Why Difficult Movies Are More, Um, Difficult - Design Principle? Leverage What Your Audience Already Knows To Your Advantage

Original Article by Manohla Dargis via NYTimes.com

"...Filmmakers employ an arsenal of narrative strategies to hook and keep your attention. In February a psychological researcher in Britain, Tim Smith, posted an experiment on Mr. Bordwell’s blog that illustrated how a filmmaker can focus your gaze. Using an eye-tracking technology to trace the movements of pupils (when they’re somewhat fixed or darting about), Dr. Smith was able to map what viewers looked at when they watched a somewhat static interlude from Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood” (2007).

“Viewers think they are free to look where they want,” Dr. Smith writes, “but, due to the subtle influence of the director and actors, where they want to look is also where the director wants them to look.”

What happens, though, if a director doesn’t direct your gaze in familiar ways, shuns classic compositions on the one hand or fast cuts and close-ups on the other, plays with or disrupts narrative norms? What happens to even those enthusiastic moviegoers who — much like that chess master who was able to re-create chess pieces from memory because he recognized familiar patterns — know how Hollywood movies work? Maybe some moviegoers who reject difficult films don’t, like the chess master who didn’t recognize random positions, have the necessary expertise and database patterns to understand (or stick with) these movies. When they watch them, they’re effectively (frustrated) beginners and don’t like that feeling..."

via nytimes.com

Love that this article captures one of my key design principles - design to leverage what your audience know, ie. genre, allusions to other narratives, patterns are all a shorthand that will get your audience busy adding meaning to your work. Smart signalling to what is already familiar is a highly efficient tool that adds layers to new works.

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales