addi - revisited

scott macaulay over at the filmmaker magazine blog liked a post i put up back in august about the term "addi". the comments became a discussion itself, so i decided to do a follow-up post for clarification.

"Maybe you guys should watch fewer video games and stop fast forwarding through subtitled films. You might reap the benefits of a movie with a slow buildup and savor the cummulative effect of a great and important film like Caché. Turn off your phone, your ipod and whatever sensory overload you insist upon and just watch the movie. Check your A.D.D. at the door (probably too much to ask). You might learn something. Not all great things have to move swiftly."

the hyperbole of cache being a "great and important film" aside, this misses my point (though to be fair my terminology was misleading in my original post). im not saying i need my ipod and counter-strike game going while im watching; it's not about sensory-overload. and im not arguing for more speed. im arguing against taking any longer than necessary to convey the information. not all things that move slowly are great.

"While I think the term is amusing, at the most, I would be fine with it except it sounds a little too much like doublespeak. The term is provocative, and I appreciate its point. But I fear the day that the work gets naturalized in the film jargon; the day a producer will tell me "It's got too little ADDI". It's true that the ADD+I makes for a swift 'n smart viewing experience, but the pitfalls are that tight, domino effect editing and screenwriting will amuse me the duration of the film, but I leave the film and the memory withers: They never had time to make the viewer sink in the story or its ideas, all they did was making my mind perform gymnastics, amused by the those movies' mechanical symmetry and narrative singsong. There's a discussion in David Bordwell's blog about the average duration of shots (A.D.S, quite similar to ADD+I); he evidences the decline, thoughout the decades, of Scorsese's average shot length. He's clearly more "ADDI compliant" now, but are his films necessarily better? They might be more watchable, but they don't have that vaporous quality that makes his early work so enthralling. The generous lengths of many shots, featured in his best work, has surely something to do with their overall quality as movies."

i must admit the idea of a producer somewhere in the future invoking a term i coined is fun, but drawing a parallel between ads and addi makes the same mistake as the first quote.

but what i find interesting is the last two sentences: how one quantifies the effect of a "vaporous quality," i don't know but why would the generous lengths of shots automatically have something to do with quality? since when has quantity equaled quality?

addi means not spending any time more than necessary to impart a particular piece of information. i LOVE long shots, provided there's interesting information to be given by them. if a scene was wondrous and filled with (relevant) visual detail, i'd have no problem lingering on it.
the term doesn't apply specifically to cuts or even visuals - it refers to information. if we're constantly learning something new to advance the story, then stylistically anything can work.

the main difference i would see with others is in the definition of information. for others, basking in the warmth of a beautiful scene or exploring the exquisite delicacy of a powerful emotional moment might be their joy. that wouldn't be a film for me. i watch movies to be told a story. i want to experience emotion, but only in the service of the story, not as a means unto itself.