The day before yesterday I was having a conversation with some of my students at NYU about why people go out to the movies. We focused on the whole tribal aspect of it.
When you are in a movie theater, and you are surrounded by other people, most of those other people are generally strangers. Yet you still feel a sense of being in a tribe, and your sense of immersion is amplified by that sense.
It’s a powerful primal feeling, and you get the same boost when you go out to see live theater, or to a concert, or to a football game. As an audience, we all collectively manage to heighten the sense of emotional involvement for each other.
I noted, for completeness, that this isn’t always how people see movies in a movie theater. “Sometimes,” I pointed out, “when a big movie mogul is screening a film, it’s just an empty theater, and he or she is the only one watching.”
Of course that is a statistically rare occurrence. I mean, who is that guy? Have you ever met him? We decided it wasn’t really a point worth dwelling on.
Then today I visited Lucasfilm/ILM to give a talk and discuss possible research collaboration. The first thing my hosts did, before having me meet with anybody, was sit me down in a big empty movie theater.
They directed me to center row H, because that is the best seat in the house. For the next 38 minutes, all by myself, I watched Lucasfilm/ILM movie trailers and special effects reels on the big screen, which was a totally awesome experience.
I suddenly realized that, at least today, I was that guy.