I said:
How much does sound quality, invisible music, video quality, video resolution, colour, screen size, etc... all play into our emotional response to things? It probably doesn't affect our rational response, right? But it can totally change our emotional response.
I know the thread has been wandering a little bit into other territories since I posted this, but I wanted to come back to it.
When sound, colour, widescreen, surround sound, digital sound, DTS, etc. were introduced, movie goers reviewed the merits of the new technology to their favourite art-form objectively, or with their rational mind. Perhaps people considered seeing the movie in B&W and then seeing the movie in colour, and while they could see the obvious 'gimmick' or 'novelty' in adding colour, they were forced to admit that it was basically the same movie. You could tell the same story in B&W- so theoretically you weren't adding anything by putting it in colour. But what they couldn't rationally measure was the emotional element. Perhaps people thought they liked the story better in a movie that was in colour, or they thought the actors were better, or the action was more intense. People might have come up with a lot of reasons that they thought a movie was better without correctly identifying which factor brought them into it emotionally.
I was thinking of this recently because I bought and added a "D-Box motion simulator" to my home theatre. It's basically what you think: it's a mechanical chair that "moves" in synch with the movie you're watching. (Think a smaller scale Star Tours, but for an entire movie, and you're on the right track.) It's gimmicky as heck, and I love it. I mentioned it to someone at work, and they thought it sounded like fun, but then they asked if made movies more enjoyable? And when it's working correctly, I think the proper response to that is: I don't know.
I assume that when most of us get new sound equipment, we watch specific scenes out of specific movies to "demo" the sound equipment. You might get down and put an ear next to the new speaker, or close your eyes and focus on what you're listening to, or any variety of bizzare things during the "demo". You might take a special kind of enjoyment from this, but that's not how you actually plan on "using" the new equipment, right? You plan, hopefully, on not thinking about the equipment as you sit down and get engrossed in a movie or whatever, right? That's the difference between demoing and using. During the demo phase, you focus on the hardware, or the technique itself, but during use: you almost want to forget it's there at all, right? Any attention the equipment draws to itself is distracting, right? So how can you rationally determine the value that the new sound equipment adds to the experience, when you shouldn't consciously notice that it's there?
I've "demoed" lots of cool scenes in my new chair, and they ARE AWESOME. But I've actually sat down and used it a couple times too. We watched Prince of Persia in the chair, and I have to say I liked the movie. 7.8/10. Did I like it because the sound was nice and loud, the picture was nice, bright and big, because I watched it on BD instead of DVD, because there were no commercial breaks, because my chair rocked back and forth when there was action on the screen, or because it was just a fun time? Or maybe my belly was full and my wife and I were having a nice little break from the kids. Or maybe I just got paid.
I don't know. I think that's the right answer.
