I wonder if there's a correlation between scene length and movie genres, if, say, dramas have longer scenes because it's people talking in rooms, and action has shorter scenes because they just need to establish plot points, once you get more action (or action-styled) movies, you get shorter scenes?

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Yes. things are getting shorter. But I'm not sure if I agree with the whole "audience is smarter" thing. I believe there are greater factors at work . blog post - 1001 Positively True Stories

I'm all ears, Angelo. Say on.

Ironic name for the psychologist. I don't know if the right word is smarter. Maybe more like faster, able to grasp concepts visually in less time, a learned behavior. I'd be curious to see if dialogue time is also dropping, or if it correlates with reduced shot time. I'm working on a mystery where I feel an urge to replace most of my detective's "summation" speech with a montage of a dozen short recap shots, some MOS, some not. I'd sure try it that way if I had the resources to experiment.

Chris, I think there can be. Action can tend to have shorter scenes befitting a quicker pace. As you suggest, dramas may have longer scenes because more of what goes on is about interaction, not action. BTW you can check the running time of movies per genre and see something similar. Action, Comedy, Horror may tend to have shorter run times. Compared to Drama and Science Fiction which may tend to run longer.

Angelo, thanks for the link. I should have been clearer. When I said "smarter," what I really meant was they are story-smart, not necessarily more intelligent. By story-smart, I'm referring to the fact that by the time a person graduates from college, s/he will have seen, heard or read over 10,000 stories. I believe there is a concurrent type of learning that happens, an intuitive sense if you will, by being immersed so many stories. One of the reasons why we had so many twist ending movies like Sixth Sense, Usual Suspects, Fight Club is, I think, a result of this factor: Audiences know a lot more about story nowadays, at least the conventions of story, and so writers started to come up with a Big Twist to surprised the audience and as a result create buzz. This plays out on a lot of levels. One example I like to cite is The Dark Knight. When Joker informs Batman that Harvey Dent and Rachel have been kidnapped and are being held in two separate locations, we don't actually SEE the kidnappings, them getting tied up, the explosives until after the fact. I can tell you had I tried to write a set of events like that in 1987, the studio notes would have been: We have to SEE the kidnapping. Not nowadays. The Nolan brothers knew the audience could make that logical jump and would prefer to do that, going against the old adage 'show it, don't say it' in order to get to the more compelling scenario: Dent and Rachel talking to each other as the clock ticks down, cross-cutting to Batman and Gordon racing to both locations. So by smart, I mean story-smart. And honestly, I think some of this has to do with the prevalence of video games, young people raised on confronting myriad narrative choices, so they have been attuned to thinking about plot possibilities in thousands of hours of role-playing. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it! Again thanks for your comments!

Jeff, re "smarter": Please see my response to Angelo. Re the professor's name -- Cutting -- I thought the same thing. I actually know an editor whose last name is Cutler. Re replacing dialogue with visuals: For heaven's sake, give it a try. What's the downside? If it doesn't work, go with dialogue. But if it does work, you're playing to the strength of the visual nature of the medium.

[…] recent Go Into the Story article by Scott Myers brings up some interesting facts regarding the length of film scripts and running […]

Well, in sci-fi films, you need to stop and explain what's going on. And then, "explain like I"m a child."

My two cents: Stories reflect the speed of society. Our lives are much more compacted with information these days. We live on schedules, by appointments, meetings. We live in a world of texts, selfies, tweets. Life is no longer pastoral; it's technical, wireless, instantaneous. I think it only makes sense that our films reflect these changes.

Yes, Kalen. Concur. I teach a university class called the History of American Screenwriting, so am reminded each spring of how storytelling in the movies is ALWAYS changing. We should expect no less today, maybe even more so due to rapid technological changes.

Somewhat unrelated: Barry Salt, the one who made the scatter charts, was one of my instructors (we didn't call them professors) when I was in film school in London. I believe he's still there. He is basically a walking encyclopedia of film history. I'm not surprised that he would catalog the shot lengths from 15,000 movies. Fifteen thousand.

Let's not forget the production part of the equation. If you have an unlimited budget you make 2005 King Kong or every Hobbit film. Also Studios want as much out of their investment, hence Kill Bill 1&2 instead of Kill Bill or shooting Matrix 2&3 at same time. Its the era of the sequel as well. Men in Black 2 barely had enough new ideas to reach 90 minutes but it got made. Quality scenes can be as long as they need to be. Watch Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds and tell me he should have been trimmed. I dare you

Very cool, Bretton. I figured whoever was behind this had a massive interest -- obsession? -- with movies. Thanks for that info.

Good point, Phil. Production budgets certainly inform the 'shortening' dynamic, oftentimes creating a special kind of creativity to make things work for less dollars. Your point about long shots / scenes in Inglourious Basterds gets me thinking: I wonder if some filmmakers will move toward longer shots, longer scenes in response to the shortening of shots, shortening of scenes. That way, they stand out. But in order to do that, you have to justify that from a character, plot and entertainment perspective, not just to do it.

One obvious thing no one has mentioned - and just occurred to me - regarding shot length is the rise of digital technology. Editors used to work on film. That took a certain amount of time and choices about when to enter/exit shots and scenes more complex. With digital shooting and editing, filmmakers can make endless choices, test them out, redo them, and so forth with a flick of a few keystrokes. The fact it's much EASIER to edit the content could be a contributing factor.

[…] Go into the Story: The ‘shortening’ of movie scenes - I hate when people make blanket pronouncements that could be easily tested by data. Scene length can be sampled and tested both on the page and as edited. But let us grant it. Even so... so what? I would not be surprised if, in any storytelling medium -- including stage plays -- as audiences get more familiar with the mechanics of the medium, the storytellers are able to 'shorthand' more and more. […]