Every so often I run across a book title that intrigues me and I just have to investigate its inner workings, hoping to find something worth sharing with our EID readership. What conjures up in your mind when you read: Museum Exhibitions and Suspense - The Use of Screenwriting Techniques in Curatorial Practice?
For me the word screenwriting set alarm bells off -YES!- a new angle from the best practices of the film industry. I can’t wait to uncover its applicability for interpretation. (Even though the word museum and curator are used please stay open-minded and transcend these limits to include parks, visitor centres and heritage sites as they can all use these same tips). In my mind interpreters ARE curators because we curate an experience.
Having dabbled in improvisational drama and stage acting in my younger years I was immediately curious. I am always on the lookout for different fields of study that approach effective communication techniques. The publisher summary indicated that this book would provide an important resource for those who want to create stories with a wide audience appeal. Well, bingo!
The author, Ariane Karbe, is both a curator with exhibition development expertise and is trained in the storytelling form of scriptwriting. Now I was really getting hooked.
The author examines suspense minutely from a screenwriter perspective and that is what sets this book apart. Ariane takes the reader through a somewhat academic treatise breaking down various dramatic suspense techniques. This post will highlight some key concrete areas of advice relevant to the interpretive profession.
The author makes the assumption that “creating suspenseful exhibition narratives holds the potential to support museum visitors’ hunger for (exciting) learning.” Ariane also says, “ Given the important role that suspense plays in the choice and evaluation of entertaining media offerings by a broad audience, it is remarkable how little suspense has been examined in relation to exhibition making.”
Not just for exhibition making, I contend, but also with self-guided trail signage, guided walks/site tours and most interpretive media for that matter. All basic interpretive presentation recommendations tell you to employ suspense but never really detail how. The film industry can help. If you agree, then best read on. The juicy stuff is still to come (are you in a state of suspense?)
On the first page she digs right in and says that in order for museums to be popular with more diverse population groups, the form of communication to be employed must be exciting.
Not too earth shattering a premise. The film industry certainly can show us a thing or two when it comes to developing excitement. Read on, so you can review your last interpretive text and determine if it passes the exciting test?
To certain audiences this fact is exciting Image courtesy Bill Reynolds
Posing questions and supplying answers are central to the unravelling of a film’s plot as they are to an exhibit purpose. Filmmakers play a game of providing and withholding information to cause tension and excitement.
Human interest is based on three main forces: suspense, curiosity, and surprise. Suspense is under the microscope here as the basis for exciting occurrences. Suspense is aroused in the viewer through purposeful information gaps. These gaps or omissions can create a mysterious atmosphere.
Ah! but let’s dig deeper. How does one employ this technique?
The last line hooks the reader into asking how ? Image courtesy; Bill Reynolds
You create, not necessarily ask outright, a question in your visitors’ minds that they want an answer to, then suspend the answer. This is exactly what the exhibit text in Unlocking Hidden Secrets has done in the image above. You add to this by building what screenwriters call an arc of suspense. You reveal bits along the way, raising possibilities. The technique is referred to as a roller coaster storyline.
You set up knowledge about a key character (think in a broad sense as this does not have to be human but could be a species or habitat or community or bone in the example provided…). Then farther on (in the exhibit, gallery, trail…) you show how certain elements/adaptations allowed these characteristics to come about.
The author points out that in films, questions and answers relate to actions, however most commonly in exhibits, they pertain to descriptions. Ariane strictly looked at cultural exhibitions when she stated their typical questions are thematic in nature versus typical questions for films are dramatic in nature, as in - will the character fail or succeed? I wager this can be said for nature-based exhibitions versus nature films as well. What follows is the kicker!
The Greek word for drama means to do and the Greek word for theme is something laid down. “The film viewer is caught up in a course of doing action events whereas the museum visitor sees the events laid down statically in a space.” The result is a lack of “getting caught up.”
This perspective reinforces what EID has always found exciting about the book Interpretive Design the Dance of Experience by Steve Van Matre. This was the first time we encountered a role emphasis for interpreters to set the stage for visitor doing interactive experiences, rather than just the visitor static form of reading or being presented to, primarily creating a listening experience.
As in the following image, we see the typical use of an actual posed question. It has effectively embedded a somewhat incongruous state of affairs to engender curiosity: How CAN a bog be thirsty?
This well written (for many reasons) text could have boosted itself a notch if it had capitalized on suspense leading you on to the next scene. Similarly, it could have involved a doing action on behalf of the visitor. How - a chance to get down and feel the water level among the roots could be accomplished by a cutaway allowing observation below the surface like a mini-cross -section soil profile. The visitor could get to explore “under the covers,” so to speak. People love being given the chance to be detectives.
This book is about making a strong case for exhibits to be treated more like drama with a structure and a soul. Part 2 of Staging Suspense will explore emotional engagement more, as well as delving into immersion techniques, scenography and smooth transitioning that keep the exciting interpretive medium interactively engaging.