Pre- and Post-Viewing Experiences and Conditions of Reception: The Relationship between Audiences and Films Part 7
The enjoyment of a film can also be
affected by the pre and post-viewing experiences of the person who watches it and
where and how they watch it. For example if a viewer watched all the trailers,
promotional clips, interviews with the stars etc before a film is released,
they may have extremely high expectations of the film. This might mean the film
fails to meet these expectations. Comedies often have many of the best jokes in
the trailers of the films and these jokes will not be as funny when they are in the
final film if you have seen the trailer a few times. Similarly many trailers
give a great deal of the story away and show many of the best stunts. The
recent Fast and Furious 6 trailer seemed to have clips from all the major
set-pieces and therefore there was no sense of surprise when watching the film.
Prometheus was also a victim of its excellent marketing because people had huge
expectations and the film was not as good as many had hoped.
Before or after a film, reading reviews
might also affect a person’s enjoyment of a film. Sometimes I read a review and
I can’t get the words of the writer out of my head and it ends up affecting my
opinion. For this reason many wait till after they have seen a film to read any
reviews. Also discussing a film after it has finished can potentially change
your opinion of it. Though I still love The Dark Knight Rises, hearing people
pick out the all the plot holes has lessened my love for it a little bit.
How you watch a film is also important as
watching a film at an IMAX cinema with state of the art sound is a very
different experience to watching a film on a mobile phone or a dodgy pirate DVD
copy. Blockbusters particularly are supposed to be seen on a big screen in a
dark room with the sound up loud to get the full audio visual experience. If an
audience is laughing in a comedy or screaming in a horror, it will likely have
an effect on other viewers. Watching a film with mates is different to watching
it with parents or on a first date and watching it alone is very different to
watching it with a large audience. All these factors can affect enjoyment and
interpretation. 3D is supposedly more immersive but many hate it and some
people have home cinema set ups because they would rather watch a film in their
own home. I also find that if I see a really good film early (at a preview before
it is released) I think I often love it even more than if I was (seemingly) the
last to see it. I certainly feel the need to talk about it more to convince more
people to go and see it.
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