ENG225: Introduction to Film

This question really gets you thinking of when you were a child and how you watched movies and compare it to how it is done today. First I don’t think anything can replace the theater experience. But even the theater experience has changed with technology; for example I remember watching regular movies as a child, as a teenager I experienced 3D and then we had THX and high definition. Now there is the 4D experience with D-Box seats. So movie production has stepped up their game and really increased the quality of movies.

Outside of the theater I can say we have seen the greatest improvement. Movies can be streamed to phones, PCs, tablets, and even television sets from a variety of medias. Some of these medias are Hulu, Netflix, Blockbuster, Direct TV, Comcast, Apple TV, Roku, WD TV Live Plus and Sony SMP-N100. Due to the demand to see movies when and where you want it the size and quality has change of the files. For example in the past to download a movie you needed at least 4GBs of space or on a DVDR; now I can watch a movies on my 8GB iPod Nano and this have over 3000 songs and apps on it. Additionally, it doesn’t take as long to stream/buffer the movies. I also think movies has gotten shorter compared to movies in the past. “From 1930 to 1960, most films averaged 2 to 4 minutes per scene, and many scenes ran 4 minutes or more… In films made after 1961 most scenes run between 1.5 and 3 minutes. The practice reflects the contemporary screenwriter’s rule of thumb that a scene should consume no more than two or three pages (with a page counting as a minute of screen time). The average two-hour script, many manuals suggest, should contain forty to sixty scenes. In more recent years, the tempo has become even faster. All the Pretty Horses (2000) average 76 seconds per scene, while Singles (1992) averages a mere 66 seconds. (Scott, 2009)”

So I would have to say technology, specifically the internet has had an effect on the quality of movies we see. There are some improvements but there are some drawbacks too. The biggest benefit is being able to see a movie anywhere at any time. The drawback is the shorter scenes, which can compromise the script or story.

References:
Goodykoontz, B., & Jacobs, C. P. (2011). Film: From Watching to Seeing. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. https://content.ashford.edu
Smith, S. (2009, April 20). Average length of a movie scene . Retrieved from http://screenwritingfromiowa.wordpress.com/2009/04/20/average-length-of-a-movie-scene/