What the heck happened to attention spans?

[Demetrius]

I watch movies. I say this because I want you to know that I watch them a lot. Growing up we had no TV reception, so we watched movies. As I grew older I had my own car and money, this allowed me to watch even more movies.
Yesterday, while watching Balls of Fury* I found myself idly contemplating the decline of basic storytelling elements in film. This lead into thinking about attention spans, and how they affect the film market, as well as just how our pace of life enforces multitasking and regulates even movies into short bursts that must fit in a certain amount of time. I remembered watching old films with intermissions and missed them. The pace of the films was slower then, yes, but they didn't drop as much content (studios edit the hell out of films to hit the demographic run-times) and the story never really suffered. I almost drooled at the thought of the Lord of the Rings trilogy being allowed just an hour more per film, with an intermission thrown in so we can empty and refill ourselves. So I guess the whole point of this is twofold; I'm for the return of the intermission (and films of depth which you would see more of with the additional time allowed), and don't both seeing Balls of Fury.

*I really enjoy bad movies, they often have an honest joy about them, but Balls of Fury sucked. I can't even describe what it sucked because that piece of my soul and hour or so of my life have been rent from me.

[ArlanKels]

society is adjusting to the belief and preference of instant gratification.

Cellphones == instant conversations.

Internet == instant conversations and downloads.

Instant downloads == movies on demand, tv shows on demand, games on demand.


Attention spans are inherently going to lower as the tolerance required to withstand periods of "boredom" and/or "waiting" will become less common.

[Demetrius]

Yet, at the same time we crave four hours of story in 90 minutes.

[Doc ock rokc]

I agree with dem some times the wait makes the movie (or at least the climax) better but also there is the "too-much-build-up-to-a-disappointment" movies (*Chough*transformers*chough*)
then there are those movies that just didn't make sense Spider man 3 (it needs no "chough")
but we need (or i think we need) theses so we can tell the great movies from the bad

[Demetrius]

Now imagine Transformers with a two and a half hour allowed running time... There would be character development for the Bots and the people, the story would've had more time to flesh out and I would've cared when Jazz got ripped in half.

[Frostatine]

It's just not as effeicient, most of a movie's money comes from opening week, so they make really really good previews so people come and see the movie. Then by the time the world has realized that the movie is Horrible, it doesnt really matter. Also, the quicker they pump out movies the more opening weeks you get, resulting in more money.

The only real exception to this rule is a movie that has been aforementioned to be a trilogy, quadrilogy, etc. Then, they have to worry about people coming back, and are obligated to do a good job-usually

Personally I think that Pirates of the Caribbean is not so great, but whatever.

[Demetrius]

I think that Pirates is another movie that would've benefited from an intermission, I could've peed and then bought more crap, making more money for the theaters.

[B_real_shadows]

Hey now, movies are an hour and 20 minutes long now so that when they go on TV you can fit in 40 minutes of advertising space. Thats a nice bit of money!

[Frostatine]

Yeah what is it these days for ad space on TBS? $300,000 a second?

[Mike McC]

Now imagine Transformers with a two and a half hour allowed running time... There would be character development for the Bots and the people.But, on the flipside, It still would have been a Michael Bay film, and you generally want to keep those as short as possible, to minimize the pain.

Here's the thing. I really don't want movies to be that long. Do I have a short attention span? No. But I also don't want to be sitting around watching something for more than 2 1/2, 3 hours. An intermission doesn't magically fix that. Somehow, being told and shown a narrative that way tends to limit my imagination and put me in a light trance like state, and that wears on me after a while. I can sit down and read a good book for hours on end, because that actually stimulates my mind, and I don't get the same burned-out feeling. And I think a lot of other people feel the same way.

If anything, I'd prefer movies to return to a more serial format... but, with TV shows like Lost and Heroes, there's not much need for serial format movies to be made anymore.

[Demetrius]

The thinking would be to develop things so they don't suck, cramming things in is responsible for a good deal of the junk we see.

[Smarty McBarrelpants]

I blame porn. There are certain limits to how long one's porn film can be.
And mainstream movies will eventually become more porn and the universe will converge on this central point.
I have seen the future and its odd.

[Mike McC]

The thinking would be to develop things so they don't suck, cramming things in is responsible for a good deal of the junk we see.Well, that's because executives in charge of entertainment industries generally don't understand entertainment. Go indie.

[PCD]

My (really awful) History teacher referred to my age group as Generation "N," which stands for 'Net. Despite the fact that that teacher was more or less full of crap, he had a point in saying that the Internet has gotten us used to instant gratification. We want to know about something, we look it up and have the information instantly. We want to watch something, it's almost guaranteed on YouTube or TVlinks. Etc, etc.

Also, Acceptable TV. (http://acceptable.tv/)
We've gotten to the point where shows are just making fun of our short attention spans.

[Mike McC]

My (really awful) History teacher referred to my age group as Generation "N," which stands for 'Net. Despite the fact that that teacher was more or less full of crap, he had a point in saying that the Internet has gotten us used to instant gratification. We want to know about something, we look it up and have the information instantly. We want to watch something, it's almost guaranteed on YouTube or TVlinks. Etc, etc.

Also, Acceptable TV. (http://acceptable.tv/)
We've gotten to the point where shows are just making fun of our short attention spans.I'd disagree. Look at the popularity of some of the serial series out there. The ones that span one story over an entire season, or even multiple seasons. They're rather popular right now. If you look for instances of instant gratification, of course you're gonna find them. But there's also evidence that people can wait and become invested in longer term engagements. You've just got to be paitent enough to sort through all the information.

[Demetrius]

Most of them have several plots going per episode and have frequent twists to keep us interested.

[Frostatine]

LIKE WILDFIRE!!!!! :D

Fuck that show, even though it almost got me laid becauseI pretended to like it.

She was neurotic and high strung dont ask

[Mike McC]

Most of them have several plots going per episode and have frequent twists to keep us interested.Again, as I said, if you try hard enough, of course you can justify it. Doesn't mean that it's true. I still say your pointing the blame in the wrong direction.

The networks like to cancel shows now without even giving them a chance to find an audience. Movie studios insist on continueally pumping out remakes and sequels. It's not what the people want, it's what the studios say the people want. And since they control what's being made, that's what's made.

[Demetrius]

I'm not saying that I think intermissions will solve things, what I'm saying is that too many people fit the demographic that the studios are marketing to. In the times of moves with intermissions, people looked forward to the plot as a device of it's own, not just as a vehicle to justify a climax. I love books because they have more flesh to them than movies, they show character development, reasonable character development, and motivations. That fullness is lost due to time constraints created to satisfy what is really the majority of the people who will spend money on films.

[Mike McC]

I'm not saying that I think intermissions will solve things, what I'm saying is that too many people fit the demographic that the studios are marketing to. In the times of moves with intermissions, people looked forward to the plot as a device of it's own, not just as a vehicle to justify a climax. I love books because they have more flesh to them than movies, they show character development, reasonable character development, and motivations. That fullness is lost due to time constraints created to satisfy what is really the majority of the people who will spend money on films.In the times of intermissions, they were often placed in after only about an hour of a movie, and the movies were shown with a multitude of shorts and newsreels. Movies weren't really any longer back then than they are now. Really, recently movies have been getting longer. Except for comidies, which generally have always been shorter than your dramatic fare.

Hell, TV has been getting longer format recently, too. The half-hour sitcom is in a sharp decline, where it used to be king. The one hour Drama or Dramady is now king.

And about your character development bit... compare the original King Kong to the remake. Peter Jackson added quite a lot to the original material. A lot of old movies don't have a lot of set-up, nor do many of them have much of an epilouge to wrap things up after a climax. A lot of old movies have a much more abrupt feeling to thier endings than modern ones.

[Demetrius]

That was stuff that was cut by the ratings board from the original.

[Mike McC]

That was stuff that was cut by the ratings board from the original.That sounds like an awfully convenient justification to one of my multiple points.

[Arlia Janet]

"The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder."

That's a quote from one of the medium's best storytellers ever, Alfred Hitchcock.

[Lumenskir]

Most of them have several plots going per episode and have frequent twists to keep us interested.
Are you trying to disprove your point? Try and tell someone with a short attention span three simultaneous plots, each of which dips in and out of the others, all of them heavily steeped in events and backstory that extend to the main story's beginning.

Also, I hate to break it to you, but it is ridiculously easy to write something long. Like RPGs, the longer a story is, the simpler it becomes to extend it further. For every instance of "They cut something out waah!!", I can pull out at least four movies with twenty minutes of padding each.

Personally, I'm about to swear off any movie precocious enough to last longer than maybe 2 1/2 hours. Once the writer/director starts toeing past that line, they're basically flaunting their ignorance of what a movie is. You mention liking novels over movies, but that's just trying to pin tenants of one medium onto another. The challenge in making a movie is attempting to get a world across in a short span of time. To do this, the writer/director has to choose the best elements of the created world to show the audience. A great filmmaker can get across the world in a reasonable amount of time because he knows what dead weight to cut in order to reveal the best aspects. A shoddy one just leaves everything in and hopes the viewers aren't too bored.

If I watch a movie that tries to extend past 150 minutes, I just start thinking about why they didn't just make a television series.

[Fifthfiend]

Where I went to college there was this little independent arthouse-y movie place that did intermissions because they ran everything on a one- or two- or whatever-reel projecter it is that could only run half of a regular movie. It was pretty cool cause you'd go there to see The Follower or Series 7 or whatever the fuck and then halfway through you'd go and buy a key lime soda and hang out outside smoking cigarettes and you and your friends all try and figure out what in the fuck was going on. It was totally great for those intricate thought-provoking type of movies.

Plus then if something just sucked ass, everyone'd be outside with their cigarettes and their key lime sodas and you could say so guys that sucked ass, right? And they'd be like yeah let's get the fuck out of here. And then you'd just go home.

tenants

Tenets.

Just FYI.

[Odjn]

I blame Excel Saga, for warping reality with its utter insanity.

[Smarty McBarrelpants]

I think the real answer is not to watch mainstream cinema. I only really go to our little indepedent cinema out in this backalley in town.
Of course it does mean being surrounded by the super-pretentious. But ah well. Movies are still much better than common blockbusters.

Oh and they generally have intermissions where everyone has a roaring discussion about the film (generally only about 10-20 people in the cinema) and sell you icecreams int he theatre.

[Mike McC]

Are you trying to disprove your point? Try and tell someone with a short attention span three simultaneous plots, each of which dips in and out of the others, all of them heavily steeped in events and backstory that extend to the main story's beginning.Yeah. Complex story telling isn't targeted at people with short attention spans, and a lot of these shows actually require a strong attention to get all the details, as things are happening so fast. If they were catered to people with short attention spans... They'd be skits.Where I went to college there was this little independent arthouse-y movie place that did intermissions because they ran everything on a one- or two- or whatever-reel projecter it is that could only run half of a regular movie.And that's exactly the reason there used to be intermissions, as I found out late last night. Either the reels, the projector, or both where limited compared to today's monstrosities, so they could only support about an hour of continuous play. So, an intermission was needed as they switched the reels. It's got nothing to do with attention span; it's got everything to do with technological limitations and tradition falling back to the old stage presentations, where intermission was used between acts and scenes to change the scenery and costumes.

[Lumenskir]

I think the real answer is not to watch mainstream cinema. I only really go to our little indepedent cinema out in this backalley in town.
This is just another example of focusing on the bad things of one medium and glorifying the high points of something you already favor.

It's a lot like saying that the only good T.V. is found on premium cable like HBO or Showtime, while the main networks are crap. I'm not going to say that the Big 4 have perfect schedules, but premium cable is rife with shit like Entourage, John from Cincinnati, and Californication. Similarly, for every mediocre blockbuster you could pull out, I can name an independent movie that's boring as fuck and relies solely on people to walk out going "Well, I don't want to seem stupid by not liking it, so I'll say it kicked ass! Everyone will think I'm smart!"

How much, or how little, money it took to make the movie should have no bearing on how good it is, nor on your conceptions going in.

[Fifthfiend]

And that's exactly the reason there used to be intermissions, as I found out late last night. Either the reels, the projector, or both where limited compared to today's monstrosities, so they could only support about an hour of continuous play. So, an intermission was needed as they switched the reels. It's got nothing to do with attention span; it's got everything to do with technological limitations and tradition falling back to the old stage presentations, where intermission was used between acts and scenes to change the scenery and costumes.

Pretty much yeah.

It was still pretty neat having that break in the middle though, whatever the reason for them having it.

Oh you know what I just remembered? That place used to sell muffins.

Fuckin' good-ass blueberry muffins.

[Smarty McBarrelpants]

This is just another example of focusing on the bad things of one medium and glorifying the high points of something you already favor.

It's a lot like saying that the only good T.V. is found on premium cable like HBO or Showtime, while the main networks are crap. I'm not going to say that the Big 4 have perfect schedules, but premium cable is rife with shit like Entourage, John from Cincinnati, and Californication. Similarly, for every mediocre blockbuster you could pull out, I can name an independent movie that's boring as fuck and relies solely on people to walk out going "Well, I don't want to seem stupid by not liking it, so I'll say it kicked ass! Everyone will think I'm smart!"

How much, or how little, money it took to make the movie should have no bearing on how good it is, nor on your conceptions going in.

That's not what I'm saying at all.
Yes a lot, in fact probably the majority, of indepedent films are terrible. But they are different, they try new things rather than the blockbusters which are a lot more safe and follow similar formats.
And occasionally one will come along which is pure gold and it makes it all worthwhile.