Emotional Realism and Actuality: The Function of Prosumer Aesthetics in Film

Abstract

Current trends in film and television production styles have favoured the use of aesthetics associated with prosumer and social media products. These aesthetics, including handheld shaky-cam, variable audio and open acknowledgement of the camera, have been utilised for their ability to imitate reality, to take away a little of the polish of professional film and television production and to inject the raw, ad hoc immediacy of actuality. Yet an emotional connection between a film and its spectator cannot be disregarded, and represents another form of reality in film: that of emotional realism. Indeed conventional cinema relies on aural and visual techniques to generate emotional authenticity for its characters and to align them with spectators as a means to encourage investment in a believable fictional world. The application of techniques associated with real-world aesthetics in narrative contexts seems instinctively to be at odds with the aims of fictional cinema. Through a close analysis of Chronicle, this paper explores the function of prosumer aesthetics in a fictional context and examines how tropes of “reality” can inform emotional realism.

Keywords

• prosumer aesthetics
• production techniques
• fiction film
• realism
• reality