MTV Editting

I actually took out time to watch Jersey Shores in preparation for this unit in class. I have never watched Jersey Shores before, having never been a fan of MTV. Although some segments of it did seem quite real to me (such as girls always, always, always fighting when in groups of more than three ), other aspects of it I couldn't relate to.

However, one thing that did stick out to me was the style of editing. I realized suddenly why this kind of show is so appealing to kids, the sex and violence and fostering of superiority complexes aside. I thought back to how i felt about movies from t he 70s, and how the slow pacing would always make me shut them off before they were halfway done and go do something else. The movies of the 30s, 40s, 80s, and 90s were always much more appealing to me because they talked fast, acting fast, and things happened fast. The 50s, 60s, and 70s with their slow pans, their long quite moments, and muted color palettes usually didn't appeal to me (unless they were early sci-fi B movies, but that's neither here nor there )

Content is definitely the main draw of Jersey Shore, but I think that delivery is just as important and not remarked on as often. I think the quick cutting ,colorful overlays, and use of popular music really helped bring the show home to squirmy teenaged audiences and the college crowd who can't even get off Facebook for twenty minutes to pay attention to a class they're paying ridiculous amounts of money to be in. If anyone is curious to see this kind of cutting in a different format, check out the anime projects of a studio called SHAFT. You'll notice the resemblance immediately. I believe in both cases it's to save budget by making a cheap show not as noticeable with even cheaper filters and shiny colors, and to keep an ADD prone audience engaged. I think it's no surprise these kinds of show can beat well written dramas in the ratings polls, considering most of well written dramas are just the actors staring at each other meaningfully. Older audiences may have a tolerance for that, buy the percentage of the population that does will decrease as the years go on and studio execs better get forward thinking before it has an even bigger impact on their bottom line.