Zones Of Interest
Texting is a form of small talk, even though people are now dictating texts and they are getting quite long. This may indicate that people want to have longer conversations but we tend to gravitate towards things that are shorter so we can digest more information. We’re compressing conversation, which isn’t necessarily small talk because it doesn’t lead to longer conversations with any substance. I know a lot of people who only have conversations in emoji and images and very little text, even though they may know how to dictate.
In terms of photo and video aspect ratios, we’re now favoring the portrait aspect ratio for Shorts, but we have yet to see it in feature films unless it catches on culturally and filmmakers start using it. There was a film that came out in 2014, Mommy that used the 1:1 aspect ratio as a metaphor and narrative device to portray the characters’ lives as being “trapped” or “compressed”. It’s an interesting device, similar to audio editing devices to add diegetic information, such as using EQs to give the viewer a sense of being in the world of the film for the emotional valences. The (excellent) film Zone Of Interest uses such audio editing devices throughout the film for this effect.
The use of short/portrait mode may have an unwitting effect below the surface. This is another manifestation of the slippage between reel/screen life and real life, regardless of whether it’s used in films. The portrait orientation may be working as it does in the Mommy film and life is imitating art: It’s shortening and cropping our peripheral vision. It’s frustrating to see portrait video used in a journalistic situation where it’s cropping out the context. The technology is such that we can capture video at the highest resolutions that have ever been possible and we’re choosing to crop them. Perhaps we’re compressing ourselves to conform to social pressures or narratives perhaps — as it was used in Mommy. We’re squeezing ourselves into the middle and letting all the important context blur on the periphery. It’s understandable that we have a preference for the portrait view: If we had an 8x10 portrait of a loved one we wouldn’t crop it to fit into a 10x8 orientation. It would be a wrong zone of interest.
