Vertical Dramas

I have just seen a news article describing a new genre called vertical dramas. This is mini-series comprising 1 minute episodes edited to work in the vertical format used on mobile phones. These are apparently made by skilled film makers who are able to get the most out of the visual constraints imposed by the technology. Apparently the script writers are less skilled and the format has already got a reputation for cheesiness.

I haven’t seen any of these yet, though I must admit that the adaptation of Pride and Prejudice sounds intriguing.

But it doesn’t seem to me that this is necessarily a bad thing. If people are highly distracted and have a short attention span, then that is a challenge which the makers can rise to. In fact, they might well be able to be highly creative in it. Short form isn’t fundamentally a problem. In fact often it is constraints that make things special. It could be argued that the novel form is overcoming the constraints of the print media where illustrations were necessarily scarce and colour almost unkown.

It doesn’t seem remotely unlikely that vertical format in short forms could become the standard means of communication in much the way the book did. It’s convenient and very adaptable. There is nothing to stop them being put together into play lists for covering topics that require more time. And given that its a form that lends itself to economy of expression, it might well overcome one of the problems with books. I don’t know how much time you’ve spent reading stuff that is obviously padding to fill out a book whose ideas could be got over in much few pages.

I dare say it will induce a moral panic. Things like this often do. The Sorrows of Young Werther was blamed for encouraging suicide. And there was the ‘reading rage’ where young people were accused of wasting their lives reading novels. (Incidentally the Sorrows of Young Werther was turned into a romcom last year – and seems ripe for the vertical treatment.) But at the end of the day humans manage to use most media to get over the messages they want to get over.