{"id":5833,"date":"2020-04-28T16:42:23","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T15:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/?p=5833"},"modified":"2020-04-29T09:20:06","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T08:20:06","slug":"from-tiktok-to-tiger-king-what-are-you-watching-during-lockdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/from-tiktok-to-tiger-king-what-are-you-watching-during-lockdown\/","title":{"rendered":"From TikTok to Tiger King – what are you watching during lockdown?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

D<\/em><\/strong>r Ken Fox looks at how viewing habits are changing during lockdown, and the lasting impact it could have on the film and TV industries. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Now is not the time to feel guilty about what you are watching, unless that is all you are doing. In our enforced period of staying at home it is clear streaming services such as Netflix and the newly launched Disney service have had a huge increase in subscribers as well as Amazon Prime and Apple TV. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Fox household this week in\nour own version of Gogglebox<\/em> we have been discussing the huge popularity\nof TikTok, and my daughters (18 and 20), have been trying to explain to me the\nattractions of Tiger King<\/em>. TikTok is an app developed in 2016 you can\nupload to your phone to make short (16 seconds) videos to share with all TikTok\nusers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially, the app videos were\ndominated by lip synching to popular songs and quoting lines from favourite\nmovies but in a time of lockdown where DIY filmmaking skills are coming to the\nfore it has provided hours of entertainment for my two daughters and their\nfriends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the other viewing\nsensations of the past few weeks is the Netflix documentary series, Tiger King.\nI\u2019m not even going to try to describe what it is about, mostly because I\nhaven\u2019t watched it but it seems to be trending everywhere and if you have an\ninsight in to why it is so popular, do let me know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Far from bingeing on box sets I\nam trying to ration my supply so that I have the slower but greater accumulated\npleasure of episode by episode storytelling. I have resisted that voice in my\nhead which says, just one more episode of Better Call Saul<\/em>, go on, you\nknow you want to. I do, I do, but when it is over I will miss seeing Saul, Kim,\nMike and dare I say it, I\u2019ll even miss Gustavo Fring, the amoral drug lord who\nuses his fast food business as a front for his nefarious drug trade. Better\nCall Saul<\/em> is now in its fifth series and is a prequel series to the\nmagnificent Breaking Bad<\/em>. If you really want to binge, catch up with Breaking\nBad<\/em> first and then relive its storytelling virtuosity by starting Better\nCall Saul<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it appears streaming\nservices are having a bumper time in terms of audience numbers, it is wonderful\nto see a high quality drama such as Normal People<\/em> arrive on BBC. This\ntwelve part dramatization of Sally Rooney\u2019s award winning novel of the same\nname is brilliantly acted, scripted and directed. One piece of advice though,\nas it tells the story of two teenagers in their final year of school who form a\nvery close relationship, it is probably best to avoid watching it with teenage\nchildren. Who wants to watch scenes of teenage lovemaking with their parents? My\ntwenty year old year daughter watched it on her own and declared it the best\nrepresentation of young love she has seen on the BBC or anywhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These programmes are big scale\nproductions that were finished before lockdown and with current productions of\nfilm and television at a standstill, what are we likely to be watching in the coming\nyears? Re-runs will only work for a certain amount of time, audiences will always\ncrave new content. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am optimistic that creative\npeople will find ways of creating in a lo-fi, DIY style that will still engage\naudiences. These stories may not have the very high production values of\nquality drama such as Normal People <\/em>or Better Call Saul<\/em>, however,\nthis could be a boon for aspiring visual and audio storytellers everywhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trend being established by TikTok may well flood over into mainstream productions. While 16 seconds of story might not satisfy everyone, it is likely that our blockbusters might be shorter, what a relief, and brevity will become not just the soul of wit but also the heart of storytelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Ken Fox, Principal Lecturer, School of Creative Arts and Industries<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Ken Fox looks at how viewing habits are changing during lockdown, and the lasting impact it could have on the film and TV industries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":242,"featured_media":5838,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[393,601],"tags":[3494,1966,3490,3486,3397,3497,3485,3489,3482],"class_list":["post-5833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-film-and-tv","tag-better-call-saul","tag-binge-watching","tag-breaking-bad","tag-film-tv","tag-lockdown","tag-normal-people","tag-streaming","tag-tiger-king","tag-tiktok"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authorName":"Jeanette Earl","featuredImage":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/437\/2020\/04\/TikTok.jpg","postExcerpt":"Dr Ken Fox looks at how viewing habits are changing during lockdown, and the lasting impact it could have on the film and TV industries.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/242"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5833"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5849,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5833\/revisions\/5849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}