00:00Lewis Kellert is a PhD film student at Sheffield Hallam University.
00:05Personally I think it's probably the attention span and our natural propensity to now use technology.
00:13I'm a teacher by trade and I'm noticing a lot of students using a lot of short form media.
00:19So obviously the micro movies are little snippets of larger plots
00:25and I'm already seeing that with my students using TikTok to watch long episodes but in parts.
00:31So I think it's mostly due to an attention span but I also think it's a need for instant gratification as well.
00:39Is their rising popularity a good thing then or a bad thing for the creative arts economy?
00:47I think it's short term, I think it's really good.
00:50I mean looking at all the figures coming out of China, it's clearly a massive industry overtaking China's box office which is absolutely huge.
00:59And obviously there's news that Fox Entertainment have bought into this type of program as well.
01:05My issues with it are that how sustainable is it?
01:09So before Covid there was an app that was going to be used called Quibi and that was again short form entertainment for people to use on a commute.
01:19But since the pandemic started people weren't commuting and it was overfunded so Quibi died.
01:26So there is an unsustainable nature there.
01:29My other sort of worry about it is to do with the overuse of generative AI that seems to be taking hold on these types of micro movies.
01:40Now a large issue in America, especially in the West was to do, especially with the strikes, was to do with AI being used, being overly used in terms of story, script and other aspects of filmmaking.
01:55So it's and if they're trying to churn them out really quickly to fulfill that instant gratification.
02:02Yeah. Are they going to cut corners? Are they going to, you know, maybe not rely on certain aspects of that filmmaking process?
02:10Now feature films do seem to be getting longer. Frankenstein runs two and a half hours.
02:16Wicked for Good is nearly the same. And there's a trend isn't there to watch at double speed. Would you do that?
02:22I personally wouldn't do that. I'm sort of a film purist. Yeah, I really like, you know, the long form films.
02:29But I've got tick tock. I've got, you know, other sort of short form content.
02:34I have noticed my attention span has been impacted.
02:38So on an evening when I'm wanting to unwind, I'm searching for a film. This one's two hours.
02:43I'm not wanting that. And you even see on Netflix now, it's like films within an hour and a half.
02:48So there is an issue with our attention span. But I think there's a necessity and a need not to compromise directors and artists' vision for longer form storytelling.
02:59I mean, you look at Avengers Endgame, which came out in 2019. That was a three hour film.
03:03People went to the cinema to see that. Wicked as well.
03:07So there is still a need and a desire to see long form content. And I think the thing to maybe look at is how that translates from release at the cinema to then home release and how people are accessing it at home.
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