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.
Anime series sometimes need to include filler arcs, as televised anime episodes are generally published at a higher rate than the manga chapters from which many anime draw their source material. Notable anime to feature large amounts of filler include Naruto and Bleach.[3]
Television stations also broadcast filler in the form of music video clips, either from record labels or performance recordings from the studio of one of the television stations, to fill in the empty minutes leading up to the actual program time, approximately 2-5 minutes beforehand.
Sometimes, filler content can exceed the expectations of the producers. For instance, the characters,
Music albums
Albums of music were typically of a set size determined by the physical medium such as the
Often, songs written by the artists or the producer of an album were included as filler and/or released on the
Cover versions are often considered to be fillers, though this judgement varies with the amount of creative interpretation and adaption of the original.[7] 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",[8] meaning that other artists may be afraid of listeners being able to listen to a full album before buying it.
See also
- Bus plunge
- Evergreen content
- Screen saver
- Slow television
References
- ISBN 978-0-09-110100-8
- ^ Joanne Ostrow (July 3, 1996), Viewers have appetite for fillers with meat, Denver Post
- mangakaand their team catches up."
- ^ .stop
- ^ "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.
- 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.