Movies Manipulate Your Brain with Neuroscientific Strategies to Keep you Watching (via Wired)
Great art relies on the technique of the missing element, which your mind completes or puts into motion. The knife plunging behind the shower curtain in Psycho is probably the best example. You infer the horror in your head, thinking of what the knife will do. Contrary to common, naive beliefs, more graphic images are not scarier. They are either gross or risible.
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In the past, the art of the unspoken was just that, an art. Today, big studios and major productions rely on the latest neuro-scientific theories to wring out that last drop of credulity in your media numbed brain.
“We’re constantly calculating where we think the audience’s eye is going to be, and how to attract it to that area and prioritize within a shot what you can fake,” Favreau said. “The best visual effects tool is the brains of the audience,” he said. “They will stitch things together so they make sense.”
via How Movies Manipulate Your Brain to Keep You Entertained | Science | WIRED.
