Why do the conversations on soap operas contain those long pauses between...

fixit_fiona

I happened to catch a bit of a soap opera the other day, and it was like seeing a soap opera for the first time. Character A spoke. We watched him for a second or two after he spoke, looking earnest. Then we cut to Character B, who said her line. Then we watched her for two or three seconds. And I found myself thinking "Yes, that's exactly right, that's just how it's done on soap operas." I felt that if the dialog were delivered at the normal...

Originally asked by Chaim on Stack Exchange (movies) (CC BY-SA 4.0).

uphilltech

Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:

With apologies for the slight time delay before answering this question... I'm in the UK, and I don't really notice this happening here (at least in the brief snips of soaps I happen to stumble across). There are a few explanations as to why this might happen: To allow for dubbing - Different languages might have more dialogue than English, so needs more time to fit that dubbing in without having to edit so much. You might have to also allow time to read the subtitles Time - Some networks might have different time restrictions, and speed-scrolling the credits might not be enough (a weak reason, I know) Dumbing down - Some target audiences might need some time to recognize the end of one...

Full answer by user43022: https://movies.stackexchange.com/a/91938 (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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