This week in Mechanics of Immersion we watched a few movie clips in our Wednesday class like Mad Max: Fury Road and Interstellar. What I found was that Interstellar actually made me really super emotional right there in the middle of class which was mildly embarrassing, but also kinda made me think about how it affected me.

What affects me the most when I go see a film is more often than not the familial aspect, so movies where the conflict between family members or the relationship between family members is shown in depth is more affecting. So Wild with Reese Witherspoon was pretty challenging for me, and when I first tried watching Spirited Away I was pretty scarred by the parents turning into pigs.

I think that it is not necessarily just talking about these relationships that gets me because anyone can give some exposition and make me feel sympathetic. But the scene we watched in Interstellar, there aren’t a whole lot of words spoken as the music swells but we here Murph yelling for her dad, Coop is in tears and the sombre music with the big dramatic organ just makes me feel intense grief. My own relationship with my family which is very fortunate and lucky and happy makes me feel this grief a lot, but maybe my own perception is different from others in similar situations as me.

I think that what affected me the most and immersed me the most in the clips we watched this week was the sound design. Since I am very much so a visual person, and not strong in understanding audio, the subtlety and nuances feels kind of magical to me.