My first attempt at the reaction shot was an emulation one of
Michael Bay's "Bayhem" shots described by Tony Zhou in Every Frame a Painting. I hoped an
iconic cinematic shot with an over the top sense or “epicness” would have a
satirical effect, endearing the character to the audience through sympathy,
similar to the affection fans of the Charles M. Schultz have for Charlie Brown.
Beyham - "use of movement composition and fast editing to
create a sense of epic scale" through "layers of depth, parallax,
movement, character, and environment" (Zhao)
The performative function
of the reaction shot should be an alignment of the audience with the
protagonist and an introduction to the goose's vulnerability through a visible
awareness of his own fallibility. The intended perlocution is identification
and affection through empathy (naïve demeanor under threat), but early test
shots made it clear that the "Bayhem" shots were not going to be
effective.
Tony Zhou describes Michal
Bay's shots as having a good deal of “impact”, but more specifically there is
an awe and admiration for the character who is literally and figuratively
standing to face the challenging in a chaotic world. The Bayham primitive is awe
generated by a metaphoric link to imagery and conceptual conjugate.
Austin
categorized communicative failures, and Ronald Grimes wrote about the
application of his taxonomy to ritual failure. The failure of this shot might
fall under a “misinvocation” and/or a “misfire” because the act was “purported
but void” due to a “misexecution” vitiating the act through flaw. But I think
categorization of infelicities in narrative falls outside of Austin's scheme
because the projected application of his theory is radically different from the
nuances of performative narrative communication. For analysis of multiplatform
narrative communication classification of primitives through their relationship
to the perlocution would be the most effective tool for the deconstruction,
analysis, and construction of narrative performative acts.
