Filler (media)
Filler is material of lower cost or quality that is used to fill a certain television time slot or physical medium, such as a music album.
Television
In the early days of television, most output was live. The hours of broadcast were limited and so a test card was commonly broadcast at other times. When a breakdown happened during a live broadcast, a standard recording filled in. On the BBC, a film of a potter's wheel was often used for this purpose, filmed at the Compton Potters' Arts Guild.[1] Similar short films, such as a kitten playing, were also used as interludes or interstitial programs to fill gaps in TV schedules. In the United States, these have their roots in the old Saturday afternoon horror movies hosted on independent stations.[2] The fishcam is a particularly widespread form of filler in this tradition.
In anime, most of the time filler arcs are due to the higher rate at which episodes are released than the original manga, from which the anime draws its source material from. Notable anime to feature high amount of filler include Dragon Ball Z, Naruto and Bleach.[3]
Music albums
Albums of music were typically of a set size determined by the physical medium such as the vinyl record (typically 22 minutes per side[4]) or CD (maximum 80 minutes[5]). It was normal, especially in the 1960s, for artists to attempt to "pad out" their material to the standard length by including filler tracks of lesser quality.[citation needed]
Often songs written by the artists or the producer of an album were included as filler and/or released on the b-side of singles to generate more royalties for the songwriter or artist.[citation needed]
Cover versions are often considered to be fillers, though this judgement varies with the amount of creative interpretation and adaption of the original.[6] Similarly, live recordings, demo versions or remixes follow the same argument.
On the subject of music downloads, Courtney Love told the Digital Hollywood conference "If you're afraid of your own filler then I bet you're afraid of Napster",[7] meaning that other artists may be afraid of listeners being able to listen to a full album before buying it.
See also
References
- ^ Peter Black (1972), The Mirror in the Corner: People's Television, Hutchinson and Co. (Publishers) Ltd, ISBN 978-0-09-110100-8
- ^ Joanne Ostrow (July 3, 1996), Viewers have appetite for fillers with meat, Denver Post
- ^ Northrop Davis, Manga and Anime Go to Hollywood — Bloomsbury, 2015, ISBN 9781623560386, page 650: "Filler arcs: anime series often „get ahead“ of the manga story on which they are based due to the faster rate anime is produced for TV. .. To combat this, the anime producers may have to create their own arcs to stall for time while the mangaka and their team catches up."
- ^ "Chicago Mastering Service-CD and Vinyl Mastering Facility in Chicago, IL". Chicagomasteringservice.com. Archived from the original on August 23, 2018. Retrieved 2020-09-20.
- ^ "Mission of Burma 1988 Rykodisc compilation information". discogs.com. Retrieved 2011-01-18.
This Rykodisc release was the first compact disc to contain 80 minutes of music; 78 minutes had previously been the longest length possible to encode on a CD.
- ^ George Plasketes (May 2005), "Re-flections on the Cover Age: A Collage of Continuous Coverage in Popular Music", Popular Music and Society, 28 (2): 137–161, doi:10.1080/03007760500045204, S2CID 191989545
- ^ "Courtney Love's speech | Música en Internet". Musicaeninternet.com. 2000-05-16. Archived from the original on 2018-01-14. Retrieved 2020-09-20.