Lots of children (and in particular my learning and hearing impaired nephew, it seems) like to sit right in front of the TV screen, which can be intensely irritating when you're trying to watch a gripping film/sporting event/whatever. Most TV screens are way bigger than a child's head; if filmmakers centred some or most of the action on the edges of the screen instead of in the middle the program/film/whatever would still be possible to watch.

This could lead to all kinds of new ways of making films/TV shows etc, couldn't it? Whole sub-plots could unfold in various areas of the screen, and you could interpret the story in a completely different way to someone who watched a different part of the screen...

(I just KNOW I'm gonna get muchly boned for this... it's a better method than my original "picture in picture" idea though, isn't it?
-- kmlabs, Apr 05 2005

hmmm, I quite like this. couldn't you have an inch or two of cartoon down there.
-- po, Apr 05 2005


"Letterboxed" films would present an interesting opportunity.

Sort of tangential, but it made me think of the "Zucker brothers" comedies like "Airplane!" in which there are all sorts of side-jokes that go on in the background of scenes that have little to do with the story.
-- krelnik, Apr 05 2005


How about something along the lines of the little cartoons of stick figures doing weird or funny things in the margins of "Mad" magazine? I always thought them charming even though I found the magazine to be somewhat less so.
-- bristolz, Apr 05 2005


Transparent children's heads!
-- fridge duck, Apr 05 2005


good but magic.
-- po, Apr 05 2005


Hey... if you had lots of televisions with cartoon figures in the corners, you could flick through all the televisions really fast and it would look like the figures were really moving...
-- moomintroll, Apr 05 2005


What's "magic," [po]? The idea here or the transparent child heads?
-- bristolz, Apr 06 2005


I liked to watch the TV like that as a child. My cat still does. Neither of us are learning or hearing impaired, so I don't think there is a causal relationship there. Then again, there are those who consider us both intensely irritating, so maybe that's your problem: get another nephew.
-- DrCurry, Apr 06 2005


Ah, couldn't do that Doc. Irritating in front of the TV he may be, but he's utterly wonderful in all kinds of other ways...

[Krelnik] that's kind of along the lines I was thinking, but maybe a more involved story unfolding in the background, rather than just a quick sight gag.
-- kmlabs, Apr 06 2005


This is a case of juvenile non-transparency syndrome.
-- nineteenthly, Apr 06 2005


bris, transparent child's heads.
-- po, Apr 06 2005


Maybe if you had a trucker TV with big giant side mirrors you could glance at the reflected version of the screen

kind of like a TV tricked out like a truck

don't laugh:AMC jeep look radio
-- beanangel, Oct 11 2007



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