This is the most interesting documentary about desert sand I have ever watched.

I was able to pay attention throughout the whole thing. Didn't bother me at all.

To someone who knows about geology and ecology, this didn't give me too much additional information. However, it was a good film overall. Definitely not a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but definitely shorter than a show on the Discovery Channel.

I thought it interesting and now I kind of want to go see it.

I think it's "just you." I was entranced by the beauty of the sands, and I enjoyed the old-fashioned documentary aesthetics.

Agreed with the just you. :)

I'm very curious about how he pronounces the name of the town of Alamogordo... he basically pronounces it in spanish... what do you think about that?

I think even if we got through the video fine, if we were honest, it IS slower than our advertisements, documentaries, and movies today. I think we do live a more fast-paced-media lifestyle. Entertainment has had to become faster and more dramatic in order to overcome and better what has been done before (and do make more money in competition with others). Of course this is not the only reason for this.

As the market grows, maybe the drama does too.

First of all, it's not 40 seconds, it's about 36, because the first few seconds are a National Archives add-on that wasn't there in 1938.

I think we should also be aware that these short videos of the '30s were part of the *social event* of going to the movies. It was not all silent viewing. There was whispering, making out, getting popcorn, and all of that going on.

I made it to 30 seconds before I had to skip ahead.

I only made it to 1:44. I too enjoy old b&w film styles, however, I went and read the wiki article on White Sands in about half that time. Point proven as far as I'm concerned.

I quite liked this and would be interested in seeing others. I enjoyed all the science in it, specifically the mention of the ancient sea present "long before the dinosaur ruled." I get the impression everyone believed the same time line back then, not like today where we've got people insisting the world is about 2000 years old.

They were careful to leave the sand in the park/"monument," but they let cars drive and disturb it! I was worried that one was going to tip over.

I feel that it's harder for me to watch a slower, old-style film like this not because of a shortened attention span, but because the "density" of information is much lower than what I'm used to. Sometimes I'd sit there watching something like this and realize that it's much faster to get information from a wikipedia article than watching a nine minute movie.

I don't know, I thought it was quite interesting myself. And while I could have read the wikipedia article and gotten the information quickly, all I would have gotten was information. I wouldn't have seen it, been able to hear the interesting descriptions -- I think it's interesting how alike the narration is to something like Planet Earth today, how interested in poetics and rich language it is. In other words, I think the quality of the information presented here may not be as quick or as simple as Wikipedia...but it's more informative, and I'll probably remember it better.

Also, an interesting sociological question might be how they are actually encouraging driving on -- and skiing on -- the surface of the sand. I hardly guess White Sands allows that sort of thing today.

Also, ditto to Tiago's point above.

I don't know, it was able to sit through it all. I think the reason people may feel like it's unbearably long comes with watching it on the computer. I mean how many times has a friend linked you a Youtube video and you only watched 30 seconds before giving up? It's shorter than anything you'd see on television anyways.

20 seconds. I don't think it's so much about attention span, I can pay attention to things just fine, but I can also process and remember information when it's given quickly. We watched a PBS documentary in class the other day and it failed to hold my attention because it presented very simple information at a very leisurely pace.

I'm confused about what you thought was so boring, too. From your complaints, I was expecting that the film was going to start with a simple title screen for 40 seconds, instead of a sequence of title transitions and nice music.

Although, given the usual topics on this blog, if you haven't watched the whole thing you've missed out on seeing the blind girl parade at the end. Seriously.

Do I have to add "Gosh darned kids with no attention span these days", or do I have to wait until I'm 40 to do that?

These things were notoriously boring. This is a product of lack of expertise in a visual medium that existed in a lot of early television. Just compare Ike's campaign commercial to modern ones.

Totally agree! So slow! I made it up to a minute or two.

I have an uncle who is a classic movie buff, he exposed to me to old films at a very early age. I'm quite comfortable with long static opening sequences like that.

I enjoyed the video. I learned a lot. I actually really enjoy watching old films so that might have something to do with my patience level.

after you get passed the title pages it picks up and the pace is fine. the problem, for me at least, is that its not terribly interesting, especially considering the poor-quality of the film. looking at washed-out sand dunes just isnt how i want to spend 10 minutes. and im sure that might have something to do with modernity; i have so much information at my disposable, i know there are things that interest me more that i can easily access and i would rather spend 10 minutes watching an equally-paced video about one of those.

The titles were okay because they were in an interesting font and had old-timey music. I got bored when the guy started talking, about 50 seconds in, because he had generic-narrator-voice.

23 seconds.

We watched a lot of films like this when I was in junior high school, a long, long time ago. Much more fun than actually having class.

Nine minutes? I ain't even gonna click on it then.

Captain Crab: Films in Jr. High School were more fun than class because the lights were off and shenanigans could commence.

I watch a lot of old films, and always assumed the long "title time" was because of a lower literacy rate at the time. I remember my grandfather reading very, very slowly, sounding each word out, and I always imagined some portion of the movie theater audience doing the same.

Personally, I enjoyed the little documentary, and learned lots of trivial factoids that will come in handy in doing crosswords and parlor games. gypsum= calcium sulfate - Hee! (actually that is pretty significant when you recall the surfing guy falling into the "sand;" my first thought was, "Ouch! Why didn't he just lose 3 layers of skin?")

Well now I regret not visiting there when i lived in west texas. Didn't find it boring in the least.

Good post, lisa.

At first, I was really, really bored. I think I was in "instant gratification youtube mode". But after the content started, I really started to get into it. So, go figure.

I think I have different expectations for 3 minute online videos vs. television. I'm happy to sit through the 60 second intro to my favorite sitcoms, which I've seen dozens of times.

I couldn't even wait for it to load! - ha!

I enjoy watching old films and the title pages seem to have about the same pacing that they often display, but usually there is more text - multiple names of performers and the characters they portray, etc. The pace of the film and narration is quite a bit slower than other films of that period that I have watched. One of my favorite things about these films is listening to accents that seem to have gone out of use. The narrator in this film pronounces some words in almost a transatlantic accent. Wish I could emulate it!

I was fascinated. I like old movie clips and I am deeply interested in deserts and desert travel.

This is exactly how I felt about the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. I was worried that I wasn't "getting the point" or appreciating it's groundbreaking nature because I'm used to having things spoon-fed to me in other movies.

I started taking it as a personal challenge between me and Kubrick... every time a loud alarm would go off for over 30 seconds, every time a spaceship would take over a minute to reach its destination in complete silence, I would think in my head "THIS IS FOR YOU, STANLEY"

I've watched it all and I think the main difference is simply stylistic. A lot of the same information would be included in a modern documentary segment, but the cinematography, narration, and background music would all be different. The camera technology and techniques weren't very advanced in the 30's; I noticed that the camera didn't move around very much. A modern documentary would have a lot more cuts, panning, and varying focus (from the panoramic shots to close-ups). Nowadays, the narrator would be someone who didn't sound like a stentorian pedagogue, but a person who spoke in a more modulated and concise, even colloquial fashion. There's lots of little stylistic things, like not narrating the names of the nearby national parks as they showed them, or including an entire clause of pure hyperbole before saying "...the yucca", for example, that would be done very differently today. Also, that awful background music sounds like a soundtrack clip from a Judy Garland movie. I could swear the exact same smarmy orchestral pseudo-jazz was used for nearly every sentimental movie and "educational film" of the era.

All that said on the technical aspects, I don't understand the purpose of including the blind girls' school expedition, and I think it's very sad that the film was in black and white when they started showing the sunset scene. Colored film is an under-appreciated blessing.

Color contrast, camera cuts, changes of focus, a more engaging style of narration, and less emphasis on facts, figures, and industry are all hallmarks of modern nature documentaries. The idea is to fascinate and engage the viewer, whereas I interpret that the viewer is expected to take an interest in the material on its own merit in this old clip. I think that contrasting old educational films like this one with modern documentaries reveals some key differences in societal expectations and norms between 1938 and 2009.

Disclaimer: I am not a sociology major and I have no idea how to quantify my observations in a scientifically acceptable fashion. I will take any harsh criticism and undue nastiness with laconic indifference, so you may as well save your fingers the strain of typing it.

I quite liked it - it gave me a chance to finish a row of knitting and a chat conversation that I was having at the same time as surfing the net. Uhhh... did I just prove your point? :P

I was struck similarly while watching the old version of Planet of the Apes recently. There's one whole scene that is Charlton Heston walking along the beach and up steps in the cliff. It's uncut and I swear it lasts almost a whole minute. At the time I was more interested in what that said about the different styles and languages of film. But come to think of it, it was really really annoying and boring, and in a short form piece (tv show or similar) or something I wasn't invested in watching, that would have been enough time for me to decide I could be doing something else, and turn it off.

I made it to about 7:00, and boy am I glad I did. "They better know [where they're going] for they are all blind! They too sense the desert florae, that for the rest of us it is our additional pleasure to see!"

So unintentionally hilarious.

i made it to 00:53 seconds and i still feel like i saw enough to comment. what i think is sad is that although the introductory titles lasted for so long, i tested myself and tried to recall them and i had no idea.