EMOTIONAL RESPONSE

What was the last film you saw that gave you an emotional response? How did it achieve this?

AIM

OBJECTIVES

• Identify some different emotional responses that a film might illicit.
• Define emotional response and spectatorship alignment.
• Analyse some tools of alignment and apply them to an example.
• Evaluate how different micro-elements manipulate spectators into having different emotional responses.

Compile a list of the various different emotional responses that a film might illicit.

EXTENSION: Think about how you would define emotion and emotional response.

A moving of the mind; excitement of feelings, whether pleasing or painful; disturbance or agitation of mind brought on by a specific cause and manifested into an effect on the body.

EMOTIONAL RESPONSES

• Cerebral Response – A thoughtful response.
• Visceral Response – An uncontrolled response. “From the gut.”

SPECTATORSHIP ALIGNMENT

Films encourage us to become emotionally involved with characters.

SPECTATORSHIP ALIGNMENT

The emotional IMPACT of a film depends on spectatorship alignment.

How do films align us with characters?

TOOLS OF ALIGNMENT

How do micro-elements manipulate audiences into having cerebral and visceral responses?

EDITING

How does editing create an emotional response?

HITCHCOCK

TASK - MIND MAP

• In pairs - mind map how your micro-element creates spectatorship alignment in the opening sequence.
• Think about how emotional responses are created.
• Try and use specific examples from the scene.

FEEDBACK

MISE-EN-SCENE

EDITING

SOUND

CINEMATOGRAPHY

PERFORMANCE

EXAMPLE EXAM QUESTION

How far is the emotional response to mainstream films triggered by specific techniques used by filmmakers?

Extended Reading

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25713841
• Sean Bobbit on editing and emotional response
• http://www.videomaker.com/article/7251-viewfinder-the-video-montage-of-emot...
• Montage of attraction - The Video Montage of Emotions