Ferri, A. J. (2007). Films in and out of transport. In Willing suspension of disbelief: Poetic faith in film (pp. 35-46). Plymouth, United Kingdom: Lexington Books.
Ferri’s text investigates in the willing suspension of disbelief in film. The suspension of disbelief is a term coined by S. T. Coleridge in 1807 and describes a psychological effect that signifies that an audience can suspend judgement in the plausibility of a fictional narrative. This allows readers and viewers to temporarily believe in a fictional story even though they are aware that what they read or see is illogical or not real. Ferri argues that certain films are more effective than others to transport an audience into a fictional world. The author attempts to point out reasons for this by means of analysing movies such as Titanic (Cameron, 1997) as a strong and Charlotte Gray (Armstrong, 2002) as a weak example.
Ferri’s study inspires a number of important questions to my project. His text analyses live action feature films. For my project it is important to consider the willing suspension of disbelief in animated short films.
How much does the willing suspension of disbelief depend on the quality, the visual realism, of an animated film? A low budget stop motion animation may have a weaker impact in terms of the suspension of disbelief. In contrast to live action film animation requires that the audience ignores the constant visual reminder of its artificial nature which is conveyed in the picture itself. The cruder the technique the more it raises the awareness that what we see is not real. On the other end of the spectrum are movies such as Avatar (Cameron, 2009) that set new quality standards in animation. These films may also occasionally pull the audience out of its emotional engagement because an effect is so good or realistic as it has never been seen before and thus the effect itself comes to our conscious attention. Consequently a skilfully animated film that obliges to storytelling principles and does not use effects for their own sake but to support the narrative must have the highest potential for a willing suspension of disbelief. But is this really imperative?
I argue that for an (animated) short film the willing suspension of disbelief is of secondary importance. It is questionable if an audience can emotionally fully engage in a film of no more than 15 minutes, be it animated or live-action. Many feature length films take the luxury to use just as much time to introduce the protagonist. Dramatic short films need to go straight to the central conflict and have little time to present an all well-formed character. Devices such as music and universally recognisable archetypes may support emotional audience engagement. But ultimately they are unlikely to solve the problem of the suspension of disbelief in short films.
At this point it is important to recall that feature films and short films are very different forms of narratives. It is important to be aware of this. A short film that tries to emulate the same complexity and depth as a feature film plays in the wrong frame of reference. It is debatable if a short film should attempt the same level of viewer engagement at all. I argue that an audience watches a short film with different expectations to a feature film. In most cases a feature film attempts to create an experience that an audience can willingly participate in. A narrative short film typically wants to convey a message, a conclusion driven by the film’s premise1. Lajos Egri (1960, p. 166) writes: “The drama is not the image of life, but the essence. We must condense”. A short film then must become the extract of that essence, an even more condensed form of abstraction.
On the one hand an animated short film lacks the time to fully develop a character and his world and is handicapped by the visually inherent revelation of its artificial nature. On the other hand its strength in visual flexibility and an altered audience expectation in a message over an experience compensates for a lesser suspension of disbelief.
Footnotes
1 “Premise” is the word chosen by playwright and creative writing instructor Lajos Egri to express all of the following: theme, thesis, root idea, central idea, goal, aim, driving force, subject, purpose, plan, plot, basic emotion (Egri, 1960, p. 2).
References
Armstrong, G. (2002). Charlotte Gray. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros. Pictures.
Cameron, J. (1997). Titanic. Hollywood, CA: Paramount Pictures.
Cameron, J. (2009). Avatar. Los Angeles, CA: Twentieth Century Fox.
Egri, L. (1960). The art of dramatic writing. New York, NY: Touchstone Books.
Comments
Post your comment
No one has commented on this page yet.
RSS feed for comments on this page | RSS feed for all comments