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We Know What’s Going to Happen, You Don’t

Erika Bell 1 Comment

Do you ever watch your favorite show, read your favorite book, or start a great film and already know what is going to happen? The plot unfolds right at the beginning with you, the viewer/reader, as the initial confidant and the eye-witness to the madness. Then as the plot of the said show/book thickens, and the music starts racing in the background as the characters look at each other in worry, you sit back and realize that wait…you already know the big secret of the plot…the other characters don’t! This my friends is called dramatic irony, and I absolutely can’t stand it.

“Dramatic Irony – a literary device by which the audience’s or reader’s understanding of events or individuals in a work surpasses that of its characters.”

Yes it can be found in the classics like Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and even modern works like ABC’s Revenge (cough, cough..hint, hint). Dramatic irony can be the best thing that could ever happen to a plot, and the absolute worst thing that can happen to an audience.

I came to the realization that I detest dramatic irony whilst watching my favorite drama/mystery TV shows. Yeah it’s great that we know that there’s a murder and some form of deception by this person, but do we as viewers really need to sit through 5 seasons of watching characters build up the courage/knowledge to confront the people or entity holding them back? Now that’s just ridiculous.

Dramatic irony sets up a storyline that we know will run its course. Did you think if we knew who the mother was before Ted met her, we’d even care after 9 seasons? What really pushes viewers and readers to stay passionate about these creative works, is the perfected art of surprise. Not many writers have it in them to continuously draw its audience in without giving much away, but to be honest, that is what makes for great drama. It’s the constant need to know on the audience’s end that will always make the pages worth flipping through or the shows worth watching.

In giving the very juicy goods away as soon as audience becomes acquainted with the text, it becomes a game of what character do I care enough about to stay invested in this? What character will I wait to know what I know, and will they react how I want them to? Even with this criteria in mind, I find that character-pull is becoming more and more weak. Do I even care about this character’s reaction enough? Eh..not really.

I urge creators of dramas to consider dramatic irony’s effects, and if it really brings forth what you want it to. Consider practicing the art of surprise, and how keeping the audience in the dark might bring forth amazing stories.

Real World Implications

Thomas Degroat Leave a comment

There’s a term in art analysis called suspension of disbelief. This refers to the ability of the consumer to ignore the implausibilities of a product. It is absolutely crucial to the enjoyment of the patron. Surprisingly, this can be pretty hard to break, though a lot can. Having too many implausibilities in one scene or expecting the consumer too believe too big of one can shatter this suspension. For me, my suspension seems to be much more easily broken than for others. I personally prefer this as it allows me to keep a critical mind, but quickly annoys the people the around me. The thought of how the scene fits in the real world often breaks my suspension, especially when it comes to the death of people.

I see the death of a nameless character and disturbs me. It breaks by suspension because it makes me wonder how the director can be so flippant about someone dying. In this fictional world, that character was a person, they had a life and people who will be devastated by their death. These movies ignore that and move on as if nothing happened. I think about who they are and how their disappearance will affect so many others. It especially disturbs me when they are just a bystander. They played no part in the plot, yet they are the ones to suffer. It’s an innocent’s death, yet the director treats them as simply an object. I stop becoming an active participant in the movie as I contemplate all of this.

Don’t get me wrong, death can be a very important part of a movie, but I think directors should consider if it is necessary because, more often than not, the death would be unrealistic in the real-world. Even in fantasy movies, the plot must follow some general rules of the real world. You can’t kill a person without some affect somewhere else. That is where the suspension of disbelief breaks. We can’t treat these characters as lifeless plot points, because they wouldn’t be if the film world was real. It is necessary to remember that because the film world must feel like a real world.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Natalie Minor Leave a comment

The first week of April is here, which means we are a few shallow and anxious breaths away from a whirlwind of papers and exams, and of sleepless nights accompanied only by the sugariest of late night snacks and the saltiest of tears. It’s the time of year where one good reprieve from the frontline of studying is the difference between a mental break and a hard-fought conquest. As you prepare to either give yourself an exhausted pat on the back or tell your parents that “hey, grades aren’t all that matters, you know? I hear the circus is hiring,” I present you with an oldie but goodie.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a video-short series created by Jenny Slate and her husband Dean Fleischer-Camp. You might know Jenny from her time on SNL, or as Jean-Ralphio’s sister Mona-Lisa on Parks and Rec, or even from this incredible interview on Late Night with Seth Meyers where she talks about the time she got high in an astronomy class in college. She really shines as Marcel, who is quite literally a little shell wearing shoes who has a very bright and rose-colored look on the great big world. It’s the perfect pick-me-up for just about any time you’re down, and is an essential piece of any finals coping strategy. If you don’t believe me, see it for yourself:

As an added bonus – here is Jenny Slate on Conan singing Landslide by Fleetwood Mac as Marcel:

Why Binge Watching is Better

Rachel 1 Comment

For some time now, binge watching Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon has been the vice of students hiding from their homework. We know it’s wrong, we frown upon it when others do it, and we hide under our blanket to bask in the shame. However, in my own experience I have found that binge watching gives me a better experience of watching the show. Back when cable was the only option, I had certain shows that I watched religiously – Gilmore Girls and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to name a few. The shows played one episode each week or day (if they were reruns) at the same time in chronological order. The problem was, I would miss an episode or the station would skip ahead in the season. This gave me a disjointed sense of these shows by skipping/missing an episode or by my own forgetfulness about what happened in the last week’s episode. Sitting down to watch 3-4 episodes of Scandal at a time gave me a much better concept of the arc of the show and a much closer relationship to the characters. I watched the entire first season of Transparent in one sitting and by the end I felt a deep sense of unity with the characters and it was as though I was a part of their journey. When I binge watch, I’m able to see the concept of the season as a whole. I didn’t realize how much this could do for me as a viewer until I got all caught up on Scandal and had to start watching the new episodes once a week. A lot can happen in seven days of waiting for a new episode, it begins to feel as if you’re only seeing snippets of these characters’ lives whereas in binge watching you can see how the episodes flow into and set up one another. Obviously spending hours staring at the TV isn’t something that should be done too often, but binge watching shows has given me a new appreciation for the production team’s vision for the show and improved my viewing experience.

From Shapes to Stories

Justin & Ersun Leave a comment

In 1944, psychologists Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel produced a simple film. The animated short features a large rectangle, a small circle, and two triangles—one large and one small. The shapes move about the screen for a minute before the film fades to black. Throughout the video, there is no audio, text, color, or other features. As for design aesthetic, the film goes beyond minimalism. It is frugality.

But in this frugality, stories arise. While the lack of concrete detail could render the film to nothing but a handful of shapes floating around a screen, viewers manage to derive meaning. It’s an interesting phenomenon. Despite the absence of normal elements—people, animals, and places—stories can still be created. The hardiness of our storytelling ability is akin to cockroaches surviving nuclear detonation: Generation without “sufficient” nutrients. This demonstrates a uniquely human disposition. No other creatures seek for meaning so desperately that they build narratives from moving shapes. Is our thirst for meaning so strong that it is never fully quenched? At what point can we see triangles as triangles and nothing more?

Heider and Simmel designed the video for a study about the activation of anthropomorphic descriptions when we see geometric shapes. Basically, they were seeking to understand why we attribute human features to nonhuman things. Personification of the world has been a large part of human history. Myths and legends have given faces to oceans and voices to winds on a quest to understand our place in the world. When encountered with the unknown, this anthropomorphizing nature is a coping mechanism. We seek to fill the holes in a situation and craft a story so that we can understand why something is happening. We paint the void with our minds, and it allows us to make sense of things. This is why we experience emotions when seeing a painting, listening to music, or watching animals interact with one another. When we cannot understand the context of the situation, we create one. Even with things as simple as circles and squares.

It is for this reason that we find television and films enjoyable. They cause us to react emotionally, despite the fact that they are abstract representations. Granted, modern technology has enabled higher graphics and sound, narrowing the gap between the concrete and abstract. Heider and Simmel’s film suggests that anthropomorphism needs little input.

Some say our anthropomorphism is dangerous, as it distorts reality. But I say it makes us human.

And, well, we couldn’t have art without it.

When is it done?

ke$hav Leave a comment

Over the course of the term, as I’ve been writing and animating, I’ve devoted a good amount of time thinking about the creative process – habits and strategies for establishing a good artistic workflow. As the end of the term and imminent deadlines draw closer, however, a new question springs to mind: how do I know when a work of art is complete?

Abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock would famously add new coats of paint to a canvas in progress days after his initial work. Perhaps this was a specific process, or perhaps Pollock simply worked on a painting until he couldn’t stand to anymore.

Growing bored of a piece is the easiest way to know I’m done working on something – but also the least satisfying. As another abstract expressionist, Arshile Gorky, once said, “something that is finished, that means it’s dead, doesn’t it? I never finish a painting – I just stop working on it for a while.”

Perhaps the problem is in the assumption that Art is something to be “worked” on. Work implies a task with a specific, tangible goal and rational justification. Art may have goals attached, but motivations for creating Art are often complicated and mutable.

***as a performative element – I’m going to timestamp updates to this post over the next few weeks to demonstrate how I rarely consider an idea complete due to an external deadline **