Hyperquake Blog

When I was in college, we had to write a paper describing the difference in experience between reading a book and seeing the movie adaptation of the same book, presumably to demonstrate to ourselves the sheer power that results when words and pictures come together. I listened to a classmate present High Fidelity, describing how much more emotional it is to SEE Laura sobbing that her dad had died than to read it. Funny, I thought, because I’d have reversed it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve cried at way more movies than I have books. But movies have music, the sneaky cheaters; a swell of strings at the right moment and it’s all over for me. Would the scene be as powerful if you took music out of the equation?

“Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?” – High Fidelity

I read somewhere that brain activity is way higher when reading, or even being read to, than it is when watching TV or movies, because your imagination is much more engaged. For my presentation, I argued that the shock of seeing Alex rape and pillage his way through A Clockwork Orange on screen was less powerful than reading it, because as all good suspense writers know, NOT seeing something is going to freak people out way more than seeing it. You let their imaginations spin the tale for you. Plus, this is America! It’s 2010, not 1971. We see unimaginable violence on screen all the time! Surely we can gift the Alex on the page with some pretty wicked deeds culled from our collective TV and film memories? Doesn’t holding up the violence of A Clockwork Orange next to movies like Kick Ass or The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo almost make Alex’s little on-screen rebellion seem quaint?

“What we were after now was the old surprise visit. That was a real kick and good for laughs and lashings of the old ultraviolent.” – A Clockwork Orange

Context matters, always has. Clearly High Fidelity in the context of my brain was a different animal than it was in the context of my classmate’s brain. Perhaps he was able to find empathy for the people on screen by picking up on their body language cues, and I was more able to project personal experiences and fears into the text, finding connection that way.

In an experiment which I have blogged about before, the same people who ignored a street musician on their way to work might have sat rapt and attentive at his concert performance later that night. They would have given him a hundred bucks’ worth of their time, because that’s what you have to pay to see Joshua Bell. There is an interesting phenomenon in that; paying exorbitantly for an experience in a velvet-cushioned concert hall, you feel like it is somehow more valuable than getting that exact same experience for free in a dirty subway station.

But, to be fair, one would never expect to see the best violinist in the world busking in the Metro on their way to work.

“In his Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, Kant argued that one’s ability to appreciate beauty is related to one’s ability to make moral judgments. But there was a caveat…to properly appreciate beauty, the viewing conditions must be optimal.” (Source)

As designers, we deal with context all the time. Poorly-chosen context can ruin everything. Where is the message going to be displayed? What will potential viewers be doing when they see it? Driving to work? Trying to look up something online? Zoning out in front of the TV? How do you make your message enticing in the midst of the task the viewer is trying to complete? What might the viewer’s mood be? Print designers control their context by choosing form, (will the message best be conveyed in a book, a poster, a business card?) but have little control over where their design shows up once it leaves their hands. Web designers slice out their own little environment within the context of the World Wide Web, (should it be a pop-up, a banner ad, a fullscreen website, a Flash game?) but have to contend with the overwhelming choice of the Internet, not to mention a user’s system and font limitations, and ability to locate what they’ve designed.

In the end, like the books vs. movies project, it’s all going to come down to the individual. Their experiences, opinions, location and mood will color everything they see. “Know your audience” seems like Design 101, but sometimes the sheer scope and breadth of what that really means can overwhelm. So what can we do? Seems to me like finding that answer is the whole point of being a designer, so I suppose to repeat a well-worn trope, we must simply keep calm and carry on.

Tags: consumer engagement, context, movies, music