Cognitive and perceptual illusionism while of interest as separate topics in literature, are complimentary in film making. This is especially true in sci-fi movies where the audience have to believe what they are seeing is real to perceive it as real.
Predestination is a 2014 film in which the protagonist is stuck in time loop. The plot relies heavily on time travel, which is the main way used to advance the plot. Cognitive illusionism is applied effectively in the film. For one, it is assumed that the protagonist moves both himself and his later self when using the coordinate transformer, the audience will most of the time actually believe that time traveling to the past was actually achieved.
For the technique to actually work, it is not always important for images to be used though they are an integral part of achieving the illusion. In the film, this was achieved using dialogue between the protagonist and his younger self as well as monologue on the part of the younger self. The film is a great example of how other aspects of film making can be harnessed to achieve the desired effect on the audience by the film maker.
It would be impossible for predestination to hold water as a time travel sci-fi thriller without the use of perceptual illusionism. There is no way to actually time travel and the film maker chose to simply make characters ‘disappear’ when they time travelled. There is also no way to actually change one person to another person during the shooting of a film, yet in predestination there were more than three people representing the same character.
To create the desired effect of cognitive illusionism, perceptual illusionism was employed. When time travelling, objects are pushed away from the point of departure and at the destination. Since no one actually knows what happens when one time travels, this creates a plausible reaction in the real world of what would happen in such a scenario. Obviously, how this was achieved during filming and the illusion it creates to the audience are quite different.
Another application of perceptual realism is in the transition between characters depicting the protagonist. In particular, the uncanny valley effect was effectively used to further separate the other people depicting the protagonist and the Unmarried Mother by changing the Unmarried Mother’s facial features. This helped in further cementing the different mental models of the different characters in the audience’s mind, further promoting cognitive illusionism. At the same time, perceptual illusionism was employed in order to reduce the effects or realism inconsistency theory (Elsevier, 2015).
In conclusion, it can be said that cognitive illusionism works really well in films that requires the viewer to imagine beyond reality to create an alternative reality such as Predestination and The Matrix. The use of perceptual illusionism and other aspects of film are great in aiding achieve the desired cognitive illusionism.
Bibliography
Elsevier, B.V. (2015) Reducing consistency in human realism increases the uncanny valley effect; Increasing category uncertainty does not. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027715300755 (Accessed: 01 February 2017).