Original title: How to transform the hot “watching a movie in a few minutes”
On November 12, Guangming Daily’s “Network Literature and Art” edition 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 dramas. This is an interesting and hot topic that deserves to be explored in depth. I would like to express my opinion on this topic, mainly in the form of “watching a movie in a few minutes”.
In December 2021, the “Detailed Rules for Reviewing Standards for Online Short Video Content” issued by the China Network Audiovisual Program Service Association clearly stipulates that unauthorized cuts, adaptations of movies, TV dramas, online film and television dramas and other audiovisual programs and clips shall not be broadcast. short video content. “Watching a movie in a few minutes” must first solve the copyright issue. On this basis, let’s discuss the characteristics and outstanding problems of this emerging network literature and art phenomenon.
From a morphological point of view, “Watching a Movie in a Few Minutes” complies with the laws and characteristics of narratology, and cooperates with skilled fast editing skills to realize the double-speed advancement of the plot; The story-like language connects the main plots, supplemented by brief and incisive interpretations and comments; in terms of effect, “Watching a Movie in a Few Minutes” relies on the influence of the Internet platform to achieve targeted pushes for specific audiences, and continues to rise. The popularity of traffic makes it an online literary phenomenon worth studying at present.
So, why are netizens keen to watch short videos of compressed biscuits “talking about movies”? What kind of social and cultural context and audience psychological motivations are reflected behind the popularity? What kind of impact does this kind of secondary creation have on the original creators and viewers?
“The brain likes stories”, this human law characteristic derived from ancient genes is still generally applicable to the current Internet audience. Exquisite suspense, exquisite reversal, exquisite conception, wonderful foreshadowing, and exquisite creativity, these main highlights in a feature film carefully thought out by the screenwriter are precisely the narrative editing points in the eyes of the secondary creators of “Watching a Movie in a Few Minutes” . Relying on the narrative rhythm sensitivity cultivated by a large number of continuous and repeated “immersion” in the film text, we media can lead netizens to experience the movie audience experience in a few minutes with the skillful editing method of “selected selection-extreme compression-high frequency output”. A story that can only be experienced in its entirety in hours. “Watching a movie in a few minutes” is deeply in line with the high-speed modern urban life. People are eager to save time and cost, realize the psychological appeal of efficient entertainment, and help them accelerate to enjoy the “peak experience” as smooth as riding a roller coaster.
The advantage of “watching a movie in a few minutes” is different from double-speed playback is that through the method of “talking about movies”, the leading role of self-media anchors as narrative agents is further strengthened. The self-media knows that when people take out their mobile phones to relax during busy periods, they are eager to know the storyline and ending of the film as soon as possible.
On the whole, “watching a movie in a few minutes” replaces the delicate and timeless audio-visual temperature and depth of thinking in the blank space of the original film with turbulent narrative acceleration and plot impact. 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 the microwave-like powerful “story heating” ability, trying to attract the audience’s attention with fast and slow.
However, “compressed biscuits” cannot replace “dinner meals” after all. In addition to the key flaw of being extremely easy to infringe copyright, “watching movies in a few minutes” itself still has some outstanding problems that need to be paid attention to urgently. This is a clean and neat process of “skinning and cutting” the original movie, which is essentially removing the flesh and blood of the movie, leaving only the skeleton-like “PPT movie”. When netizens watch “compressed movies” with insufficient flesh and blood, they lack the gaze and reflection on the blank spaces of the film. Although technical editing techniques achieve the emotional resonance of “instant gratification”, it is difficult to truly stimulate the delayed aesthetic retrospective of “delayed gratification”, let alone cause real deep resonance due to the touching of 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. No matter how delicious the ingredients are, after all, it lacks the aftertaste that stays in the mouth. Such a “compressed biscuit” eaten bite by bite, although it can “become a fat man in one bite”, is essentially a kind of “puffiness”, which is a shallow movie-watching pleasure that lacks the flash of aura.
For “watching a movie in a few minutes”, its “quick hot” story editing method, “quick food” streaming media viewing mode, and “express” big data algorithm push may cause some netizens to be unbearable. Stuffing” normal movie perception, but can only accept a fragmented movie-watching experience, which is likely to subtly shape the thinking mode of netizens who are used 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 fields. 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 “secondary channel” promotional short videos. To engage in this work, you need to have comprehensive abilities such as grasping the essence of editing, grasping the rhythm of the narrative, digging out hidden easter eggs, and controlling the audience’s psychology. It’s more than capable for “watch a movie in a few minutes” creators.
In the final analysis, “second innovation and originality” is a path of transformation and upgrading. Self-media people who can make achievements in the short video field of “watching movies in a few minutes” often have keen observation skills and deep thinking about human affairs 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 broad and topical social phenomena and literary criticism fields, and become the original creators of new topical interactions with the help of current novel and cutting-edge communication methods. In fact, many well-known anchors of “watching movies in a few minutes” have already “goed out of the circle” to explore and cultivate for a long time, and have given full play to their video narrative thinking and technical advantages, showing their talent for commenting on cross-border topics.
“Watching a movie in a few minutes” also belongs to the category of “literary criticism”. The construction of the current online literature and art criticism talent team requires not only the cultivation of “academic” theoretical experts, but also the full mobilization of “practical” professional talents who have been working on the front line of the Internet for a long time. Some of the laws and understandings they have explored from practice, if they can be creatively absorbed and refined, will help improve the pertinence and enlightenment of network literature and art theory.
(Author: Zhou Su, deputy editor-in-chief of Beijing Normal University Press, member of China Literary Critics Association)