Seriously, Joss Whedon, why can't you just LEAVE ME ALONE?

No, this time it's really his fault. Last time I fussed at Joss Whedon, it was on the unfair side, but in this case, honestly, I think he really was specifically targeting me and my obsessive nature by having this whole "trademark" (pfft) thing that he has.

Because what Joss Whedon does is, he does a lot of single-take scenes. It's all one shot. He likes this and he does it all the time, and now that I'm aware of this possibility, it's become the same kind of weird all-encompassing film/TV obsession for me as people's eyes in movies. My brain can't leave it alone. I pay so much attention that I miss dialogue.

(I really do. The eye thing? It's awful. Sometimes I'm all thinking, Oooo, her eyelids are going up really slowly, that secondary character, gosh, I wonder what that means, and the focus that it takes for me to interpret every movement of her eyes distracts me from the main action and so I'm totally unprepared when something loud and sudden happens, so I shriek like a little girl. And watching for long shots, it multiplies the effect BY A LOT.)

Anyway, this single-take scenes thing. All Joss Whedon's stupid fault. Now when I'm watching a scene in anything, I'm wondering to myself how long they can hold the shot for before they have to go to a new shot. I get all suspensey and nervous over how long the shot can be sustained. If it's a long shot, I get tenser and tenser and tenser until they finally switch to a new shot and then I can relax and think admiring thoughts about how long that shot was. If it's a short shot – one of those times when people are having a conversation and the shots switch back and forth between them – I become very annoyed and have a mental tantrum that prominently features the words IT IS LIKE THEY ARE NOT EVEN TRYING.

And the more this happens, the longer it takes for the sane voice to interrupt the tantrum and remind me that, Jenny? You have to calm down because, honey, they aren't trying.

...Which I knew. Of course.