Distribution : What's going on with Quibi? by Karen "Kay" Ross

My understanding is that Quibi is designed from the ground up to be an "ephemeral" platform. Meaning that content is minutes long and shot in alternate formats so that it can be viewed on a mobile device differently depending on the orientation it is in your hand. That would be one issue with the lack of Quibi content - it is not reasonable in a world of falling budgets to expect people to shoot in manners that actually increase their costs, just for one outlet. So... you know. This isn't likely to happen on a great scale in my view.

The other Quibi idea was that people would want to watch something for a minute or two, literally while waiting at a bus stop or in line somewhere or while they are waiting for a meeting. In 2020, that is a decade behind the curve in my viewpoint. No one needs a new platform devoted to this. It also assumes that people these days have an ever-shortening attention span and that idea is at least two decades behind the curve. I personally don't see it as valid. I have been waiting to see what becomes of Quibi, but so far... nothing interesting to my knowledge.

As a tangent... the attention span concept started with the "much music" generation and inspired a ton of fast-cut narratives in the mistaken idea that the new generation somehow had evolved into having faster brains than ever before. They thus needed and wanted faster movement and compressed visuals on screen. The absurdity of this became clear pretty quick, but not before it would inspire a whole cadre of unwatchable action films and pointlessly interruptive dramatic editing. Fortunately, we all realized that the eye can only see so fast, and if you don't see it long enough you actually miss the information entirely instead of magically absorbing it.

I think that in this world of DIY content creation, distributors need to remember that not all content needs to be high-concept or star-driven. There is lots of room in the marketplace for smart, smaller-scale content that Quibi would be perfect for.

Mitch Ross Except that Quibi is a big budget operation. They don't want smaller content.

I kinda like the 5-10 min format. It's not that easy. It's not a simple feature script slicing process. Anyways, if it's not Quibi, then somebody else will fill the opportunity. The market is there, it's ready. They need a better intake and production process, maybe. TV should offer a slightly faster pace. More efficient, compressed. Time is a factor.