Screenwriting : Short attention span or sophisticated by Craig D Griffiths

I'm on the second option too!

I really don't know where this idea of a short attention span came from when it comes to the film industry... For social media that's one thing, but film and television, I think they've just gotten better at understanding what's good (because with a ton of content, we get tons of examples of good and bad to differentiate).

I think the biggest issue we have is that they marathon the content. They want more than we can put out.

And we just have to look at most series right now...they'll sit there and marathon a 10 episode series in one day. 8+ hours of content. That's not a short attention span. They are rapt. (I am so guilty of this, I'm actually happy to be seeing the 1 episode a week format again on some streamers)

As for lead up work...We talk about narrowing the time from start to action, but I've also noticed a lot of people on social media complaining and wanting to be able to breathe instead of being yanked through a story, so I think it all depends on the audience you want, maybe?

I dunno, just some thoughts!

I definitely think that audiences are smarter than ever before. I think what (if anything) is getting in the way of people enjoying film or show is that we now know storytelling so well, we have a ton of expectations

Definitely, agee with everything. I believe the educated audience are getting bored with old story telling modes. They want and deserve our best work and not just recycling old work.

We see more and more statement like “why is everything so crap these days?”. I think this is an outcome of an educated audience.

Absolutely Craig it's about the quality of what's presented. People got bored with recycled old stuff as you say - which is great and that's why we're here, working on something new to bring to the audience.

Young people need a high pace of storytelling. Adults need a slow pace of storytelling.

I disagree Arthur. I am not exactly young and I lose interest with most films because its just more of the same, pacing being fast or slow is secondary to the story actually being interesting.

Robert RussoI wrote a generalization. Most young people easily perceive movies with scenes lasting less than one minute, but they are bored to watch scenes lasting five minutes or more.

Adults, on the contrary, find it difficult to perceive scenes of less than one minute, but they easily watch longer scenes of the film.

Interesting conversation. I think younger people are less willing to invest. But that being said my daughter (27) will watch some very slow things.

The trends of modern cinema reflect the demand of the audience. Before the advent of streaming platforms, the main viewers of cinemas were adults. Therefore, there were many films with scenes lasting more than two minutes. And now mostly young people go to cinemas, so films with scenes of less than two minutes are popular.

I dont agree that they have shorter attention span, its easier to think they have. Sure, fast moving, fast cutting movies are popular, always have. Escapism feels good. But people watch slow moving, character driven stories all the time, if studios have guts to market them correctly. If you have something to say and you do it in an intressting way, I think people will watch it, or I hope they do.

I waffle between do I have a shorter attention span or do I simply have less patience with time wasting bull. Sometimes its one, sometimes the other,. Sometimes its both.

I think it depends on the audience you’re trying to appeal to. Sometimes it’s both. But if it’s something I’m into as an audience member, I would be sophisticated.

Craig D Griffiths Such a great question. I'm not exactly young and while I do agree that audiences have become smarter, I'm saddened as to how some respond when they're bored. I remember a time when, if we didn't like something, we simply didn't watch it and moved on to something we did enjoy. The market spoke for itself. But today, online campaigns are formed with words like "trash" and "garbage" being tossed around. I vehemently disagree with that response no matter how much I dislike a film and would add that sometimes patience is prescribed. But again, I still agree that audiences are smarter.

I don't think there is a monolith block of "audience" - everyone is different and it's about finding your audience more than ever - not easy but how the digital proliferation has expanded choices. I would rather watch Lawrence Of Arabia in a dark room but I can't knock those on platforms like Twitch who spend 5 minutes watching someone else play a video game. That said, when my young nephew says things to me like "after watching The Fabelmans I watched Jaws and from a shot composition point I could tell Jaws was an earlier movie for Spielberg" it gives me hope for the cinematic literacy.

There's an audience for everyone... at the same time there is not enough special talent, in front and behind camera. Best of the best of whatever occupation (writers, directors, DP, VFx) rise above average peers. You just know in your souls when someone makes something special but you cant figure out how they did it.

Unfortunately, most people these days, specially the younger generations (specifically mine in the form of Millenials, alongside Gen Z), have a short attention span. They get bored pretty quickly and they don't like the slow-burning stories. They only want something quick and short, which isn't a bad thing in itself. It just proves that selling a movie or a script for a TV series is more important than the rest, apparently...

I agree

We're all going through this crazy human experience, just different paths. So I believe the second option should always be the end goal. All of us are the audience, aren't we? We know when we're being short-changed.