Writing for the very small screen
I just read a great article by David Denby of the New Yorker on the quickly shifting “end-user” experience in cinema. He bemoans the technology convergence that has squeezed the Hollywood blockbuster into his 2″ square video iPod screen.
Whereas he is uncomfortable with the physics (and optics) of viewing content from handheld devices, he sees the youngest generation of consumers as “platform agnostic,” willing to contort themselves into “pretzels… cuddling it under the covers after lights-out.”
He points out that the length of a 50’s pop single was “influenced by what would fit on a forty-five-r.p.m. seven-inch disk” and that “the length and the episodic structure of the Victorian novel—Dickens’s novels, especially—were at least partly created by writers and editors working on deadline for monthly periodicals. Television, for a variety of commercial and spatial reasons, developed the single-set or two-set sitcom. Format always affects form, and the exhibition space changes what’s exhibited.”
Now my question for you. What’s your perspective on format affecting form? Will you ever write for 2″x2″?
–John
Los Angeles
Yes, for two reasons.
The first is because I have absolutely no choice in the matter. Every movie and TV show created will eventually play on iPod and similar screens. And soon after, on virtual-screen googles goggles, holographic projectors, and direct-input brain jacks. With the arrival of new technology, the past isn’t rewritten. It’s simply reformatted.
But the second reason I’ll write for the very small screen is less pessimistic. I think there’s an opportunity for a new kind of storytelling suited to the more-intimate experience of watching a screen 12 inches from your face. Just as television developed its own storytelling grammar–deliberate act breaks, season arcs, a reliance on close-ups–the iPod and mobile phone media will demand their own unique ways of telling a story.
Today’s teenagers are often slammed for having short attention spans, but I think the real change is that a generation weaned on the internet, DVD and TiVo isn’t willing to surrender control of entertainment.1 And while it’s unconscionable to text message in a movie theater,2 I admire how the mobile generation never disconnects from their tribe(s).
In the next few years, someone (maybe MTV) will develop the tiny-screen equivalent of Must See TV, something that is uniquely tailored to iPods and the generation who can’t imagine life before them. It will be interesting to witness not only how the format develops, but what impact it will have on big-screen movies. (Which, for the record, I believe will still exist 10, 20 and 50 years from now.)
- I’d call them “actively passive.” They want to watch, but they want to be doing something else at the same time. It’s impossible to read a novel while watching “Two a Days,” but a magazine like EW is a perfect fit. ↩
- Seriously, this is where I become Cranky Old Man. This is not your living room. Shut off your damn phone and watch the movie. ↩
Articles
February 13th, 2007 at 7:38 am
Do you think big screen movies will exist the same way plays still exist? That is to say, not really pop entertainment anymore, but a high art event?
February 13th, 2007 at 9:13 am
I do really agree with you John! Been thinking bout that lately, You Tube, Mobile Phones, Ipod videos, they all have small screens… and in some cases, a low resolution or bad image quality.
How will this affect our industry? Will entertainment industry start producing specific formats for those new gadgets? What kind of show (i’m talking about its duration, kind of content, photography…) will be adequate for them?
I think we all have lots of questions… and fewer answers, haven’t we?
BTW, excellent post as usual. Congrats for your distribution deal!
February 13th, 2007 at 9:58 am
“on virtual-screen googles”
I don’t seen the Screen Google format lasting very long, since most people don’t know how to use the current google as it is. At least, that’s what I understand from our friend Walter Scott.
February 13th, 2007 at 10:04 am
John, I appreciate your ambivalence about the Text Messaging while in the theater. Yeah, I like that they want constant connection (to their “tribe[s]). It’s, basically, their streaming commentary to someone not in the theater about what they’re experiencing (well, sometimes).
But, the biggest headache to me is this: I’m in a stadium-seated theater, and them kids down in the flat seats (the ones for late-comers, close to the screen, that nullify the greatness of going to a stadium-seater) when they flip open their phones. THOSE PHONES ARE LIKE BEACON-LIGHTS when they’re open! And my eyes are DRAWN TO THEM… not to the screen. Discretion, kids!
Love, Another Grumpy Old Man
February 13th, 2007 at 10:04 am
That’s probably one of the best descriptions I’ve heard about my generation in a long time, and it wasn’t done in a condescending manner. I applaud you for that, though I agree about the movie theatre texting. Turn off the phone, stop talking to you friends! If it’s a good enough movie though, I can tune it out. As someone struggling to figure out how he wants to be involved in this industry, I want to thank you for the blog and it’s variety of topics.
February 13th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
I’m so with you on the phones/text messaging during movies. I look forward to the day when cinemas are built so using a mobile in them is impossible. There must be some way to jam/scramble the signal.
And yeah, I’ll write to any format. I think good writers find writing to a specific brief a challenge rather than a limitation. Instead of “Geez, how am I gonna do that?” it’s “Wow. Let me think how I can do that.”
February 13th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Perhaps I’m being overly pessimistic, but I don’t share your opinion that “big-screen” movies will be around 10, 20, 50 years from now. The reason being is that I think economics trump everything. As was pointed out with the 7″ disc 45 (no longer produced), and the Victorian length novel (no longer produced), and the commercial television scene breaks and arcs (on the way out due to DVR’s) when economics get in the way of the delivery format, the format changes…and rarely does the old format continue to be produced (78/33/45 r.p.m. “vinyl”, 8 track and cassette tapes, VHS tapes, and soon CD’s and non-HD DVD’s…and due to streaming, soon ALL DVD’s).
Movie theaters are struggling as it is to make the kind of money the corporations demand, let alone when a new and “cheaper” version of delivery format becomes widely used, those corps will dump their investment down the same hole as “corded” phones and phonograph turntables.
That is not to say there won’t be ANY movie theaters…just as “Matt” mentioned, I believe there will be a specialty market (like those out of the way places that sell limited release “vinyl”) perhaps a few “art houses” that cater to the nostalgic set and/or high-minded cinephile, but as a way of communicating to the “masses”, I don’t think it will continue.
Believe me, as a filmmaker and storyteller, it sends my stomach into flips Nadia Comaneci would envy when I think of it, but as I must look at the wonderful harshness of reality with the clearest of vision in order to tell my stories, I must also do the same with the world around me…and what I see is a world where movies are viewed more as a one-on-one experience (with perhaps a few friends gathered around the IPod or flat screen at home) than an experience with a bunch of fellow human strangers in a large dark room, as it is today.
February 13th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
More formats also means more opportunites, that can only be a good thing for new writers. The lower quality means it can be done on cheaper equipment, which means more filmmakers can participate, which hopefully means more choice, more work and a higher standard of content.
Hopefully.
Most kids in the cinema, contrary to the media’s portrayal, aren’t bad kids and probably won’t knife/shoot you. Most of them are nice kids who are easily terrified. I like to creep up behind them and whisper angrily in their ears:
“If you don’t shut the fck up, I’m going to break your fcking fingers.”
That usually does the trick. Although the urine soaked chairs are a bitch for the ushers to clean up.
February 13th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Okay, so here’s my grumpy old man moment – I don’t think there is anything more depressing than the thought of spending anywhere from 6 months to 3 years preparing, shooting and editing a feature film only for it to be seen on an iPod. I am not against technology, far from it. HD, bring it on. I have an editing suite in my home and consider myself pretty astute. Sure, some content is perfect for an iPod. “Owww, My Balls!” type YouTube videos, news, some shorts, videos even tv shows but the destination of some films should not be a 2″ screen.
Do you really want to make the cinematic experience that small?
February 13th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
The 2″ format already has its first Maestro: Ze Frank. Ze knows what he can and can’t do on a very small screen, and nows how to draw viewers in despite the limitations of the format.
http://zefrank.com/theshow
February 13th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Ze is smart, funny and has a total command of the format. Great example of what works.
February 13th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Maybe the big screen will be reserved for high production films from the major studios, whilst iPod movies will be confined to low-cost productions distributed by those same companies, and of course, user-created content, which is already happening now.
February 13th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Hell, I’m 22, and those stupid text-messaging kids drive me up the wall. The light from the phones is just plain obnoxious.
Also, this new form of small-screen might make short films more popular. It seems as though YouTube is already doing that.
February 13th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
The article from the New Yorker talks about a box that sits in our living room in four to five years time. Doesn’t AppleTV ship this month?
February 13th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Let’s not forget the giant sized, high def TV screen everyone will have on their wall at home. 3 meters on the diagonal, taking up a whole wall. A viewing experience that’s not quite film but way more than television.
February 13th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
After the advent of film, there was no reason for live theater to continue. Yet it did. There’s an immediacy, a uniqueness to seeing something performed in front of you that doesn’t change.
Ditto for sports, which are an expensive pain in the ass to watch in person, but free on televsion.
Along the same lines, I think there’s something unique about watching a movie on a giant screen with strangers around you, something that will persist despite the advances of technology and declines in audience behavior. That’s why I think there will still be something like the feature film (100+ minutes of big screen narrative) in 2057.
But I’ve been wrong before.
February 13th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
I think the advent of this new technology only means greater possibilities for filmmakers and writers. Inevitably people will watch large format features on their IPOD, but I refuse to believe that it will become the norm or the preferred viewing format.
Think about it, when you’re a kid, gadgets are cool. I remember wanting one of those portable color TVs with the bunny ears. I never got one, but even if I had, the novelty would have soon worn off and when it came time to see a real movie I’d go to my normal TV or a theatre.
I agree with John too, about the death of the movie theatre. Formats will come and go, but when it comes down to it, everyone loves going to the movies. And when you go on a date, what do you do? You go grab “dinner and a movie”. If the theatres would just have the guts to try lowering ticket costs or get creative at drawing people for weeknight and matinee shows, they could increase their revenue. If I could see a movie in a theatre for five buck in LA, I’d go a whole lot more. My theatre at home has free popcorn on Tuesdays. How much does popcorn cost? The best deal in town is the $3 theatre on the corner of Fairfax and Beverly. I get a thrill knowing I’m not getting ripped off, which makes up for the lack of leg room and the curtain that doesn’t quite rise up all the way.
So don’t give up hope. I refuse, because one day, if I’m lucky, I’ll look over at some kid on a bus and he’ll be watching my feature film on a two inch screen.
p.s. I just started a blog last week and would love visitors. It’s been very lonely. Sniff…www.thereisnoplanb.wordpress.com
February 14th, 2007 at 3:08 am
When you watch a movie in the theatre you experience something that cannot be replicated. everything is amplified; the visuals, the sound, the emotions, and the story, and also it is an event; you plan it, you take a date, you talk about it afterwards. i know we all know this. however its more than that, and its a paradox really, because the rules of the movie theatre enforce silence; its not an ostensibly social experience, really, in the slightest. but it breaks down language, transcends it even, to be an experience where every gasp, every laugh, becomes a unique shared experience. we share our humanity, and this is too valuable to become a niche, rather exclusive experience like theatre. I’m 27, and i’ve wondered whether perhaps i was just a few years too late for the digital revolution, but then john, for example, is older than me and by his own admission, a ‘geek’. (no offence… i kind of wish i was too, then at least i could empathise with my computer’s bizarre idiosyncrasies instead of simply getting frustrated by them). However, I simply dont understand the urge to watch a movie on a 2 inch screen. why on earth would you want to write for it? not only does it dilute any emotional effect your film might have, but it will also increase the number of kids permanently plugged into their headphones, living vicariously in some digitised netherworld, forgetting, or never learning how to genuinely interact with one another. Maybe the answer’s in the nines.
February 14th, 2007 at 5:29 am
The million dollar question: what will the future bring us entertainment wise? Will movie theatres cease to exist? And will film be replaced? Etc etc.
My guess is “live” theatre will actually gain popularity (a lot). Which makes sense since people are getting more and more home-based. Yet I do not (can not) believe that people won’t need the human contact involved in going somewhere to experience a communal ritual. Theatre’s been away long enough (enjoyed, in the mean time, only by a rather select group) to become in fashion again.
Recorded media (like movies, for instance) will have to adapt to be seen on a plethora of devices. I think the evolution of hand-held devices is going faster than the evolution of dramatic techniques and therefore don’t think that the 2 inch screen is something which will have a major impact on story-telling. Next year the screens will take up the largest part of the device’s fronts, which will leave us with a (practical) 7 inch screen approximately. So visually, I don’t think a lot is going to change. This will however have his impact on the area of sound. Sound designers will need to adjust to create sound which sounds good in a (home) theatre, but will also sound reasonable coming through very lousy (little) speakers.
However what will have a major impact (and already is) on movies, are computer games. Interactive story telling will take over the traditional story telling. The only way movies will be able to survive is by moving more and more towards the abstract. This is a phenomenon one can witness in nearly every form of art. When photography was invented, paintings became more and more abstract (since the need to simulate reality was taken care of far better through photography) When movies were invented and became mainstream, theatre sought it’s refuge in the abstract and absurd. Now video games will become the new mainstream media and therefore movies will try to deliver content which cannot be experienced through an interactive medium: abstract. (I can give a rather lengthy explanation why I think abstract content can’t be delivered through an interactive medium (yet) but that would lead us too much on a sidetrack) Another thing which hints towards this is the fact that every form of art that went abstract came to a peak of reality simulation, right before the “turn”. In theatre: the naturalistic theatre of Ibsen, Checkhov, Stanislawsky etc. In painting: the aptly named movement “realism”. The same we’re witnessing at the moment with the mainstream acceptance of documentaries (real realism) and reality tv (staged realism)
My excuses for any spelling and/or grammar errors. English isn’t my native language.
February 14th, 2007 at 7:15 am
Film is safe…I liken it to seeing Stand-up comedy on TV or in person…it’s never as funny on TV (Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor aside)…there is just something about the collective energy of a crowded theater that makes movie-going a wonderful experience. The 2×2 screen is already being expanded by peripherals and AppleTV. In the future our entertainment will come with us but be enjoyed (primarily) on large screens or projected images.
February 14th, 2007 at 8:40 am
I have noticed a trend recently1, the footnote. Is there some reason you2 are using these regularly now3, whereas in the past you seemed to never use them? They don’t bother me4. In fact, you might notice that sometimes you get more comments on your footnote than on the content of the blog5. While this -reply- may seem gratuitous6, I am really interested in the answer to the question of why the recent trend of including footnotes regularly in your posts.
It is always a pleasure reading your postings7. Have a wonderful day.
Fred
1 Not in films, but in the content of this blog. 2 John August 3 For example: you learned how to do them with your program and want to take advantage of the new exciting function you learned, or perhaps you don’t like parentheticals (which I use rather than footnotes unless I am writing for an academic or professional journal), or you have decided to go to law school and want to get into the habit of writing footnotes. 4 Well, to be honest they bother me a little because I must either put an idea on hold until I get to the end of the post to see what nifty little tangential comment you may have, or I must interrupt my reading of the post and scroll down to read the nifty little tangential comment before resuming my reading of the post. 5 Maybe not more, but in the case of this post, you got about 50/50 regarding the main issue and the footnote on texting in theaters. 6 or perhaps containing a rhetorical question followed by smart-alecky comments 7 which I do not mean as an afterthought, even though it is the concluding comment to my -reply-, unlike that person a few months ago who started a question to you with something like “I love your blog, yadda yadda, but here is my question…” which incidentally I found just a little insincere and offensive. If you love something you don’t “yadda, yadda” about it. My feeling is that if she was unable to communicate the sense of “I know you hear this all the time, and I too rely on you for great information” with something other than “yadda, yadda” perhaps a career communicating ideas in writing is not the profession for her.
February 14th, 2007 at 8:43 am
I believe the reason why cinema will survive is because James Cameron is singlehandedly bringing something to the movie-going experience that home theaters will have a long ways to catch up to… 3D. Now if only they’d hand out mufflers with those goggles.
February 14th, 2007 at 8:46 am
Above, when one of you described the movie experience with strangers, I agree that its very interesting. I generally want people to be quiet, but there are instances where the collective reactions of the theatre add to the film, especially in comedies. I think Borat was much better because of the atmosphere, and because it allowed people to see others laughing at some jokes that everyone is ambiguous about.
As a 22 year old I feel in-between in some aspects, because I didn’t grow up with the internet being as integral as it is to kids lives, that only came into being in High School for me, but I’m young enough that I don’t carry some of the experiences that many of you seem to. I think film will stay on for a good while. But some of you wonder why someone would want to watch a 2 inch screen? And an answer could be because it’s not abnormal. For the younger generation, growing up in a world with ipod video, youtube video, and a thousand other ways to experience media, the basic conventions can be shuffled or modified. At the same time, I think film stays because it is a more unique experience. I have a friend who could care less about theatres, and would be a first adopter of buying or renting a DVD the same day of its theatrical release, but many others who feel that experiencing some films by theatre is the best way to do so. The coming changes won’t be radically different, but probably just an amalgam of the old and the new.
February 14th, 2007 at 8:54 am
The footnotes remind me of the wonderful footnotes in Soderbergh’s gem, “Getting Away With It.”
February 14th, 2007 at 10:49 am
“I believe the reason why cinema will survive is because James Cameron is singlehandedly bringing something to the movie-going experience that home theaters will have a long ways to catch up to… 3D”
The newer HDTV sets have a 120 HZ refresh rate, which would make it pretty easy to transmit 3D. It’s not that far off.
something you have to wear stupid goggles to watch will never, ever catch on though…
February 14th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Art is shaped by the media in which it is expressed, and to me, that’s a good thing. Popular music in the fifties and sixties was not only influenced by what song length would fit on a 45 RPM single but by what sounds could be reproduced by a mono record player, what frequencies could make it through AM radio, and what garage bands could play at high school dances. These limitations are as much about making music as the hardness of granite is about making sculpture. I write for the big screen but I am still fascinated by how much I can convey in a 32X32 pixel icon.
February 14th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Having just completed shooting on a series designed for the YouTube/IPod/mobile phone format, I think it can work both ways: you can simply have the device as a method of viewing or you can let it drive the story telling. The same way you’d present the same plot through very different scenes if writing for a £100 million dollar movie against for a local theatre company.
In our show, “DayTraders”, we tried to take the scope, the resonance of our favorite televison dramas (nearly all American made) and just squash them into ten minutes.
We’re at rough cut stage and sometimes it works, the beats hitting as though you’re watching something just as you would tuning into a major hour-long series at 8pm/9pm. Though even the phrase ‘tuning in’ is outdated, I suppose.
And sometimes it doesn’t work, you can’t follow the density of what we’re plotted and written in the time frame, with that many close ups. If it’s too many getting lost, the whole episode and the whole series will fail for anyone who didn’t actually make it.
But there were two real goals in doing this – one, to create something that people who watch TV not to turn their minds off but to engage them will appreciate on several different levels. Two, to bring home the fact that you don’t need a broadcaster anymore.
Surrounded by and part of the the wired generation who watch movies on PSP’s, dramas on their Ipods, sitcoms and quiz shows on their mobiles, you see that convenience entwines with form. They want something to do on their train journey but some things will work better than others.
We shot in far more close ups than we would have for something to be seen primarily on television and wrote in a far more compressed way – not quite 8 ten minute short films but not the ongoing narrative of a series.
We may have failed, we may not be the example that provoke broadcasters into deeper, more pro-active examination of what they are going to have to change into… but the desire and idea behind it is valid, is solid. It will happen and soon – so if we fail with this show, someone (perhaps one of you) will be right behind us. It is inevitable.
http://longandlovelyfailure.blogspot.com
February 16th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Human beings can and will turn anything into art. Whatever platforms are dominant in ten, twenty years, someone (or several someones) will come along and learn how to make the content great. (Cf the posting by Keith Lewis above, who may not be willing to wait ten, twenty years.) It’s happened over and over. With movies, for instance. In the early 1900s people were sneering at movies in much the same way that today they sneer at iPods.
BTW, how about live theater transmitted in 3D simultaneously to multiple locations around the country? Sort of like theater and movies combined. Just a thought.
February 18th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Indeed format does dictate how something is written. I have written several DVD Premiere movies (low budget movies that premiere on DVD) and the scripts I’ve written have never gone over 94 pages. The reason being the typical DVD-5 disc holds a 90+ minute movie, a 10 minute featurette, and several trailers quite nicely and is the easiest disc to replicate.
This has also shrunk the 2nd act of the scripts so that they are essentially 3 equal act structures. The stories move, baby!
I call the whole process “pulp screenwriting.”
February 27th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
…so it is not only us cameraman who struggle with the new formats? ;)
Someone mentioned zefrank as a good example on what can be done on a 2″ screen. But talking about economics, I don’t really see anyone shelving out money to get to see an essentially home made movie. It is fun to watch inbetween other things. But I do believe that the 90+ minute format will prevail; after all you do not want to spend your whole evening watching little snippets. Coming to think of it, most of the huge – commercial – successes where so long that they come out on multi-DVDs.
I also firmly believe that in the longer run those handheld devices will catch up in terms of resolution.
April 25th, 2007 at 1:19 am
I actually worked for many years at a company which produced content for cell phones. What doesn’t work is simply shrinking a full size screen down to 2″. It is absolutely imperative, for view-ability sake, to basically crop it down to individual “talking heads”. Or better yet, shoot it with your 2″ device in mind to begin with.
I still doubt the long-term viability of cell phone-sized entertainment, though. Although it does offer some interesting possibilities, exactly how long is it going to be before you get sick of a talking head? Seems to negate the whole concept of having a visual medium to begin with.
If the screens get slightly bigger, or perhaps yet another brand-spanking-new handheld device comes out, then that could change. Shorts and music videos might make much more of a comeback. But again, unless they’re specifically made for that size of a device, they’re not all that appealing. Or maybe that’s just me.