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Watching old training videos like this and documentaries[1], it's striking just how much better they are at conveying information.

They take their time. Shots linger, no jump cuts. No-one is driving around while talking, interspersed with random unrelated scenery shots. There are periods of silence.

At least on TV, most documentary style shows try to be so flashy and "cool", with lots of unrelated content that serves no purpose except to make it harder to think about what is being conveyed.

[1]: https://vimeo.com/11932120




The difference lies on the purpose of the videos. Sometimes you want to convey a message, sometimes you want to sell ads. Each type of video is optimized for its intended use case.


But Horizon, made by the BBC, suffers from the same symptoms these days. BBC has no ads to push. So I dunno. I hate it though.


A couple of other examples: an old US Army training video on the workings of various categories of firearms [0], and an old video on how transmissions work [1]. Both make great use of physical models of the mechanisms.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqUgvoVXqg0

[1] https://youtu.be/JOLtS4VUcvQ?t=226




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