show of a brand new film.

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