Prompt 8

Time and pace are directly related to the reality effect because it is something that is structured and obeyed regularly in our everyday lives. When a simulation follows the pattern of the real, it becomes more real to us as a participatory audience. A great example of this would be The Matrix. In The Matrix, Agent Smith explains that there was a previous version of The Matrix where the world was created as a utopia. The rendering was green fields and blue skies. There was no human suffering, war, poverty, etc.  However in this version of The Matrix, the enslaved human race began to rebel. Even on a subconscious level the human race was unable to believe that what was happening before them was real. As a result of this The Matrix underwent a “system update” and was changed to reflect human conditions as we know them today. The simulation introduced certain human influences such as hard labor, disease, inequality; the parts of our suffering that make humanism real. This idea relates well to ideas regarding time and pace as it relates to the reality effect. The closer action on stage adheres to real time, the more real it becomes for the audience. If a character decides he must leave to go and take a shower, walks off stage left, and enters again in 60 seconds, no one in the audience is going to believe that man left to go take a shower. However, if a character decides to take a shower, walks off stage left, and enters in the next 10 minutes with wet hair and a change of clothes, this action becomes infinitely more believable to the audience. There is a much more powerful effect when we see a performance happening in real time. When we are fully engaged in a show and are seeing everything happen before our eyes, we know that we are not missing out on anything occurring on stage. Our experience becomes a shared experience with the character we are following. We get to see everything the exact way that character sees it, without leaving any of the action behind. In terms of pace, it is easy for an audience to question the authenticity of a performance when we see that natural speech patterns and movements are not implemented in a performance. When a question is asked most times we expect a character to stop and think of a response. If the character answers right away, we know that the even happening before us is merely an illusion. While this can sometimes be effective, it is only truly effective when the world of the play is not one that is similar to the real world. There is a film that was made recently called Boyhood. Boyhood is the story of a boy as he ages from 5 to 18 years old. What is so interesting about the production of this film is that it was filmed over the course of 12 years in order to captures the boy’s growth into adulthood. The entire cast of characters signed on to be filmed in what is essentially real time so that they could see this one boy become a man in real time. What I find most interesting about this experience is that while this tactic was intending to be used to capture the boy’s growth, I strongly believe that it served another purpose as well. I am certain that in filming the picture for 12 years, the relationships between each of the characters became more real as well. If two cast members, a father and a son are expected to have a relationship, that relationship is much more synthetic when the characters are only filmed for a few months. However, when the two cast members are engaged in a working relationship for an extended period of time, it is undoubted that their relationship becomes much more real for them as actors, and therefore, it becomes real for the audience as well.