Recently, as I started watching a movie on video, a scene came up just before the opening credits of a character having a supremely happy and exciting experience. In that moment, I knew for certain that the character was doomed — in fact would probably not survive past the opening credits.<\/p>\n
In another recent viewing experience, I saw a supremely self-possessed character — one who had never been defeated — go confidently into battle, expecting an easy victory. Before the contest had even begun I was already cringing with dread at the horrible defeat I knew the character would suffer. The only question in my mind was how much the writers would pile on the shame and ignominy.<\/p>\n
I don’t think it’s that I have ESP. Rather, I believe each of these scenes was designed in such a way that the audience is subliminally tipped off about what happens next.<\/p>\n
In a sense, most commercial films are designed on rails: The audience wants to be surprised, but the filmmakers artfully ensure that on an unconscious level the audience will see the surprise coming. I believe this is thought of as good commercial filmmaking.<\/p>\n
What if a commercial film were to offer a true surprise — without secretly telegraphing its punches? Could it still be successful?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recently, as I started watching a movie on video, a scene came up just before the opening credits of a character having a supremely happy and exciting experience. In that moment, I knew for certain that the character was doomed — in fact would probably not survive past the opening credits. In another recent viewing … Continue reading “What happens next”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11449"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11449"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11451,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11449\/revisions\/11451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}