Film Courage: How does suspension of disbelief factor into a great opening?
Margaret Kerrison, Immersive Storyteller, Narrative Director and Writer: A great opening is
extremely important in terms of how quickly your visitor or audience member
buys into the world that you're creating and as much as it really starts from the very first
moment of how you when you think about like how you walk down a path to get to the experience or
the door that you open or the person that greets you I think that every single detail and element
that leads you to the main experience is something that helps to create that suspension of disbelief
and it in my book I talk about the Walt's Haunted Mansion and how you think about the
fact that like the pavement that you walk on the the graveyard that you go through
the wrought iron gate the cast members that greet you and have that tone it's
immediately you get a sense that you're no longer in the place that you were just moments before
in and I think that being able to think about a story in all of those elements not just telling a
story verbally or a story that's written to think about how you create this immersive environment
that makes you believe you are in a different place when you think about
going to travel to a different country for example the moment you get off a plane and go through the
airport and get into a taxi whatever it is and arrive at a place immediately
you get a sense of it's a different people different culture a different language a different
way of doing things a different different sounds different smells different textures
different temperature every time I think about creating an immersive story world
I think about traveling because that's one of my greatest passions and me in life is
to immerse myself in different countries and different cultures and when you think about how
every time you do travel to a new country or a completely different place there is this
sense of excitement anticipation and adventure and your visitor wants that 100 they paid for your
experience maybe it's free whatever but they're committed to your experience for that time period
and the better you can create that sense of place and to create that belief that they are truly
walking into this world and this environment that you're creating and making it so seamless
and consistent so that the pattern doesn't break because as humans we are pattern recognizers so if
you are in a time period that's supposed to be the 1800’s and then you see some modern technology on
the wall it immediately takes you out immediately so how do you think about every single detail and
element that takes and transports you and your audience member into a place that they
are willingly able to suspend their disbelief and enter your world and willingly and openly
want to participate and play and engage in it then you've done your job well as a storyteller
and that's something a lot of different mediums are really exploring and really
trying to find ways in which to immerse audience members and visitors in new and unique ways and
I have to say video games do it very well from their inception until now just seeing it evolve
and how as a player you get to really immerse yourself in that story world immediately that's
something that a lot of immersive storytellers can really think about when they think about
creating that world you think about video games and how immediately you are a character
who has a role in this world and you have agency and whatever action you take has consequences
you whether you turn left or right or follow this character or not follow that character and
go somewhere else all of these things have these multi-branching stories and narratives that you
as a player can follow and that's something that's very exciting in the immersive storytelling world
to explore and a really great example is sleep no more in New York City where you do have this
deconstructed narrative of Macbeth and you can follow these characters in different rooms and
you follow a character in their storyline and you can explore a room on your own you can meet people
there's this sense of mystery and exploration and discovery that feels very very unique
and I’m excited to see more and more of that how can people really push the boundaries of
what immersive storytelling is and how can you really involve not only yourself as a participant
but the people around you to create something that feels like a shared narrative that together
you're experiencing and that you're connecting on a deeper meaningful level with complete strangers
I think that's some of the greatest magic that I see in immersive storytelling is that you're able
to find that human connection that many times in our own lives maybe we've lost and you said
too two words that stuck out to me too mystery and discovery and I started to think about for myself
why I like certain stories and I think that that's a huge component and you want to talk about being
present in something yeah when our mind is going like that right right and I think that as humans
we want to make sense of the world around us and that's why mysteries and crime stories murder
mysteries all of that we want to go down that rabbit hole because we want to understand we want
to find a reason for why people do the things they do would I do the same thing if I were in
that same situation like all of these what ifs right and what ifs and what really happened and
what more can I discover what more can I find if I follow that path like that's why
a story like Alice In Wonderland right is so captive captivating to us because it's really
following a character that's brave enough to go on that adventure and for us to follow along on that
journey and to really discover what it means when you are brave when you are fearless when you do
meet strange characters in your life all of these things I think like there's an inner child in all
of us that has that curiosity and that desire to discover and explore the world around us
what are some great openings in immersive storytelling oh boy when you talked about
the greeting it hadn't even thinking about even a walking into a restaurant in some sense is
like there's a little bit of storytelling but you talk about greeters and and and just taking
you immediately into that world and knowing that you've left one world and going into another yeah
there's one experience that I have to call out is called the nest in Los Angeles and they
unfortunately they're closing soon so I think people have a few weeks to book it before it the
production closes down but it's an immersive world where you you go into this building and one of the
first things they do is put you into a really old rickety elevator and you go up on this journey
that very curious very mysterious and you don't know what's really going on you go up just you
and one other person goes up on this rickety elevator and you're basically told in a letter
that you've inherited a storage unit and so you go through the storage unit and piece by piece
you uncover the story of this woman's life she has recently passed away and through a very
clever medium which is just old-school cassette tapes that you put into a cassette player in each
of the rooms there's there's actual activities that you're doing an action that you're taking
to discover this woman's life and everything from like you hear her voice from childhood to when
she's an older woman I think they really cleverly put that together these two former imagineers who
put this experience together that was a really great opener for me a really memorable one where
you really feel transported and you do suspend your disbelief to really explore this creepy
in fact a creepy environment for you to really uncover the story of this woman's life
that's fascinating so you said it's closing down soon yeah in a few weeks in a few weeks
forever forever but they're probably going to do other projects but for now it's they
it was running for a few months maybe I don't know don't no no don't quote me on it it was
running for a few months but there it was a really clever way to tell a story in a very contained
and controlled environment and the only thing that you're given is a tape recorder and a flashlight
and so you're going into this very immersive
from hallway of a storage unit and at one point you're developing film to look at some clues
to open a lock like all of these things and you feel really emotionally invested
to find out really the story of what happened to this woman who left behind the storage unit
for you that's fascinating so you get this letter from like a barrister or an attorney or whatever
and it says you're the beneficiary of this estate yeah I think it was you won you won the storage
unit oh yeah okay yeah okay interesting yeah then you and do you you see parts of her life
and not just here yeah and it's all out of order too so it's a non-linear storytelling
and brilliant yeah so they really did a great job in putting that together and really thinking about
this is another way like when you think about like you don't have to have millions of dollars
to create an immersive story you you simply use what's around you to best represent the the
feeling that you want in creating this place so yeah the nest really I definitely recommend that.