Horror 101 (audience and suspense research paper) *edited
Horror 101 Report Audience research paper
THIS KIND OF SUSPENSE MAKES HORROR MOVIES SCARY UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM (Posted by Lindsay Brooke-Nottingham on July 15, 2015)
To find out how horror movies create spine-tingling suspense, researchers measured the electrical activity coming from viewers’ sweat glands.
The goal is to give the media industry an evidence-based framework for the construction of suspense for scenes in feature length films, video games, movie trailers, and experimental digital story experiences.
Volunteers watched 32 short film clips from eight feature-length horror films and their experience of suspense was assessed by monitoring electrodermal activity (EDA)—a response created by the release of sweat from the eccrine glands. These glands react when we experience anxiety, fear, or stress—it’s the reaction that makes our palms sweat.
“With suspense being a core method of viewer engagement and enjoyment it’s essential that we understand how we can meet the desired viewing experience through different types of story experiences,” says Keith Bound, a PhD student in the department of culture, film and media at the University of Nottingham.
“One way to do this is to measure the time structures of suspense and our reaction to what we see and hear. We were also able to identify viewers’ coping strategies such as closing eyes or looking away from the screen.”
This brings us to the:
5 TYPES OF SUSPENSE
The study shows that distinctive psychophysiological patterns of sudden-fright and anxiety with different levels of intensity are experienced when watching four types of suspense:
DIRECT: We see the film in the first person—as if we are the character in the film. The camera directs the audience direction.
SHARED: When we empathise with fictional character’s situation. They are not aware that anything is wrong. That’s where that vulnerability comes from. That’s what would happen in reality. If we saw a bus coming around the corner we’d wanna warn them. Facial expressions, Close-Ups, empathic response with the character. In the Decent the audience never empathised with the character because there were no close-ups. NEVER USE JUMP-CUTS! Puts gaps in the story and story incompetence.
VICARIOUS: The viewer knows a fictional character’s life is threatened but the character isn’t aware of the danger. The audience becomes so anxious they can’t do anything about it.
COMPOSITE: Direct, shared, and vicarious suspense synchronised together.
NARRATIVE TRANSFORMATION: Immersion into the film. A feeling that the Intruder is about to touch them. This formula works when you ‘Push-behind them - Lead-them’ - into a ‘POV’
Narrative transportation, as explained by Cinematographer John R. Leonetti, who has worked with James Wan on both The Conjuring and Insidious, explains;
“take the audience with the character, then become them.”
- John R. Leonetti (ASC)
“Vicarious suspense us the most consistent method to generate an intense form of anxiety and suspense”
- Alfred Hitchcock
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EVEN SCARIER MOVIES?
“These findings provide evidence to support Alfred Hitchcock’s assumption that vicarious suspense is the most consistent method to generate an intense form of anxiety and suspense,” says Bound.“But cinematic techniques such as cinematography, editing, sound, and set design also play a part in the viewer experience.”
Liz Evans, Bound’s supervisor on the study and an expert in the relationship between technology and the experience of narrative, says Bound’s “…work not only helps scholars re-think how to define ‘suspense’ in film, it also provides a framework for filmmakers to help them create even scarier, more suspenseful content.”
Vincent Bruzzese, a veteran of entertainment market research whose company C4, have provided feedback for scripts of over 50 films that have been released over the past few years. “If you have a horror film with multiple killers , the multiple killers have to be completely insane or else the audience object,” Bruzzese explains. “By insane, I mean they can’t have any motive whatsoever… It has to be kind of like The Strangers, where their only motive is to jill the protagonist.”
As explained by economics expert Virginia Postural, Hollywood operates according to the Pareto principle: the majority of profit comes from a minority of movies that do massively well at the box office, so there is no such thing as an ‘average’ movie.
Movie enthusiasts and film critics alike may bristle at the suggestion that years of watching the latest studio fodder has conditioned audiences with a Pavlovian response - expecting a treat to follow a bell ring and protesting if something unexpected happens. After all, ‘predictable’ is widely used as a pejorative term in reviews. Bruzzese is an industry expert who has come to the conclusion that successful movies need to follow tried-an-tested patterns.
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TRICK OR TREAT? THE SCIENCE OF SUSPENSE
Scaring people is big business, with horrors making up all of the ten most profitable films from the last five years. But what creates those heart-in-mouth moments? Keith Bound, who studies the psychophysiological responses to suspense, explains to Canvas8 what gets us on the edge of our seats.
- As people increasingly consume video content on smaller screens, interrupting notifications can disrupt the narrative flow of a film
- Creating suspense can maintain their attention, helping to immerse viewers in a story
- Suspense triggers a psychophysiological response, wherein psychological responses trigger physiological change
- Audiences tend to feel suspense most intensely when they have information the protagonist doesn’t have
- Scenes that don’t show a protagonist or that do feature a zombie or monster’s face fail to generate suspense
- There are four types of suspense – vicarious, direct, shared and composite
- The physiological reactions to suspense include emotional sweating, muscular tension, increased heart rate and goosebumps
- The ten most profitable movies from the last five years are all horrors
- McKamey Manor – called one of the most extreme haunted houses in the US – has a waiting list of over 17,000 people
- The duration of the average camera shot fell from nine seconds in the ‘40s to just three in 1999
Scope
Scaring people is big business; the ten most profitable movies from the last five years are all horrors, while McKamey Manor – billed as one of the most extreme haunted houses in the US, with an experience akin to “living a horror movie” – has a waiting list of over 17,000 people.For thrill-seekers and horror fans, there’s nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of a fright-inducing, heart-in-mouth movie scene, with interminable suspense keeping an audience’s eyes glued to a screen. And with suspense an effective way of engrossing people in a story, it offers impactful insights into how you can keep people switched on and hooked.
Canvas8 sat down with Keith Bound, a doctoral researcher at Nottingham University and author of ‘Psychophysiological suspense: Defining a physiological framework of cinematic suspense for horror films’, to discover more about suspense and what gets people on the edge of their seats.
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Why does suspense matter?
The digital revolution of the 21st century has changed people's viewing experience. No longer are we seeing feature films confined just to cinemas or TV screens. People are consuming video content on smaller screens that are also home to e-mails, messages and apps.As a result, the narrative flow people would normally see in a film is being broken up, and this disruption is distracting people from what the story is about. Stories need to be more engaging, and suspense is a key engagement process – something that’s true across all genres, though more pronounced in horror.
The duration of the average camera shot has also become shorter thanks to technological changes. In the 1940s it was nine seconds, by 1999 it was three seconds, and it’s probably even less than that now. When the viewer is exposed to a high frequency of short camera shots during an action scene, this can also divert attention and lead to poor story comprehension.
All these competing influences from digital technology are really impacting how we might experience suspense, so having a better understanding of what the viewer goes through is essential. If we can understand this, we can engage them more deeply in the story.
The narrative flow people would normally see in a film is being broken up, and this disruption is distracting people from what the story is about. Stories need to be more engaging, and suspense is a key engagement process
Do different kinds of suspense exist?
Though there’s been very little research into suspense in recent years – besides a glut of it from media psychologists in the mid-90s – Susan Smith’s 2000 textual analysis of films by Alfred Hitchcock successfully defined three types of suspense. (I've found five)
The first is vicarious suspense – Hitchcock’s favourite. This form of suspense is where the viewer is privileged with information about a protagonist who is unaware of the danger; think a shot of a monster creeping up on an unsuspecting victim. There’s also direct suspense. This occurs when the audience is ‘alone’, like if a camera looks into a dark room, for instance. It’s seeing the film in first person, as if we were a character in the film.
Finally, there’s shared suspense, and this is the most predominant narrative structure we see. Shared suspense builds empathy with a fictional character, leading the audience to care about their situation. If empathy is not built successfully, suspense will be dramatically reduced and impact viewer engagement.
But these types of suspense aren’t exclusive. Smith also found that they can work side-by-side, synchronised together in what she calls composite suspense.
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What happens when we experience suspense?
Viewers react to suspense with physiological responses. When they experience a sudden stimulus that triggers suspense or fear, a person could jump from their seat while their body creates muscular tension, sends shivers down their spine and gives them goosebumps.
Another response is skin conductance – when electrodermal activity produces emotional sweating. Suspense triggers this response through our sympathetic nervous system, hence why we sweat when we get stressed. Emotional sweating is measurable at people’s fingertips, where the eccrine sweat glands are densely populated. And this is what makes it a psychophysiological response; it’s a physiological change – sweating in this case – interpreted through a behavioural or psychological response – a feeling of being scared.
Emotional sweating is measurable at people’s fingertip. This is what makes it a psychophysiological response; it’s a physiological change interpreted through a behavioural or psychological output – a feeling of being scared
What did you discover in your recent study ‘Psychophysiological suspense’?
Our 27 participants watched a 32 film-clip sequence. The sequence was made up of four clips (vicarious, direct, shared and composite suspense) from eight different horror films, with each clip between one and 90 seconds long. The film selection criteria formed a lengthy process, but each film was a post-2000 horror and fitted a sub-genre category of either supernatural, zombie, home invasion or science fiction.
The study found that vicarious suspense produced the strongest physiological responses, resulting in the most intense fear. This confirms Hitchcock’s assumption that an audience feels suspense most intensely when they’re privileged with information that the protagonist is unaware of.
But while Hitchcock said the viewer needed to have all the information, the study found that this wasn’t correct; there are lots of instances where filmmakers use light and dark effectively, along with other cinematic techniques, revealing only snippets of information. For example, a 40-second clip from one film in the study, Quarantine, takes place in a pitch black room containing a zombie. Although we don’t see the antagonist, we hear noises, concealing some information and ramping up suspense as a result.
We also noticed that a close-up of a zombie or a monster’s face is less likely to make people feel scared. They don’t feel suspense and even their physiological responses can die away. On the other hand, seeing real people in pain or fear served to drive more fear through shared suspense as they empathise with their predicament.
The study also showed what didn’t work. In Silent House, for instance, a clip in a dark room failed to create much suspense because the audience never saw the protagonist. There was no facial expression, and people got wise to what was happening; if an image flickered on screen, it was going to be scary – they’d gotten used to the pattern.
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How can these findings be applied?
First and foremost, the research can help filmmakers. Take the Silent House clip. Had the filmmaker decided to include a shot of the protagonist’s face, or a close up scream, a bigger response could have been garnered with the suspense continuing further. But without this, people can’t piece the narrative together when they’re not seeing anything on screen – you really have to help them.We’ve normalised the results; we know the duration of the suspense created by clips, and also the intensity. This allows us to create a model of what effectively causes feelings of suspense in terms of cinematic and narrative elements. And while there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, we can understand which techniques work in different situations more effectively than what someone might think from a purely creative perspective.
It could be a case of working with a storyboard during pre-production, giving two or three options for optimum suspense to a director. And that’s what this research can do, bringing filmmaking and science together as one.
There are also exciting opportunities outside of filmmaking. The findings could easily be applied to Transmedia storytelling, using suspense to engage people through short film clips, text, voice and image messaging, and the internet. This is particularly significant as horror films increasingly extend into franchises.
The findings are applicable to experiential horror too, whether that’s in theme parks or in standalone ‘scary experiences’. It could be as simple as a dark room where people go to experience the thrill of a fright, using cinematic aspects like lighting and sound to increase suspense, or using a device to make the experience even more engrossing.
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Audience Information devices
“Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty” - William Archer and Andrew Standton Directors of Finding Nemo & Wall E
THE RULE OF 3
The first time we see something its given equal value. When we see it for the second time the audience experiences recognition of that repetition, as the brain likes to identify patterns. The third appearance is used to present the information differently.
SETUP & PAYOFF
The first time we see Ray and Dani interact, they are at odds with each other. The second time he attempts to communicate with her we see the same outcome. The third time however, the opposite happens.
PARALLEL STORIES
(coming together to affect one another)
In the scene when Dani encounters an Intruder for the first time, we see her moving from one room to the next. Running parallel to that we see the Intruder approaching causing uncertainty. The third character of the scene is the atmosphere, the fireworks outside. The fireworks create’s the noise necessary for the Intruder to approach without being detected and they even stop when the fireworks stop.
THE UNFAMILIAR
In order to keep us safe, and help secure the roots of our xenophobia, we are told at an early age to fear and avoid strangers. Especially if they look different from what we consider normal. Our instinctual fears will always judge people on our first impressions of what they look like. You flip a coin with the unfamiliar. You either trust your instincts and avoid the Man wearing another person’s skin as a mask. Or you persecute what turns out to be a harmless creature realizing you are in fact the monster of bigotry; That’s the case with creatures such as “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “Frankenstein.” Looking strange or weird draws attention, sure, but it doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person. But then you run into a person that’s not just a “abnormal well intent” weirdo but one that is indeed down right deadly. For example take the paragon of “That dude you avoid because he looks hella-weird” i.e. The hitchhiker from “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” perky kids in a van debate picking up a hitchhiker. They are spilt in two groups: 1) The straight-and-narrow 2) The politically incorrect kids “He’s weird looking"-the hot chick and “We just picked up Dracula"-the stoner. Lets just say things don’t work out.
LACK OF CONTROL
There’s a million ways to loose control. A physical container is a terrible place to start. A box i.e. Kill Bill & Buried, but you can always breakout of the box. Literally any restraint can be freed with a little grit, determination, and an access to a hacksaw (SAW). But what if you were trapped in your own body? What then? The truest form of incapacity is the fear that you are now a sitting duck. The viewer should feel just as helpless as the character and that’s what makes this so terrifying.
LACK oF INFORMATION
Waiting is the hardest part. Waiting for the scare is just as terrifying as the moment that it happens. It’s the anticipation that can kill you long before the crash. For decades horror films told you when you had to be scared. Before Michael Myers arrives you hear his iconic music. Then there are rare films devoid of suspenseful string music, free from Mnemonics. Antoine represents pure evil in ‘No Country for Old Men’. He is a relentless hunting machine and his killings go Un-punctured by any standard score. In fact the only real music that plays during the film pops up 120min in during the end credits. In a time where every suspenseful film is peppered with loud noise and loud music .We have become “trained” to react accordingly, an almost pavlovian response. So when that normal expected beats are stripped away, we react the same way as when anything that becomes routine changes on us. It freaks us out. It makes us feel uncomfortable.
According to Vincent Bruzzese, audience have become used to certain “micro-trends” in their movies. They’ve come to expect them and - crucially - to object when a movie strays from established patterns.
As explained by economics expert Virginia Postural, Hollywood operates according to the Pareto Principle: the majority of profit comes from a minority of movies that do massively well at the box office, so there is no such thing as an ‘average’ movie.
Movie enthusiasts and film critics alike may bristle at the suggestion that years of watching the latest studio fodder has conditioned audiences with a Pavlovian response, expecting a treat to follow a bell ring and protesting if something unexpected happens. After all, ‘predictable’ is widely used as a pejorative term in reviews. Bruise is an industry expert who has come to the conclusion that successful movies need to follow Tried-and-Tested patterns.
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