I remember seeing a James Bond movie recently, probably on TNT, and noting the camera takes. I saw, in the film, a scene that went on for close to two minutes with nary a change in angle or cut in the scene at all. And it was hardly the only scene in the film that was like that.
Contrasting that with a movie of today, editors are seemingly cutting movies for audiences on crack. Scene and angle changes take place over the course of seconds never allowing an audience to focus, never putting enough content in front of an audience for a long enough period of time to find the substance within it.
It makes filmmaking easier. It lowers the bar for real talent. When you are only giving the audience enough time to focus on what is moving in the scene, you can take short cuts and ignore what might give what you are making some actual substance.
I feel the same way about twitter in a lot of cases. Now, I realize that much of twitter is quick Q&A’s and FaceBook-like updates, but if I am following someone on twitter it’s usually because I want to hear what they have to say and I think I want to hear more than 140 characters.
I think others feel the same way as more and more people are using twitter as a portal to their blogs. Making it more of an announcement system than a micro-blogging platform. Which is exactly what I don’t like.
Twitter grabbed a hold of our country’s ADHD-level attention span and along with FaceBook, Tumblr, texting, and summary blogs – are creating a level of communication with out context or substance.
Certainly everyone can be a blogger. But not everyone can be a writer.