Cinema is the most restricitve medium (0)

Cinema is the most restricitve medium
The topic of this essay is cinema as the most restrictive medium. I would like to discuss the restrictions of cinema as such – what these are, how do they affect the medium. For example time limit of the films , budget, how it affects writer and director , what kind of choices they have to make, and how the audience come into play. Personally, i don’t consider cinema as a restrictive medium.
Cinema’s most restrictive feature is time. Filmmakers must fit very good shots edited into very good storyline into one and a half to three hour movie, usually . The reason being, we get uncomfortable sitting long period of time. If the movies would be longer, we would lose interest and start doing something else. We would simply get uncomfortable sitting on a chair and the whole cinema experience would become agony. Furthermore , producing films can be expensive , especially longer films. All human resources want to be paid an hour wage, renting and building sets cost money etc. So, in the long term, making longer films more than 3 hours is not that good idea . Longer films would start losing money.
Films in ordinary cinema are not long. Because of that, filmmakers have to make compromises, all the time and everywhere . Starting with the writer. If they come with an original idea, easier for them . They don’t have to go that deep into the background of the characters to tell the story because there would be enough time in the film to show it, so they can write less but better. When writers have to adapt story from the book, it gets more complicated. Firstly they have to get to the very core message what the book has to say and even speak to the original writer. Then all the rough material has to be watered down to fit to the strict time limit for the movie. That means , maybe altering story, events , characters, back story. When making dialogue shorter, meaningful messages might get lost or doesn’t have such powerful delivery to the viewer. The problem with making screenplay based on a book, is that it gets altered, which doesn’t mean it supposed to be bad, but it doesn’t give the same effect as the book would give.
From the directors point of view time also means trouble. He has to constantly analyze what kind of shot is best to support the story, how long it should be and what kind of details it should contain . If the director thinks that many shots should be used, it might not be possible and his imagination is limited, then by whatever kind of factor. So in his work , he might rather be using one powerful shot rather than many good shots, that together might work better than one epic shot. For example, in a film „ Battleship “ directed by P. Berg , there is a shot of protagonist lieutenant where camera sweeps 180 degrees while actor counter rotates. But this shot doesn’t work in a way that it creates the feel of spaciousness, because there is no background and therefore there is no parallax. This shot should’ve been done in more minimalistical and original way.
Another problem from a directing point of view, is showing multiple storylines in way that it would make sense to the audience. If the next scene is greatly different from the previous one, viewer might have a problem making a connection between these and gets confused. And being confused while watching movie is not good, because you start thinking about that moment and don’t focus on the next thing that is shown, so you will get more confused later on. Bigger problem is when the storylines don’t connect into one resolution at the end of the movie, leaving audience unsettled and confused. They’ll leave without satisfaction. So story and shot wise can not be anything sprawling. Also need of mentioning is staying in the format of genre that the film is made. The unfortunate thing is that the the genre is set, all the production must follow it. Filmmakers cannot go and write a comedy piece , shoot it as an action film and later cut it as a romance, and even market it as a documentary .
Secondly, comes to the play the audience. Without them it is pointless to make movies. In order to get the meaning of the film, audience have to decode director’s and writer’s work. Unfortunately , it is not always the case that movies will make sense. That is, because of the time and various limitations, the director is not always capable providing the best and easy imagery that is clear to everyone, and because of that, the movie will limit it’s meaning to the viewer. This is a two way street – director and/or movie makers have to make the best decision to give the best viewing experience which would also make sense but the audience have to be educated enough to see the meaning behind the shots, the dialogue, imagery and put together bigger picture . Furthermore, not everyone will be able to go the cinema. The travel cost, if they live far from the cinema, ticket price , lack of cinemas overall etc will limit cinemas grasp on the society compared to books , which are relatively cost efficient, easy to distribute and mostly always available in the libraries .
In my opinion, cinema is rather a medium of opportunities. Driving to the cinema, watching a movie is relatively easy, at least in Estonia. It requires only two hours of my day, few euros and all i have to do is sit and watch. I agree , technically and timewise, cinema is limited as medium and has an obligation by default to be entertaining but recently filmmakers have start using cinema as an education tool as well. For example, the movie Big Short (2015) does both . It is entertaining and same time explaining complex financial terms to the regular bloke, in a way that is understandable.As A. O. Scott said, „It wants not only to explain the financial crisis of 2008 but also to make the dry, complex abstractions of high finance exciting and fun.“ (New York Times , A. O. Scott, 2015). Also, revealing events and causes that led the way to the housing crisis in the USA in 2007. Another example would be Blackfish (2013), which is on more serious note, taking audience in the dark side of marine mammals park. Revealing the negative effects of keeping whales in contained tanks which wouldn’t be revealed in media and therefore reaching a wider general public.
To conclude, cinema has it’s restrictions, as all media do, but it ensures that it doesn’t fall apart, making it reachable for the audience. To the filmmakers, who want to do something differently, it might be difficult to follow these rules . For example when they want to tell their story more in-depth, go deeper into the characters to make more similarities with the audience. I’d rather like think that cinema is a medium of great opportunities to reach many.
References:
http://www.businessinsider.com/are-movies-getting-longer-2016-6
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-big-short-2015
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/blackfish/review/
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/movies/review-in-the-big-short-economic-collapse-for-fun-and-profit.html?_r=0