Flying through the image vection and immersion through technical analysis of the Movie-Ride effect

Abstract

Starting with an interest taken in the immersive quality of images, this thesis looks at immersive visuals, a set of formal aspects that instigate a sensation of spatial presence in the audience. In particular, it focuses on a contemporary visual effect found in mainstream cinema dubbed “movie-ride” effect. Although the literature shows the historical importance of immersive images, it falls short of thoroughly discussing the “movie-ride” effect and its immersive qualities. To that end, this thesis presents a technical and thematic reading of said effect, to a purpose of reading it as an immersive style that aims at transporting the audience member inside the virtual space of the image. The technical analysis provides a formal dissection of the constituents of said effect. The thematic reading, on the other hand, introduces the possibility of seeing it as an influence from new media onto the old. Following principals from Grounded Theory and case study analysis, this thesis provides a qualitative, technical analysis of four instances of the movie-ride effect emanating from four contemporary mainstream films. It does so by comparing it to a list of criteria extracted from Riecke and Schulte-Pelkum’s (2015) work. This contained a set of technical qualities in Virtual Reality applications that enable vection: the illusion of self-motion. By analyzing the four instances, this thesis finds a strong adherence to the visual criteria, with two cases fully conforming to them. Therefore, it concludes that the movie-ride can potentially instigate an illusion of self-motion in the audience. The thesis then argues towards a direct link between vection and immersion as an illusion of self-motion implies that the audience member feels themselves moving with the visuals, and therefore, as existing within the virtual space of the depicted image. Then, the thesis acknowledges present writing on the relationship between the movie-ride effect with theme park attractions, but introduces a new thematic reading of said effect. Through theories of intermedia relationship, in particular through the rejuvenation argument, the movie-ride effect is read as a direct influence from new media such as Virtual Reality. By following this argument, the movie-ride effect emerges as the result of the old medium of Cinema borrowing strategies from the new medium of Virtual Realty to appeal to the younger audience. This further highlights one of the comparative core powers of cinema: to retain control over the audience.