“The New Yorker Presents”: A Media Masterpiece

Title: The New Yorker Presents

Studio: Amazon Prime Video

Director: Alex Gibney (Jigsaw Productions)

Main Actors: Various artists and film producers are featured throughout

Run Time: 11 episodes, averaging 30 minutes each

Rating: 5/5

The New Yorker Presents: A Media Masterpiece

I recently stumbled upon a Facebook post that read: “How the heck did you pick out what to pursue, career wise, for the rest of your life? Asking for a friend.” It got me thinking, how did I come to choose a career in media? It came down to this: whenever I watch, listen to, or read media that is done well, I am enamored. All the creative light bulbs in my head go off. In short: I am a media nerd. From one media nerd to another, I highly recommend the Amazon Prime series, The New Yorker Presents, a visualization of The New Yorker Magazine. Let me tell you why:

Branding— The New Yorker Presents is seamlessly branded. It’s very “New York”. There’s one recurring scene that stands out. As a sketch of Manhattan unfolds, a red monarch butterfly breezes past the Empire State Building, and you hear the unmistakable sound of a New York taxi honking. The music throughout the series is upbeat and jazzy. The majority of the content is either based in New York or has ties to the city. The series even consistently uses The New Yorker Magazine typefaces. Don’t be surprised to see a section dedicated to the New York City sightings of Bill Murry. What’s more New York than celebrity sight-seeing?

Organization— The series is organized like a magazine. After the introduction, there is a table of contents scene that delineates everything that will be shown in the episode (i.e. “a short film,” “a documentary,” “a cartoon”), complete with a time stamp of when it happens and the artists involved. The order in which different sections play varies from episode to episode, and not every episode will contain all types of presentations. Just as in the magazine, the time stamps give you an opportunity to pick and choose what you want to watch.

Documentaries— The series features a multitude of short documentaries from filmmakers like Steve James (Hoop Dreams), Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (The Celluloid Closet), and Jesse Moss (The Overnighters). Each documentary features beautiful framing, B-roll, and storylines. You instantly become fascinated with the subjects and people being presented. These documentaries will have you crying, laughing, and learning.

Cartoons— How do you visualize something that’s already visual? Warning: this is where the nerd in me goes a little berserk. In social media courses, media students learn that some of the most successful social media posts offer a “behind the scenes” look. It’s almost like you’re showing your target audience a sneak peak of what you’re doing. It creates a display of authenticity (something media consumers are constantly searching for in products, services and experiences). So in order to further visualize The New Yorker Magazine cartoons, the series gives you a behind the scenes look at a cartoonist in action. Brilliant. It starts with a side profile of the cartoonist’s face (and a flag featuring their name), then moves to an over-the-shoulder shot as you watch a time-relapse of the artist drawing their cartoon. The cartoon then appears as if it’s being placed within the magazine (amid the columns of a story), and finishes with the addition of the cartoon’s caption. It’s here that it all comes together, leaving you with a chuckle before moving to the next part of the episode. It’s a great way to give the audience a break in between documentaries and short films (parts of the episode that run longer and require more attention).

Around Town— These sections of the episodes are my favorite. It’s a short preview of what life is like for various New Yorkers. For example, there’s an Around Town of an African American owned hat shop. They show the cross streets of where it’s located in a flag on the screen, then they follow a customer as he picks out his new hat. They don’t really give any dialogue explaining what’s going on or who the people are, rather it’s more of just like a “day in the life” kind of section. It’s as if you’re in the shop with them, just being a creeper among the hats.

The New Yorker Presents is a carefully crafted series that brings the award-winning magazine to life. It has something for every kind of media nerd to geek out about, but it’s also relatable to non-media correlated audiences. There are many more different subsections in the series (such as investigative reporting/journalistic short documentaries), that I didn’t outline in this review which are equally as media-genius. To date, there is only one season of The New Yorker Presents. It’s available for streaming through Amazon Video (included for Amazon Prime and Amazon Student Prime members). Is this the new trend for magazines? I know I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing more of these kinds of series. What do you think?