POV, Levels and IQ

I think it was Robert Mckee, in his book Story, who said the audience IQ jumps when the lights go down. So how do we take advantage of this.

It is as if when the lights go down the audience experiences a cognitive transformation. By watching life on a screen they are actually open to subject becoming object. The job of the filmmakers is to exploit that opening and nurture it. Here is where audience transformation can occur.

One thing to consider is the level of consciousness of the POV being depicted.

If the audience IQ is higher than normal then the audience may have a significant increase in cognitive ability to see, hold and connect perspectives. Subject to object that is. To me this is a great opportunity to organize my direction of the script to highlight and make more visible integral perspectives. Specifically as they occur in characters of different levels. By switching POV and creating the visual structure as well as the dialogue to reflect the level of consciousness of the POV and using this to compare the natures of the characters at their respective levels, audiences may well see the differences more clearly.

Mike Leigh often uses a technique of flat out compare and contrast. He creates sequences where characters who are obviously of different classes or genders or natures move through similar situations. The result is the audience compares and contrasts the characters and the character world-views, values, belief systems, pathologies and personalities. He uses the compare and contrast style to make what would be unseen seen. Instead of using gender, or class the integral filmmaker can use the compare and contrast method to show levels of consciousness.

However, nonetheless, audiences will interpret from the level they are at. So being skillful is just as important as the mechanics of presenting visual story.

Virtual Reality, PSTD and Transformative Film

I just read an article from The New Yorker called “Virtual Iraq” about the use of virtual reality to treat soldiers of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is occuring to me that there is a connection between using virtual reality to treat PTSD and using film to transform audiences.

Essentially psychologists create a virutal reality experience of the event that caused the soldier to develop the stress disorder. The soldier re-experiecnces the event over and over again, riding the experience of its overwhelming power through a proccess called, “habituation”,: eventually gaining a sense of control over the previously out of control experience. The treatment returns the triggers, like loud noises, crowds, trash blowing across a road, to being neutral and not negative. There has been considerable success in removing the paralysis of PSTD.

What I found interesting was how the psychologists spent a lot of time finding out from the soldier what the details of the event were, the “hot spots”: the sights, sounds, feelings, people present, location, etc. When the patient was then in the virtual world the psychologists would gradually increase the presence of the “hot spots” further immersing the patient in the world of the original stressful event. It seems to me the “hot spots” are like perspectives of the event; the sound, the place, the smell, the people present, the culture; and their skillfull presence allows for a way to remove the unbearable disequilibrium of the event.

Could this method of using perspectives in virtual reality inform our using AQAL perspectives in creating real, affecting, transforming film experiences? Could there be something to be learned here about giving the viewer control over the stressful event of transformation or of moving the subject into object?

A hunch, to be thought about further…..

Distinctions and Possibilities

In the Posture page I have alluded to the need to differentiate issues and show enhanced adaptability. Another way to see this is as distinctions and possibilities.

As a society we have come up with all kinds of stories about life. Those stories help to determine the definition and view we take of ourselves, our families, our love, our children. We have been going along making the meaning of our present and our future based on these stories. There is nothing wrong with this for it is the natural condition of humans. We are meaning-making machines. However, we act as if these are the only possibilities available to us and a problem does arise when those stories take on meanings that inhibit us or define us as something less than whole and perfect. Advertising, marketing and film entertainment for that matter, have more often than not, tried to show a new product or idea or possibility but based in the same old paradigm or story of the past.

We can continue to go along doing this but it is my contention that people are yearning for possibilities that fall beyond the old story. They want a chance to see and trust their own potential to go beyond the reality they slog through day after day. These are possibilities that leave the past out of the present; possibilities based on a deeper and wider way of being found in the future.

These possibilities are best found through making distinctions. Distinctions about the nature of the experience we have been having. Those distinctions are easily seen with the implementation of Integral theory. More aspects of life are uncovered providing more combinations of possibilities. When the multi-dimensional approach is employed with the intention of validating and empowering consumers as whole and complete, but who can be more whole and complete, deeper feelings, desires and yearnings are revealed to be appealed to. Consumers can be moved to act not because they feel they lack but because they feel they can have more….more of themselves.

Moreover, working with a focus on distinctions and possibilities increases the effectiveness of communicating as a creative team. One is more enabled to say what one means and mean what one says and know if one needs help trying to say what one means. Distinctions raise a creative team out of the old story and open it up to think new thoughts creating possibilities based on an enriched future and not a tired past.

The Spec Ads and some of the other blog posts put this thinking into application. Please check them out considering the distinctions and possibilities being discovered and offered.

Shift vs. Cut

 

Oftentimes I use the term “shift” when referring to a “cut” to a new scene or shot. “Shift” replaces “cut.” This is a distinction I came across in the book Filmosophy by Daniel Frampton. In the book he proposes that moving sound images have a thinking all their own and there is a power available to us when we consider the moving sound image as a presentation of thinking. This thinking can then mingle with the thinking of the viewer and a new 3rd way of thinking emerges. This is all very interesting and complex, too complex to get into here. But when we consider the image as thinking we are open to the image showing story instead of telling story. And in showing story we are allowed to see “cuts” as changes in thought or “shifts” in thought. A shift in the thinking that the image is thinking and and a shift in the thinking available as interpretation. Again all good and theoretical, but so what?

For some it is a distinction not worth making. Yet for me it furthers the exploration of the emerging possibilities of being and thinking becoming available to humans, uncovering new ways to communicate to people. It is important for me to articulate the moments when the mood or thought change. It helps to infuse thoughtful feeling and intention into the process of creating moving sound images. Making the “shift” distinction expands the communication between team members and creatives so that collectively form can combine with content enhancing and deepening meaning and the viewing experience.

It may be subtle, the change from “cut”to “shift,” but when reading one of my moving sound image ideas consider how the meaning is different with “shift” instead of “cut.”

Hotels Add Dimensions

I read an article today in the NYT business section. The article was about a new trend in hotels pointing out how a chain in Europe is re-thinking their approach. The hotel chain is called Le Meridien and it is reacting to the changing desires for experience of their clients. The hoteliers are finding they have to provide more depth to the hotel experience to cater to the increasingly hip and creative customer who is, “well-informed, individualistic, techno-savy with a creative mind-set.” Essentially they are finding a niche in providing more access to culture. That is offering more access to design, art, conversation, music, and lifestyle. Some examples being key cards decorated with artwork or information and access to local art galleries and museums.

As I pointed out on the Integral theory page culture is one of the 4 dimensions of reality. It represents the inner domain of the collective. Hotels have always focused on the outer realms, specifically catering to the behavior of the client and the systems in which the hotel fits and can provide. But now hotels are finding this is not enough; they “are reviewing the guest experience rather than simply their operational processes.” The customers are looking for more and that more comes from a increasing valuation of the inner domains. The hoteliers are calling it lifestyle branding, striving to be “chic, cultured and discovery-oriented.” The key being “discovery- oriented”, a feature I have highlighted of the emerging awareness. The hoteliers go on to point out that “For once, companies understand that dealing with culture is a key issue, and it needn’t be intimidating,” and “When a person leaves Le Meridien, we aim to give them a feeling that their life has grown.”

More dimensions are being considered because the marketplace is demanding it. As a society we have nearly mastered the external behavior and systems approach and now the internal demands to be heard. With hotels are now prepared to offer more access to culture, who knows what the next evolution of hotels will look like. Perhaps catering more to the growth and health of the individual client. Perhaps focusing on how lighting, ventilation, fabric, color, food, and design can all contribute to the health of the individuals interior and catering to that awareness.

And indeed that is happening. For the article goes on to describe how the hotels are employing furniture designers to create better beds for better sleep. Already some chains provide their own perfume fragrance and distinct music and sounds for the lobby, restroom, elevator and room experience. In another article I saw the other day I read how a trend emerging is for hotels to offer spa treatments instead of the traditional golf game to the business travelers. Again added awareness of dimensions of experience reflecting added desire for growth and health are emerging all around us. It is exciting with possibilities opening for deeper, more effective ways to reach the consumer and provide real benefit.

Spiral Evidence

“Genius means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.”
-William James

The writers of a book called Spiral Dynamics, Donald Beck and Chris Cowan spent years developing the work of a researcher named Claire Graves. Graves’ work at Stanford was based on extensive cross-cultural research and found that people develop through many stages in their lives from the survival needs levels of early childhood to multi-perspectival levels of adulthood. Beck and Cowan took this work, advanced it and applied it to how organizations (businesses, governments) could function better. Their work has been used by many companies and was instrumental in helping South Africa devise it’s post-apartheid government.

Spiral Dynamics illuminates what an approach using a framework such as the Integral framework can accomplish. Adopting a multi-dimensional method puts one in the position of disengaging from one’s own point of view while combining different perspectives. This has been found to be up to 10 times more creative and effective than more traditional thinking. Their own cross-cultural and cross-demographic research confirms:

“When individuals or groups thinking through [multi-perspectives] are given a task, they generally get more and better results while expending less time and effort. They often approach the activity in surprising ways others would not have considered. This is more than efficiency; it reflects the activation of thus-far uncommitted brain power…[They] tolerate, even enjoy paradoxes and uncertainties…[they] are able to fix problems while others fret, manipulate, query higher authority, form study groups, or play theory games….[These thinkers experience a] dropping away of the compulsions and anxieties (fear) of previous levels, thus enhancing the person’s ability to take a contemplative attitude and rationally appraise realities. As fear receded, the quantity and quality of good ideas and solutions to problems increased dramatically…[There is] an ability to learn a great deal from the many sources, and a trend to getting much more done with much less energy or resources.”

For many people this sounds like an appropriate description of the way they think and work. Yet many are not aware of this distinction. By using the framework and being aware of multi-perspectival thinking any project can be enhanced and completed faster and with more depth.

“Instead of seeking new landscapes, develop new eyes.”
-Marcel Proust

Story-Showing

Not storytelling. It is not that storytelling is bad it is just that storytelling is a literary term and film is so much more than literature. Considering the possibilities of film shouldn’t we set the medium free by thinking in terms of storyshowing? When writing one tells a story and it can be beautiful but the image is surrounded by words with film the image merges directly into the viewer’s mind, pure and autonomous. How powerful that is and if we remember that, always thoughtful of that power, the content and form meet providing more emotional engagement with the aesthetics and the content for the viewer. Storyshowing is way more effective than stodgy, literary storytelling. Film and the CGI effects available to us in this age make anything possible on the screen. Even things that go beyond words are possible.

In our short film Noun9 we faced the dilemma of how to storytell about a man who was trapped by his need to define himself and his girlfriend as a noun. How in words do you tell that? We realized you don’t. We had to change our approach to show it, not tell it. Then the possibilities of the medium opened up to us. We could envision this concept instead of trying to put it into words and CGI provided the images. Moving-sound images that beautifully and gracefully mingle with the mind of the viewer. Not words and words and exposition that confuse and take up time and block the experience. Concept-creation and concept-experience, in images not words, goes right to the center of the brain bypassing those hang-ups people get when you try and tell them something. Just show it.