Have you ever sat in a dark cinema and found yourself crying over a character who you know does not exist? It is a strange phenomenon when you really think about it. We are looking at pixels on a screen or light projected onto a wall. We know it is fake. We know there is a camera crew standing right outside the frame and that the actor is probably thinking about what they will have for lunch. Yet our bodies react as if the pain or joy were real. My master’s thesis is largely about figuring out how this mechanism works so I can use it for my own film. It turns out that emotion in film is not just magic. It is a design process just like architecture or typography.
I have been reading a lot about Cognitive Film Theory and it completely changed how I look at directing. There is this theorist named Carl Plantinga who wrote a book called Moving Viewers. He talks about something called the “Scene of Empathy.” This is not just any sad scene. It is a specific structural device filmmakers use to force a connection. Plantinga argues that empathy is not a constant stream but a moment we have to build. The key ingredient is the human face. When we see a face in a close up for a long duration our brain does something wild. Our mirror neurons fire up. We subconsciously start to mimic the micro expressions we see on screen. If the actor tightens their jaw in suppressed grief our own jaw muscles might tense up just a tiny bit. This physical mimicry sends a signal to our brain that says we are sad. We literally catch the emotion like a virus.
Another concept I want to use is the “Mood Cue Approach” by Greg M. Smith. He says that films do not just trigger sudden emotions like “bang, now you are scared.” Instead they build a mood over time like a primer coat of paint. You use lighting and sound and rhythm to create a low level state of anxiety or sadness. Once that mood is set you only need a tiny trigger to get a big emotional reaction. For my film I am thinking about the sound design of the school. I want the background noise of the students to feel overwhelming and chaotic. This research made me realize that directing is not just about telling actors where to stand. It is about being an architect of the audience’s physiology. We are designing their heart rate and their tears. That is a huge responsibility but it is also what makes filmmaking such a powerful tool for social change. If I can make people physically feel the stress of my character they might understand the struggle on a level that a news article could never reach.
Plantinga, C. (2009). Moving viewers: American film and the spectator’s experience. University of California Press.
Smith, G. M. (2003). Film structure and the emotion system. Cambridge University Press.
