Schiller was startled by Chris's excited state. Just as he was about to ask if he was okay, Chris grabbed him.
"Have you ever heard a saying?"
"What?"
"The more fictional something is, the more polished its details need to be. Why do you think that is?"
"Why?" Schiller could tell Chris was not really asking him and did not need an answer, so he pretended not to understand and asked anyway.
"The greatest art in the world is drawing the audience into another world," Chris said rapidly. "Music, painting, novels, films—they all work that way. The more immersed the audience becomes, the more successful the art is. And making up details is the most efficient way to enhance immersion."
"Viewers come in countless varieties, and everyone's inner world is different, but they all perceive the world in the same ways. By seeing, by hearing, by analyzing with reason, by resonating through emotion. The richer what they see is, and the more rigorously those details corroborate one another, the more readily their brains judge it to be real, and the stronger the immersion becomes."
"My film needs plenty of convincing elements. They do not necessarily have to be real, but they must make sense in that environment. The audience will feel that they are the optimal choices, that they would do the same if they were there. That is immersion."
This reminded Schiller of Chris's famous film, Home Alone. Many scenes in that comedy were actually absurd, and the traps that hit those two foolish burglars were rather childish, probably impossible to pull off in real life. Yet when people watched the movie, it all felt perfectly reasonable. If they were a little boy home alone, they felt they would punish foolish burglars the same way.
That was because the