Filler

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In media, filler is material that is combined with material of greater relevance or quality to "fill out" a certain volume.

Early TV

In the early days of television, most output was live. The hours of broadcast were limited and so, for test purposes, a test card was commonly broadcast at other times. When a breakdown happened during a live broadcast, a standard recording would be used to fill-in. On the BBC, a film of a potter's wheel 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. Interludes or interstitials are such small items used to fill gaps in TV schedules. In the USA, these have their roots in the old Saturday afternoon horror movie host on independent stations.^[2]

Music Albums

Albums of music were typically of a set size determined by the physical medium such as the vinyl record or CD. Artists might then have to pad out their material to the standard length by including filler tracks of lesser quality and this was normal for popular music in the 1960s.

Often times songs written by the artists or the producer of an album were included as filler and/or released on the b-side of singles to generate more royalties for the songwriter or artist.^{[citation needed]}

Cover versions are often considered to be fillers though this judgement varies with the amount of creative interpretation and adaption of the original.^[3]

Anime series

Filler can also refer to a term regarding various scenes and episodes of manga-based anime.

Many television anime series are adaptations of manga comic series, which are sometimes being published in magazines or smaller tankobon volumes concurrently with the series' airing. A manga is usually created by a single person or small team, whereas an anime series requires a large production company with many animators and production staff. This difference in team size means that, even if an anime adaptation is originally created after the start of a manga series, being televised weekly it can quickly outstrip the material in the original manga.

This is also due to the nature of anime and manga as different media, with different conventions and narrative devices, as an action scene in a manga that can take several pages could adapt to only a few seconds of a fluid, moving animation.

Due to this, "filler" episodes are usually made to give the manga time to get ahead of the anime story. Often, at the end of a "filler arc", the situation in the story will resemble however the story was at the beginning of that arc, so as to have the plot re-continue along the lines of the manga. In the worst case scenario, filler can introduce plot holes, differ too much for fans from the original nature of the manga or go on too long, eventually alienating viewers.

An example of filler can be seen in the popular anime One Piece and Bleach[1] where the story suffers from plot holes because of the filler episodes drifting away from the actual story.

The term anime original (アニメオリジナル, anime orijinaru^?) is used in Japan to describe material created specifically for an anime adaptation of a manga, whether its a storyline or character created for anime.

Sometimes, anime like Full Metal Alchemist can outstrip the manga completely, and carry on in their own direction, while the manga follows a very different story later.

References