The “Netflix Look”: Moving image aesthetics as data under platform logic

This article examines Netflix’s industrial model through the framework of platform logic, arguing that the data-centric approach it adopts in the production of moving images alters the creative process. The result is a conceptual shift from shooting a film to capturing an image. Bridging platform studies and film theory, I build on David Bordwell’s poetics of cinema, which conceives the production process as a negotiation between institutional constraints and creative intention. Analyzing the Netflix Partner Help Center as a primary document, I argue that it reflects a departure from this traditional dynamic and that Netflix conceptualizes moving image production as a data capture process. I conclude that this transformation reflects a broader data logic that extends beyond Netflix to the production of contemporary moving images.