Original title: How to transform the hot “watch a movie in a few minutes”
On November 12, Guangming Daily’s “Network Literature and Art” issue published an article “Can “fast food” short video dramas last for a long time”, commenting and discussing the phenomenon of “secondary creation” of short videos on film and television . plays. This is an interesting and hot topic that deserves to be explored in detail. I would like to express my opinion on this topic, mainly in the form of “watch a movie in a few minutes”.
In December 2021, the “Detailed Rules for the Review of Standards for Online Short Video Content” published by the China Network Audio Visual Program Service Association clearly states that unauthorized cuts, adaptations of films, TV dramas, dramas online film and television and other audiovisual programs and clips. include a short video. “Watch a movie in a few minutes” has to solve the copyright issue first. On this basis, let’s discuss the outstanding features and problems of this emerging literature and network art phenomenon.
From a morphological point of view, “Watching a Movie in a Few Minutes” conforms to the laws and characteristics of narratology, and cooperates with skillful rapid editing skills to realize the double speed development of the plot; The story-like language connects the main plots, supported by concise and incisive interpretations and comments; in terms of impact, “Watch a Movie in Minutes” relies on the influence of the Internet platform to achieve targeted pushes for specific audiences, and it continues to rise. traffic makes it an online literary phenomenon worth studying right now.
So, why are netizens eager to watch short videos of compressed biscuits “talking about movies”? What kind of social and cultural context and psychological motivations of an audience are reflected behind the popularity? What kind of effect does this type of secondary creation have on the original creators and viewers?
“The brain likes stories”, this human law trait derived from ancient genes is still universally applicable to the current Internet audience. Exquisite accompaniment, exquisite inversion, exquisite conception, brilliant shading, and exquisite creativity, these main highlights of a feature film carefully considered by the screenwriter are the very points of narrative editing in the eyes of the secondary creators of “Watching a Movie in a Few Minutes” . Relying on the narrative rhythm sensitivity fostered by a large number of continuous and repeated “immersion” in the film text, we media can lead netizens to experience the experience of the film audience in a few minutes with the skillful editing method of “selective selection- extreme compression – high frequency output”. A story that can only be fully experienced in hours. “Watching a movie in a few minutes” is deeply in tune with the fast-paced modern urban life. People want to save time and cost, realize the psychological appeal of efficient entertainment, and help them speed up to enjoy the “peak experience” as smoothly as riding a roller coaster.
The advantage of “watching a movie in a few minutes” as opposed to playing at double speed is that, through the method of “talking about movies”, the dominant role of self-media anchors as narrative agents is further strengthened. The self-media knows that when people take their mobile phones to relax during busy periods, they want to know the story and the end of the movie as soon as possible.
Overall, “watching a movie in a few minutes” replaces the elegant and timeless audiovisual temperature and mental depth in the empty space of the original film with a disturbing narrative acceleration and plot effect. The efficient movie watching illusion of “reading countless movies” in a short period of time creates the illusion of understanding movies. “Watching a movie in a few minutes” relies on a powerful microwave-like “story heating” ability, trying to capture the audience’s attention quickly and slowly.
However, “compressed biscuits” cannot replace “lunch meals” after all. In addition to the key weakness of being extremely easy to infringe copyright, “watching movies in a few minutes” itself has some unsolved problems that need urgent attention. This is a clean and tidy process of “skinning and cutting” the original film, which essentially removes the flesh and blood of the film, leaving only the “PPT film”-like skeleton. When netizens watch “compressed films” without enough flesh and blood, they do not have the gaze and reflection on the empty spaces of the film. Although technical editing techniques achieve “instant gratification” emotional resonance, it is difficult to stimulate the delayed aesthetic retroactive of “delayed gratification”, let alone cause a real deep resonance due to touching the audience’s soul. The viewing process of “watching a movie in a few minutes” is just like tasting food that melts in your mouth. Regardless of how tasty the ingredients are, after all, it doesn’t have the aftertaste that lingers in the mouth. Such a “compressed biscuit” eats one bite at a time, although he can “become a fat man in one bite”, in essence a kind of “puffiness”, which is a pleasure to watch shallow films that he does not have mood flash.
For “watching a movie in a few minutes”, its “hot fast” story editing method, “fast food” streaming media viewing mode, and “express” big data algorithm push may cause some netizens to be unbearable. Stuff “normal movie perception, but can only receive a fragmented movie watching experience, which is likely to shape the mindset of netizens who are accustomed to “listening to movies” and “talking about movies” instead of actually “watching movies” .
The creators of “Watching Movies in Minutes” need to use their rich movie watching experience, skilled editing techniques and mature creative thinking to change the nature of their work and step into new areas. For example, film and television companies own the content copyright of film and television works, and need to produce a large number of creative and well-edited main channel trailers, promotional videos, and short “secondary channel” promotional videos. . In order to participate in this work, you need to have comprehensive abilities such as grasping the essence of editing, understanding the rhythm of the narrative, digging up hidden Easter eggs, and managing the psychology of the audience. It is more than capable of “watching a movie in minutes” creators.
In the final analysis, “second innovation and originality” is a path of transformation and upgrading. Self-mediated people who can make achievements in the short video field of “watching movies in a few minutes” often have skills of keen observation and deep thinking about human and world affairs. The enthusiasm for art also shows the keen quality of interdisciplinary cultural creativity. and literary criticism. Therefore, they can often transfer this ability to the fields of broad and topical social phenomena and literary criticism, and become the original creators of new topical interactions with the help of novel and cutting-edge contemporary communication methods. In fact, many of the current well-known anchors of “watch movies in a few minutes” have already “out of the circle” to explore and cultivate for a long time, and give full play to their video narrative mind and technical advantages, demonstrate their ability to comment on cross-border topics.
“Watching a film in a few minutes” also falls into the “literary criticism” category. Building the existing online literature and art criticism talent team requires not only the cultivation of “academic” theoretical experts, but also the full assembly of “practical” professional talents who have been working at the forefront of the Internet for a long time. . . Some of the laws and understandings they have explored from practice, if they can be absorbed and refined creatively, will help to improve the relevance and enlightenment of network literature and art theory.
(Author: Zhou Su, deputy editor-in-chief of Beijing Normal University Press, member of the Chinese Association of Literary Critics)
