In a client session today we got onto the topic of watching movies with more on how we watch and where our attention is paid whilst watching. I see the role of the director as a position that manipulates the attention of the audience in order to get the perspective across.
For example, Tarantino writes some brilliant dialogue, but it is the direction that brings the focus to it that is the real art form in the work because it can separate what are highly memorable visuals and still have the words own the scene while the action takes a background position. There is a normalcy in the horrific that the actors essentially ignore events to speak over the top of them, a disconnection to what is happening do as to defer to the ideas of why it is happening as seen through the eyes of the characters.
My client doesn't like sci-fi movies because they are not realistic enough, but argue that it is this step away from reality that allows the focus of the audience to lay on other parts of the story, the more human parts. While some movies draw focal attention to the look through high quality CGI, those with great story lines use the look to remove the attention from the scene itself, and attach the audience to the story being told. Rather than grandness of scene, the focal point might be on the dialogue or the character themselves.
To explain this, I set a hypothetical of watching a movie made in ones hometown and then to imagine what one might focus on and obviously, it will be on the familiar surroundings, with less energy spent on the story told. To demonstrate what can happen when the attention is drawn away from the story, I played an old video clip that most have likely seen before where he had to count the passes of a ball, a task he found difficult. If you haven't seen and tried to do the task, do try as it only takes a minute.
How many did you count? My client admitted it was hard and counted 18 passes.
Selective attention is quite interesting and while two people can be in seemingly the same event, what pulls attention investment is going to depend on predisposition and task at hand. For example, if I was driving down the street with you as my passenger, what we would be scanning for might be very different as while I am looking for traffic, signs and lights, you could be looking at the people walking on the side of the road, reading shop windows or looking at the speedometer wondering what the rush is. My task is to drive and will draw the majority of my attention, your task is unset so will be affected by whatever tickles your fancy in that moment by preference, mood or whatever is shiny.
As we were talking today, I was concurrently making mental notes about how this might affect content in the attention economy and how the audience focus could be drawn or lost through design. As I have said before, I like the content that has a more personal feel to it as it adds character to hang information upon and I turn away from purely informational content as it doesn't build a mental framework. For me, I like content that has some narrative and context, otherwise it feels like I am reading something random and from a textbook.
I think I would have done better at school if I had a contextbook instead.
I don't know what draws your attention whilst reading, but I would say since we think in pictures and space, the chances that the narratives which builds the mental imagery to carry information are important for you too. Of course, this might be content specific, as some content is made for the audience to make up their own framework, their own understanding. in that case though, what is required to draw attention and make it stick is for the piece of work to evoke feelings or images that are memorable for the audience, without giving them more than the cue. A good song might do this, even if the words are not understood - or there are no words at all. Vivaldi's four seasons can bring about imagery without knowing the name of the piece.
However, when it comes to creating our own content, how many of us are able to direct the audience to where there is value, and how many are not sure what that even means? This is something to consider when creating for an audience because how the audience is going to receive it is dependent on the delivery, and just like a joke, poor delivery is a killer in the same way great dialogue can be killed by terrible acting, or brilliant acting can make up for low-quality set design.
For those who contribute their work effort, have you ever considered what the value proposition of your content for the audience is? Does it created to generate thought, change minds? Does consuming your content improve the lives of the audience in any way, give them a nice feeling, enact change for betterment? What are they getting out of it and, are you connecting their attention to what is valuable?
The art of direction is having the ability shift the eyes, ears and minds of the audience to where the value lays, but if the director doesn't even know the value themselves, where do they point the camera?
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]