01x05 - Film vs Television

[bunniefuu]

[film projector whirs]

[whistling]

[announcer]

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Opens at a theater near you

[Taylor]

There used to be a clear distinction

between films and television.

There she is!

You went to the movies

with comfy chairs

air conditioning,

and that ever-present sticky soda floor.

Shrouded in darkness,

you forgot the outside world.

And you gave yourself up to a story.

[laughs]

[Will Smith]

Carlton's on the basketball team?

[Taylor] Television, on the other hand,

came to you.

You stayed at home, in the living room,

surrounded by your everyday life.

You had control.

Let's go!

[Taylor] To change the channel,

turn up the volume, go get a snack.

[phone vibrating]

[steam whistling]

And the TV would still be going

when you got back.

But then something changed.

And the lines

between the two started to blur

making it harder to tell them apart.

I don't go to the movies much.

If you've seen one, you've seen them all.

[Taylor] So what exactly is the difference

between film and television?

TV rots your brains.

[Taylor]

What do they offer to you?

Our impulses are being redirected.

[Taylor] And what are they asking

from you in return?

To answer that, we need to go

back to where it all began.

Hi, there.

I want to talk to you about ducts.

- What else is on?

- Let's see what else is on.

[Taylor] For the first half

of the twentieth century,

film was the dominant

form of entertainment in the US.

[announcer] Across the nation,

three out of every four Americans

see a moving picture once a week,

in 18,000 movie houses.

[Taylor] But after World w*r II,

a new invention emerged,

which meant, for the first time,

movies had a direct competitor.

[announcer]

American television,

the world's biggest theater,

with daily audience

[Taylor]

So studios needed to convince the public

why it was better to leave the house.

They adapted successful books,

plays,

and Broadway shows.

[snapping rhythmically]

They reinvested in theaters

to make them more upscale.

[announcer]

Today, more than ever before,

audiences appreciate

surroundings of luxury.

[Taylor]

And they introduced new technology.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Cinerama.

[majestic music plays]

[Taylor]

First came Cinerama

and other forms of widescreen.

Then there was

3D, stereophonic sound, and Technicolor.

special engagements, 70 millimeter,

Smell-o-vision.

All of these changes came so quickly

and at such scale that even

the movies themselves took note.

[woman] Today, to get the public

To attend a picture show ♪

It's not enough to advertise

A famous star they know ♪

If you wanna get the crowds

To come around ♪

You gotta have glorious Technicolor ♪

Breathtaking Cinemascope ♪

And stereophonic sound ♪

[Taylor] It was an arms race to make film

look better, sound better,

be better than the television

sitting in your living room.

And it worked.

[man, on TV]

Can you read this?

Well, it's pretty hard, that far away.

[Taylor]

Early TV was not a new form of the movies.

It was a radio with pictures.

And, like radio,

it was sold as a piece of furniture.

You can tune in this wonderful

new Westinghouse television set

with just one hand, like this.

[Taylor] The first TV networks

were all radio networks,

and they carried over the same

way of doing business.

Shows were free

because they were funded by advertisers.

Oh dear, I see the actors

won't be ready for another 60 seconds.

However, thanks to our sponsors'

remarkable foresight,

we have a message

that will fit in here nicely.

[announcer] Maxwell House Coffee

tastes as good as it smells, every time.

[Taylor]

In exchange, TV shows needed to build

an ongoing relationship with the audience.

By offering a new episode every week,

they made tuning in a ritual.

Ricky, wait a minute,

let's not watch television tonight.

- Not watch television?

- Not watch television?

What else is there to do?

[Taylor] TV episodes were structured

around commercial breaks.

Just like radio programs,

every few minutes there would be a joke

or a cliffhanger to keep people

interested through the advertisements.

Somebody's still in this building.

[dramatic music plays]

[Taylor]

Television succeeded because audiences

fell in love with favorite characters.

They were like family,

friends,

or coworkers.

Great TV shows understood that,

once an audience was invested,

even the smallest triumphs

could feel significant.

Pam. Sorry.

Um

Are you free for dinner tonight?

Yes.

All right.

Then it's a date.

[door closes]

[Taylor] And with syndication,

if a show got to a hundred episodes,

it could be resold

to another network again

and again, and again.

Theoretically, there are some

shows that could be on the air forever.

[theme song] Where everybody

Knows your name ♪

[door opens]

[Taylor] By contrast,

what was special about the movies

was the feeling of being taken

into a fully immersive world.

It's an experience

that is often described as cinematic.

Think of cinema as a language with its own

unique vocabulary and grammar.

It can be minimalistic

or extravagant,

realistic,

or surreal.

But for many years,

feature films were more fluent

in the language than television.

Here's a great example.

The same story made twice

by the same filmmaker.

Once for television

and six years later as a feature film.

Even on the most superficial level,

the TV version is more limited.

The lighting is flatter,

the backgrounds are less detailed,

and every scene

feels like it's done in close-up.

Notice how every shot

conveys a single piece of information,

usually placed near the center of frame.

But the feature film

had more time and money.

The lighting is more dynamic.

The backgrounds are richly textured,

and the compositions

are given room to breathe.

This opens up the film,

allowing us to experience moments

purely through image and sound.

Let's take a look

at the famous diner scene.

In the TV version, notice how the editing

follows the actor who is speaking.

What are you, a monk?

No.

I got a woman.

What do you tell her?

I tell her I sell swimming pools.

In the movie, the editing often lingers

on the actor while they're listening

because it's the reactions that are given

the weight of importance, not the words.

What are you, a monk?

I have a woman.

What do you tell her?

I tell her I'm a salesman.

[Taylor]

Movies were expected to have more depth,

to be more cinematic, not just because

they had more money and resources

[g*nf*re]

but because they could use more

of the vocabulary and grammar

of the language.

The cinematic language of the TV version

tended to be very literal,

which meant lots of talking

and lots of close-ups.

- What the hell's the matter with you?

- [panting]

Why'd you fall for this, huh?

You were free like a bird.

[Taylor] But the feature film

was allowed to be more figurative.

It was able to create moments

that said it all

without needing to say a word.

[dramatic music plays]

And for 50 years,

that was the dividing line.

A movie was a cinematic experience

in a theater.

A TV show was a weekly ritual

in the comfort of your own home.

Every once in a while,

something would come along

and blur the boundaries between the two.

[man]

It's Laura.

[Taylor]

But the hierarchy was firmly established.

And that's the way things stayed.

Until one day

a premium cable network made a crime

drama about an Italian-American family.

[theme song]

You woke up this morning ♪

[Taylor] The Sopranos was

in the right place at the right time.

It was cinematic.

- It attracted talented performers.

- [g*nshots]

And it was able to sustain

a serialized story for almost a decade.

Most importantly,

unlike network television,

there were no worries about advertisers

getting squeamish over public opinion

The very idea ABC would even think of

producing that stereotypical goombah fest.

f*cking k*ll you! What are you

[Taylor]because HBO's economic model

was based on subscriptions.

And the Emmy goes to

[Taylor] As The Sopranos was showered

with awards and critical acclaim,

HBO gained prestige

and more paying customers,

which meant other networks had to compete

because now there was an audience

that was hungry for ambitious television.

As of this moment, we are at w*r.

While all of this was happening on screen

behind the scenes,

the digital revolution was taking place.

The great switchover

to digital television

[announcer]

On August 31st

We will officially make the switch.

only through a digital signal.

[Taylor]

For most of its lifespan,

television was transmitted

over the airwaves based on

analog standards like NTSC or PAL,

which meant at home, you are watching

a lower resolution version

of the true image.

Meanwhile, movies were shot

and shown on film,

which for years was the highest

resolution available.

[western music plays]

But within 20 years,

both television and movies

switched their entire pipelines

to digital

which meant that the two mediums

started to look more and more alike.

[newscaster] We live in a world where

movie theaters face more competition.

[woman]

People not coming to the movies

really struggling

[man] keep theaters competitive

with streaming options.

[Taylor]

Just like in the 1950s, the movie industry

needed to convince the public

why it was better to leave the house.

So they relied on the same method

that worked so well before, because

If you wanna get the crowds

To come around, you gotta have ♪

Special glasses!

- [announcer] 4DX!

- [man] Artisan popcorn.

- Nice little dinner.

- [announcer] IMAX.

- [woman] Alcohol.

- [man 1] Luxury seating.

[man 2]

Laser projection.

[woman]

Stereophonic sound ♪

[Taylor]

And this time, it didn't work.

People still lined up at theaters,

but increasingly,

it was only for blockbusters

that relied on spectacle.

Plenty of others stayed at home

What happened to the movies?

First, they got worse than TV,

and now this!

[growls]

[all gasp]

where they had a front-row seat

to the showdown happening

on the small screen.

Get down off your horse.

Please lower your blaster.

I admire a man with confidence.

I don't see no sweat

on your brow neither, bro.

You wanna dance?

Let's dance.

The f*ck?

You are up to no good, obviously.

What the hell are you doing?

[man]

That is how an RBMK reactor core explodes.

[eerie music plays]

[Taylor]

On that superficial level,

movies and television

looked more similar than ever.

But there is still

a fundamental difference.

Take a look at two stories about the same

subject written by the same writer.

Once as a film

and again, as a series.

The Queen tells a complete story

over the course of 90 minutes.

It quickly sets up the main character,

the major events

Diana, Princess of Wales,

has died after a car crash in Paris.

and the theme of the film.

- He's going to try and modernize us?

- I wouldn't put it past him.

[Taylor] After that, every scene exists

to relate back to the Queen or Tony Blair.

If you imagine I'm going to drop

everything and come down to London

before I attend to my grandchildren,

who've just lost their mother

then you're mistaken.

The Crown, on the other hand,

is a serialized long-form story.

Each episode has a different focus

but a similar format.

There is a crisis,

a meeting with the Prime Minister,

and the question of what this means

for the monarchy.

I was a similar age to you when your

great-grandmother, Queen Mary,

told me that to do nothing

is the hardest job of all.

People will always want you to smile

or agree or frown, and the

minute that we do,

we will have declared a position.

[Taylor] The crux of the feature film

is that the filmmakers only get one chance

and a set amount of time to tell a story,

so they have to make every moment count.

Everything we see on screen,

even if it's pure subtext

is there to enrich

the character's journey.

If we compare

the beginning of the film to the end,

we see a change in the characters

that might seem surprising

But I can see that the world has changed

and one must

modernize.

[Taylor]

but was, in fact, inevitable.

Well, perhaps that's where I can help.

The essence of the series is that

there are many chances to tell a story.

Each episode may follow a format,

but this allows for a multitude

of ideas or characters

to weave in and out

of the larger tapestry of the show.

A minor character in one story

can be the central focus in another.

[man]

And no one wants you to be you.

They want you to be it.

A statue. A thing.

The Crown.

That's what they've come to see, not you.

[Taylor]

This is how TV works.

Many glimpses of a character that allow

the audience to explore different facets

of their personality

over a longer period of time.

Television is good for normal people.

But that was the whole point,

to show everyone that behind palace gates

we are perfectly normal people.

No, ma'am. You are not normal.

[Taylor] So if you want a single,

standalone experience

that gives you a definitive ending,

watch the movie.

If you want many little stories

that build on each other over time,

watch the show.

Perhaps you might comment

on what's on the television.

It would be easier if there was something

remotely amusing to watch.

I agree. This is deathly.

[Taylor] So what does all of this mean

for you, the viewer?

Movies ask for a lot upfront.

Going to the movies is a night out,

and not a cheap one at that.

[beeping]

But for your time and undivided attention

the film agrees to give you a streamlined

and heightened experience.

It promises an ending

that will leave you with lasting memories

of a world you briefly visited.

Television asks for less upfront.

One episode isn't very long,

and you don't need to leave your couch.

But the smaller investment

grows over time.

You expect to care about these characters

and to become more deeply invested

with every episode.

There's nothing in the world more

powerful than a good story.

[Taylor] The trade-off is that you might

not get an ending that satisfies you.

And who has a better story

than Bran the Broken?

[Taylor] For over 70 years,

each medium has vied for your attention.

But maybe it's time for the discussion

between movies and TV to be reframed.

From the world's greatest

library of film classics

[Taylor]

At the end of the day, what really matters

are the stories that capture

your imagination

in whatever form they happen to come in.

[dramatic music plays]