Who Needs Long-Form Entertainment?
15 Jun
If one were to think about it, older audiences (already used to the habit) and people with refined tastes (feature length movies could some day be like opera) would be the ones seeking organized, formally-designed long-form entertainment.
We are already well aware of the fact that children cannot sit still through the average feature length animated movie without pee breaks and candy runs and who knows what other bodily function-mandated activity.
The average urban (or First World) teenager is so hyper-connected that there is no way she is going a hundred and twenty minutes without checking her Facebook or Twitter accounts while whatever major movie shenanigans play out on that big flickering screen.
With cheaper, faster bandwidth the music video (for one) is enjoying resurgence as a form of entertainment. Case in point, Lady GaGa and her huge following on the viral video circuit.
Even though this is an area that has already been mined by the likes of CollegeHumor.com endeavours like Funnyordie.com indicate that the stars among celluloid’s funnymen recognize the value in putting up short entertainments online.
So if one were looking at it logically, and is there any other way, it would seem that shorter, palatable entertainments are likely to enjoy bigger viewer numbers with each passing day. Going viral is increasingly becoming about decent production quality and the realization of imagination-capturing ideas.
Technology has democratized the process of creation and distribution. It won’t be long before someone cracks monetization as well. In fact, why does that have to be a model that works for all? As long as the individual creators can keep making money off their works, does it matter if the model is different every time?
Yeah, didn’t think so.
So sure, feature-length movies aren’t going anywhere but in sheer numbers, there is no denying that actual patronage is shrinking every single year. Eventually, it may occur to filmmakers (long before it trickles up to those at the head of power structures) that a film only needs to be of feature length if there is a long enough story to tell. For the rest, there is short form entertainment. Which, if done well, will guarantee more eyeballs (and who knows, a greater return on investment) than all the too-long-in-production, too-expensive, too-ill-conceived mistakes that light up the marquees at the neighbourhood megaplex each week.
The revolution has already begun. Are you in on it yet?
Embedded below are two short-form videos we have encountered within the last week that prove the diverse nature of entertainment freely accessible off the Internet.
Links mentioned in this post (some of the content at these links will most definitely be NOT SAFE FOR WORK):
Lady GaGa on Youtube
Funny Or Die
College Humor (more…)
