Returning to the One-Reeler

YouTube and other video sites may be changing our motion picture experience in ways other than draining our patience for broadcast television commercials. Given the shrinking marketplace for released theatrically independent films, filmmakers committed to traditional feature films may turn to Amazon’s CreateSpace video distribution outlet, YouTube Partnerships, or other vehicles for self-distribution.

I anticipate another change, however, which will follow the corollary of “form follows function” that “technique shapes content.” This axiom may be best known from Aristotle’s three unities for theatre of time, place, and action. Although Aristotle was describing Greek tragedy, his Poetics became a structure for classical theatre. Deft playwrights used the unities, challenging them for dramatic effect. (They have also been adapted for film.)

In early film, the example came from the one-reel and two-reeler silent films. Early filmmakers purchased film stock in 1000 foot reels, which defined the length of a motion picture. Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin and others used the reel as the structural length into which a film could be created. Two-reelers dominated the early motion picture industry. When D.W. Griffith defied convention with a twelve reel motion picture, he redefined the industry.

The one-reel film ran 10-15 minutes depending on the playback speed. This was standardized to 11 minutes at 24 frames per second, but some theaters pushed the film speed to increase the number of showings. As a result a one-reel film was sometimes shown in six minutes. Later, perhaps coincidentally, the short film preceding the feature became standardized at six minutes.

The short-film technique gave rise to the genre of the serial or cliffhanger, in which action film shorts were shown each week – bringing the audience back to see what would happen in the next episode. In turn, the serials shaped the development of television and its weekly 22 minute episode.

On the Internet, six minutes is on the very long side. And a YouTube video cannot exceed ten minutes – roughly the length of a one-reel film. These new techniques are beginning to shape the nature of the content produced by independent filmmakers.

Independent filmmakers can learn a great deal of craft from developing their projects in the 6-10 segments. Moreover, crafting a motion picture as a series of scenes built in blocks of thee, six and ten minute segments is a small step from the structure of screenwriting taught in film school today.

Independent filmmakers may find that the new, interactive film craft of posting scenes and interacting with the audience will enhance the production process. Like the serial novels of Charles Dickens and Harriet Beecher Stowe, creating works by serialization need not lessen the craft. At the same time, the approach will allow the best of the new filmmakers to find an audience, separating the compelling projects from the rest.

If the technique shapes modern independent film, the age of the one-reeler has returned.