[ExI] squeeze the classics

[BillK]

On 5 June 2016 at 19:06, spike  wrote:
> Perhaps some here have noticed that our collective decreasing attention
> spans apply to ourselves as well as the younger set.  Anyone who has tried
> to view the 1950s Perry Mason early TV dramas, which were so excellent at
> the time, but unimaginable in any courtroom today.  We haven’t the ability
> to concentrate at that level for the required time to follow the story.
> Today with real-time news, a lot happens in a couple days, or even a few
> hours.
>
> Yesterday I was viewing one of my old favorite movies, Bogart and Bergman in
> Casablanca.  Excellent story!  But the pace of life is so slow, it got me to
> wondering.  These old classics are pretty much out of reach of the younger
> generation, but what if we figure out a way to somehow edit them, cut out
> some of the dead space?  Can it be done?  Could we somehow shorten old
> movies without losing the thread?  If we did, would there be a dozen
> different abridged Casablancas out there competing for attention?
>


You mean like the Reader's Digest Condensed Books? They shrink books
to about half length by deleting 'unnecessary' sentences.  I doubt
whether cutting the classic films short would be worth the effort. For
the younger generation you would have to add more fights and
explosions to keep their interest. They probably already fast-forward
over the boring bits.

The problem isn't the old films. The problem is the hyper-active
shortened attention span of the new generation.

BillK