Something to ponder over the summer
F ollowing my latest blog – where I wondered why all the graduation doc films from The Danish Film School had to be exactly 30 min., and thus (in my opinion) were not as good as they could have been – I was tempted to go a step further: Why do us documentary film makers still submit to the fact that our films need to be exactly 28:30, 58 or whatever minutes long when working with TV? Oh, you say, it’s so they can fit into the schedule where there are regular programs like news or… well, mostly news… at fixed times, say at 9 o’clock. Oh, I say, so you’re telling me that the programmers of TV can only manage fixed program lengths because… because what? Because their software can only handle specific numbers? I know it’s a lot easier to fill a program slot if you more or less know what is coming in, but last time I looked we don’t have a new slot starting every full hour like the TV networks in the US do. We can start a program at 7:55 PM if we like… and even if you h