There is a trend at the moment for films to demand a lot from their audiences. Whether it’s the emotional ravaging that is The Revenant or a bum-numbing 187 minutes (plus interval) of The Hateful Eight, cinema has become a gruelling experience.
This is a development that’s somewhat at odds with our high-speed consumption in other areas of life, when a quick scroll on a smartphone can tell us all we need to know about the latest terrifying Trump rally and Google’s taxes (or lack thereof).
On Monday, Instagram is launching a web series that only requires 15 seconds out of your day — less than the time it takes to see what nonsense Kanye’s said overnight.
After that, every day in February a new 15-second clip of crime drama Shield 5, about security driver John Swift (Christian Cooke), who goes on the run after becoming wrapped up in a diamond heist and the death of a colleague, will be posted.
But this is no fuzzy Vine.
The series has been in the works for almost a year and has top-quality production values with stunts and visual effects.
Creator and director Anthony Wilcox is more used to working in more traditional formats, having been involved in The Trip and Layer Cake, but he began experimenting with online because audiences are open to consuming stories in different ways.
“You have to be adaptable in this day and age, and as much as I like to identify romantically with the idea of people watching what I do on the big screen, most people do it on their iPads.
“It was slightly mischievous on my part — let’s make something which has lots of cinematic production values, lots of cinematic qualities but for the small screen.”
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The 39-year-old from Hackney explains that the series will add up to seven minutes of footage altogether but is specifically designed to be consumed in episodic form — each film clip will be accompanied by a still image that forms part of the story.
Much of the work at the scriptwriting stage was to ensure that timings would work later on, during shooting.
Wilcox said: “I think the main things that made this different to a feature were having to think about every single second and really analyse every single second to squeeze as much story and texture into this. You had to break everything down into the tiniest moments.”
So if you’re out of the loop with Jessica Jones and War and Peace, forget spending hours catching up; all you need is 15 seconds a day for your entertainment fix.
Shield 5 premieres on Monday at 5pm on @shieldfive.
Follow Rachael Sigee on Twitter: @littlewondering
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