Saturday, August 25, 2012

An unusual preference

I have a preference that I have noticed is unusual.

I like long films.  I've realised this over the last few years - I hardly ever think a film is too long, but I often think a film is too short.  Other people seem to often complain about films being too long, but I like long films.  I find that films under about two hours seem to finish before they've really got started.  I enjoy the depth of plot that can occur in a film of 2.5-3 hours.
I quickly made a list of 22 of my favourite films.  Even using the short versions of the Lord of the rings films, the average film length was 2 hours 22 minutes.  And that's including three anomalies at 92, 95 and 98 minutes.
I tried this with my list of contenders for greatest song ever - 23 songs, at an average length of 4 minutes 54 seconds.  Then I tried it with 27 of my favourite albums - average length of 50 minutes and 28 seconds.

A brief internet search suggests that the average film length is 2 hours (22 minutes short of my average), the average song length (in western culture) is 4 minutes (54 seconds short of my average), and the average album length is 43 minutes (7.28 minutes short of my average).
Further maths gives my average film length at 18% longer than average, my average song length at 22.5% longer than average, and my average album length at 17% longer than average.

I've noticed that I like long books too - I'm currently half-way through a ten-book series, each book having about 1000 pages.  The reason for this may be similar to the reason for the films - more length allows greater plot depth and complexity, greater character development, and I find that, as long as it's good, I don't get bored.  I'm not sure about the music though.  Probably similar reasons - I find that  short songs are over too soon - I don't have as much time to fully get into them.  Same with albums - over before they've begun.

It seems that most people like things to be a little shorter than I do.  I'm not sure why.

3 comments:

john said...

Because you're tall, and, like the elephant, are afraid of short things.

Elliespeaks said...

It's because you have been blessed with a phenomenal attention span.

profskett said...

My favourite song is 24 minutes long... I guess that just makes me a weirdo!