J.J. Abrams Champions Sense of Mystery in Era of Information Overload

Left to right: Gabriel Basso, Ryan Lee, Joel Courtney and Riley Griffiths portray DIY filmmakers who witness a horrifying event in Super 8.
Image courtesy Paramount Pictures

Whatever happened to the ignorance-is-bliss school of going to the movies? That?s what J.J. Abrams wants to know as his new sci-fi thriller Super 8 heads for theaters.

Opening Friday, the ?80s-inflected story about a group of child filmmakers who get tangled up in a mysterious conspiracy has been shrouded in secrecy, encircled with a trail of bread-crumb teaser clips that conceal more than they reveal.

That?s precisely the point, says Abrams. ?If you?ve seen so many clips and images and stories about a piece of entertainment you feel like, ?Well I kind of know what that is, why do I even need to see it??

(Spoiler alert: Plots points follow.)

Like the film?s promotional campaign, Super 8 itself demonstrates the art of the tease. For the first 20 minutes, we see no creature. Then we get a brief glimpse. Then a slightly longer peek. Cue the creepy archival footage. Then the full body shot.

Finally, the big reveal.

Super 8?s dynamic draws on the suspense formula famously perfected by the movie?s executive producer Steven Spielberg in Jaws. The 1975 blockbuster made audiences wait, and wait, and wait some more before they got to see the big fish. That strategy now serves as shorthand for filmmakers who want to sustain suspense: ?Don?t show the shark.?

These days, such restraint seems quaint. Awash in a 21st-century tsunami of leaks, teasers, viral tidbits, camcorder footage, augmented-reality games and DIY paparazzi ?gets,? films carry loads of data baggage beyond their two-hour run times, functioning more like brands time-stamped with an 18-month shelf life. The now-familiar product rollout includes up to a year?s worth of anticipatory ?transmedia? data trickle, culminating in opening-weekend hysteria and followed a few months later by ancillary behind-the-scenes goodies when the Blu-ray comes out.

You can only pull back the curtain so many times before the magician routine starts to become rote.

You can only pull back the curtain so many times before the magician routine starts to become rote.

?The downside to living in an age of instant information is that not only do you have a sense almost of entitlement to get the answer to any question you may have at any moment, but there?s also this jaded sense of already knowing the answer,? Abrams said in a phone interview with Wired.com. ?If having an answer is sort of [only] a couple of clicks away, is it even worth looking up??

In days of yore, before Ain?t It Cool News pioneered Hollywood gossip reporting, before The Blair Witch Project taught studios how to convert online backstory buzz into box office riches and before Comic-Con International transformed into a virtual megaphone capable of blasting snippets of film content into the geekosphere many months ahead of a movie?s release date, people went to the movies knowing only what they?d seen in a single trailer and maybe a poster or newspaper article.

Studios? top-down control of movie information was near-dictatorial, but rarely did audiences in the analog era become sick of a picture before it came out.

By contrast, today?s ?need to know? mindset requires a steady stream of factoids, artistic pratfalls, unguarded remarks, DIY paparazzi set shots and often an avalanche of official production stills. Information-gorged audiences who eat the big box of buttered popcorn before they get to the theater are less likely to jump up and cheer than filmgoers who have no idea what?s coming.

On rare occasions, contemporary movies prove capable of surprise. For example, Avatar producers were so sparing with advance materials that the audience?s sense of discovery on opening weekend propelled the movie to historic box office.

But for the most part, inside information has now replaced imitation as the sincerest form of flattery. After all, pop culture fans generally only crave details ? more details! ? when they admire a movie?s talent or source material in the first place. Filmmakers including Abrams, Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight) and Chris Carter (The X-Files) nonetheless sometimes wish fans would rein in their curiosity.

?Seeing a film cold is kind of a rare thing in this day and age.?

Joe Cornish, director of hot alien-invasion film Attack the Block, addressed the current state of information overload before the world premiere of his movie at the South by Southwest film festival earlier this year.

?I won?t tell you too much about the film ?cause, maybe like you, the one thing I love about [film] festivals is you know nothing, and seeing a film cold is kind of a rare thing in this day and age,? he said before Attack the Block?s packed midnight screening.

The U.K. film rode significant festival buzz to a distribution deal with Screen Gems.

Ultimately, studios will do whatever they can to stimulate consumers into buying tickets. Abrams, who co-created Lost, knows a thing or two about triggering curiosity without despoiling what he calls the ?mystery box.?

The man who helped birth the Smoke Monster realizes better than most that too many plumes of hype can choke filmgoers? ability to watch a movie with fresh eyes.

?We have to sell movies, so we have to get the word out,? Abrams says, ?but I believe in doing it in a way that allows people?s imaginations to work.?

Additional reporting by Lewis Wallace.

Source: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/06/j-j-abrams-mystery-super-8/

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