Series and Pauses: To the Problem of Cutting

Abstract

Unlike a classic film, which requires the audience’s attention from the first to the last frame, every series is forced to deal with pauses, which constitute the aesthetic specificity of this artistic format. Breaks between seasons, episodes, and sometimes blocks within a separate episode (transitions to advertising) are often carefully thought out by the creators and supported by specific tools that are designed to maintain the viewer’s interest in the work: a cliffhanger, retroactive continuity, the module “in previous episodes,” etc. Using film, television and literary series as a researcher material, the author analyzes the process of the audience’s encounter with a work — both during its direct perception and in anticipation of the next part. High discreteness of the serial rhythm leads the extralong form to a succession of drama crises, forcing it not only to develop the action forward but also to correct its own past, resolve logical inconsistencies, and reinterpret the events that have already happened. The article argues that a series deliberately abandons the fabula (plot) as an eventual given, introduces new unspoken conventions that its devoted viewers must accept, and receives the audience’s feedback, entering an interactive narrative mode.

Keywords

• serial aesthetics
• western series
• editing
• inter‐frame space
• cliffhanger
• opening sequence
• splash screen
• transmedia project
• fan fiction
• repetition and variation
• retcon
• participatory culture
• méliès
• one thousand and one nights