CFI - Cinematic Forecasting and Investment Assurance LLC ™

Investor Opportunities in Motion Picture Profits through Feature Film Box-Office Forecasts / Pre-Production Script Development / Cinematic Archetype Casting / Component Formulation Design / U.S. and Global Market Consulting & Mass Audience Forecasting

1.1 future film forecasts

1.2 last weekend forecast

1.3 - 2011 profits & loss

1.4 - 2010 profits & loss

1.5 - 2009 profits & loss

1.6 - 2008 profits & loss

1.7 - 2007 profits & loss

1.8 - 2006 profits & loss

1.9 - 2005 profits & loss

1.10 - 2004-2002 charts

1.11 - 2001-1999 charts

1.12 CFI CONTACT INFO

2.1 intro to CFI

2.2 twenty-one questions

2.3 beta-testing complete

2.4 products & services

2.5 application & benefit

2.6 comparing methodology

2.7 client applications

2.8 four screen dynamics

2.9 playability errors

2.10 quadrant solutions

2.11 forecasting accuracy

2.12 edge on competition

3.1 film components

3.2 simple components

3.3 complex components

3.4 resolution components

3.5 horrific components

3.6 the two behaviorisms

3.7 audience psychology

3.8 suspending disbeliefs

3.9 four media approach

3.10 reading their faces

3.11 observing audiences

3.12 observing emotions

4.1 archetype vs. stereo

4.2 modern archetypes

4.3 good/bad guys ID key

4.4 line by line paradigm

4.5 face mapping tools

4.6 the classic archetype

4.7 casting examples

4.8 writers and archetype

4.9 subtypes & essences

4.10 act as VS. act like

4.11 Jung archetypal map

4.12 the MBDI vs. MBTI

5.1 script consulting

5.2 assist flow chart

5.3 production benefits

5.4 database tracking

5.5 client confidential

5.6 forecast fallibility

5.7 how the others fail

5.8 weekend mentality

5.9 neuromarketing news

5.10 neuromarket article

5.11 film neuromarketing

5.12 older methodologies

6.1 old studio systems

6.2 studio system assists

6.3 agent & mgr. benefits

6.4 improvements 4 talent

6.5 attending to imagery

6.6 the best attributes

6.7 talent research

6.8 star power ratings

6.9 star client results

6.10 secret sex chemistry

6.11 archetype inventory

6.12 sub-type inventory

7.1 CFI contact info

7.2 similar companies

7.3 actor archetype lists

7.4 bibliography to study

7.5 urls continued study

7.6 ROIs for 1999 & 2000

7.7 ROIs for 2001 & 2002

7.8 ROIs for 2003 & 2004

7.9 ROIs for 2005 & 2006

7.10 ROIs for 2007 & 2008

7.11 ROIs for 2009 - 2010

7.12 ROIs for 2011 - 2012

page 3.2



The component examples below represent LESS than 8 percent (8%) of the total number of "negatively valued" structural component formulations that can be found devastating motion pictures. 
 

(The formulations below are actually the most simplistic of the negative formulations and are known by most filmmakers.)
  

If you avoid these along with all of the other negative structural formulations
(that are not listed here) when selecting your projects, you'll be on track to a large North American success.  Then, if your actor's archetypes have also been selected correctly in pre-production, it's guaranteed that you'll clear a profit here in the U.S. and worldwide as well. 

Because it is extremely difficult to find screenplays that can avoid each and all of the negative formulations, it is very important to understand exactly how to incorporate positive formulations (in order to compensate for the negative values that cannot be avoided).  Merely avoiding the negative components listed below will not be enough to guarantee success.

The numerical structural component valuations mathematically assigned to every component allows creatives to neutralize and overcome the inherited negative valuations by adding positive component values. But to find the right balance of values requires a knowledge of all the positive and negative valuations from thousands of possible factorizations.

The other ninety-two percent (92%) of all motion picture structural formulations are available through private consultation from CFI.


 Examples of the Simple Component Formulations

 

 


1.  Monotonous Arc

                            

In our daily lives, we suffer from the boredom of monotonous highs and lows.  Movies provide the audience with an increasingly continuous high, which climaxes within an appreciable time period to relieve the audience of their anticipatory tensions created by suspending disbelief during the up hill climb.

 
POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief and is completely willing to accept the premise you are offering them as long as you do not trick or betray them by shortcutting the upward momentum or beginning the premise over and over again.  To do so disappoints them and leaves them longing for closure.  That audience will then inform others that your film became monotonous, and advise others not to attend.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

2.  Indistinguishable Bad Guy or Dilemma

                            

This component represents an object in the audience’s own lives that is responsible for negatively affecting them as they watch and relate to the actor’s visual situation.  When the bad guy or the dilemma is only subjectual or less than their own daily dilemmas, the audience cannot find clarity or meaning and they cannot avoid doubt about the film’s presentation.

                                                         

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

When suspending disbelief, the audience depends on your leadership and storytelling skills to direct their attention and passions towards objects they can relate to.  If they can find no cause AND effect – if they can find no motivator, no instigator and no catalyst to visually identify which justifies leading actor behavior – they lose interest in continuing suspension of disbelief and grow skeptical.

 

The audience suspends disbelief and is completely willing to accept the premise that you are offering them has an object cause and effect they can see on the screen.  If they cannot see it they have nothing they can prove to their friends and your point is lost.  The audience will be discouraged and inform others not to attend.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

3.  Title Interference or Exposition Longer than 1/3 of The Film’s Length

                            

Because of historical precedents established many generations ago, film going audiences have come to expect a certain amount of time to pass in which they must maintain their suspension of disbelief.

 

They have been programmed through generations of storytelling to expect their suspension of disbelief to begin to pay off about 1/3 of the way into the storytelling process.  Fulfilling that expectation is crucial to helping them digest your story properly and avoid loosing patience or jumping to quickly ahead.                

 

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief and trusts the story-teller to keep them from confusion in following certain pre-conditions established deeply into their psyche’.  If you disrespect their basic programming they become confused and terminate their suspension of disbelief in an effort to find their own way through your tale.  If the timing of the product is confusing, the audience will become distressed and inform others not to attend or risk getting confused too.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

4.  Out-Takes In Any Film or “Where They Went” at a Fiction’s End

                                     

Not one film in the last three years that showed out-takes in the end titles made a profit at the U.S. box-office.  What was once a cute and unique marketing gimmick degenerated into an end title signature of cinematic failure. 

 

This gimmick has become an albatross around your neck that warns the audience (at the end of your film) that you must not have tried very hard and that you didn’t take the story seriously and that they shouldn’t to take this film seriously either.

 

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

Any benefit of the doubt that you did your best to tell the story correctly is destroyed and what true friend will tell his neighbor to go see a film that was actually full of errors.  The last thing you want the audience to remember is how lousy your film really was and all the mistakes you made that you kept hidden from the audience the entire time they were trusting you and suspending disbelief.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

5.  Sports, Race or Adult Contest Oriented (male and female) Plot Line

                                     

Through decades of historical evaluations of films which succeeded as compared to those which fail…and one of the most consistent formulations that fail to earn a profit at the U.S. box are television oriented sports, race or contest oriented features.  These types of motion pictures always receive a point reduction and very rarely make up for it in other components enough to make up for it. 

 

These failures began to occur more frequently after television crept into the American consciousness.  The inability of female sports stars to compete on equal footing visually exasperates the problem even further

                  

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience is programmed to watch sports, race or contest oriented stories and programs on television where they are psychologically U-turned from the suspension of disbelief they use for cinema.  They are not willing to suspend disbelief while watching TV since these are real contests and require skeptical evaluation. They are unwilling to accept a premise based on fantasy when they are so confirmed into reality of this genre by television.  The motion picture product is AUTOMATICALLY below the average reinforced by their small screens, and the audience will be discouraged and then inform others not to attend the film.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

6.  Imposing Anatomicals, Aberrant Sex Behavior or Masked Facial Articulation

                  

This component formulation and factorization is the most reactionary of all CFI components as it is the most visually disturbing.  Though there are a few who love killing suspended belief for the satisfaction of public spite … the majority of the U.S. puritanical audience needs sophistication, not “grossification”.

                                                                   

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief and is completely willing to accept the premise that you are offering them a quality product.  If the quality of the product is beyond culturally acceptable or cinematic norms, the audience will inform others to avoid it.  If anatomical displays are outside of cinematic norms the audience feels manipulated or pushed on and scramble out of their suspension for the status quo safety of their less gruesome everyday lives.  They want out of the picture!   The same goes for aberrant sexual behavior without romantic inclusion. 

 

The opposite of those extreme screen articulations will cause the same response in the audience.  Whereas imposing anatomicals or aberrant sexual activities are too much articulation for the audience to comfortably mimic and reproduce internally – too little articulation betrays them also. The audience suspends disbelief, willing to accept that you are offering them quality product -- but if that quality is UNDER the cinematic norm the audience will inform others to avoid it too.  Masked facial articulation denies the audience enough mimicry to reproduce empathetically and they are left without an emotion to share with their neighbors.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

7.  Claustrophobic Plot Lines or Sets (i.e. submarine, prison, cave, ghetto, etc.)

                            

The film experience requires a dark, cavernous focused environment for the audience to slip into comfortably and avoid all the various outside distractions.  The audience must be cradled within this sealed container as comfortably as possible for the maximum concentration and convergence on the screen. 

 

Everything else in their lives must fade away and these walls must encapsulate them gracefully within the darkness in order to facilitate their suspension of disbelief as fully as possible. 

 

In order to expand their horizons, producers must deny them their own existence and place them in an almost claustrophobic closet.  Color and light and expanding spaces and places on the screen in front of them can then compliment the dark environment.  Nevertheless, the claustrophobia is exaggerated and dramatically intensified beyond a level of comfort if the screen contains the similar darkness they sit in -- or anything like unto to it for more than half the film.

                                               

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief and is completely willing to accept the premise that you are offering them a quality product unless that product amplifies the near claustrophobic they are already sitting in.  When the film exaggerates the darkness and closeted environment, the audience will become extremely uncomfortable and inform others not to attend. 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

8.  Overabundance of Conversational Expose or Gaudy Wealth

                                     

The most intriguing aspect of the cinematic experience for the audience is the opportunity and ability to sneak in on the characters, to “peeping tom” the scenarios and voyeur their way into the storyline.  This activity creates the emotion of suspense, which in turn provides the emotion of satisfaction when the suspense is realized or relieved.

 

Sneaking in on other’s time while they spend money is interesting as long as it is suspenseful.  Eavesdropping in on other’s time while they converse is intriguing as long as it is suspenseful.  Too much conversation or too much money nullifies suspense and therefore destroys satisfaction.

 
POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief and is willing to accept the premise that you are offering them a quality product the can be satisfied by.  If the quality of suspense is not built into the product the audience will be dissatisfied and in turn inform their friends that the film is not worth attending.

 

An over-abundance of conversation destroys suspense.  Gaudy, unending incomes or wealthy screen activities destroy suspense.  Destroy suspense and you annihilate satisfaction.  Annihilate satisfaction and you’ve killed the attendance.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

9.  Extended Flashbacking, Fantasizing, Thought Balloons or MTV style editing

                                               

The audience suspends disbelief for a story. 

The audience suspends disbelief for ONE story. 

The audience suspends disbelief for the story you led them into…in real time.

The story (that as far as they or the world is concerned) is happening right now, right here, for the very first time, right in front of them.  Not fast into the future, not slow into the past.

 

This one story they have suspended their own doubt of and are following like natives in front of a campfire.

 

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief and is completely willing to accept that you are offering them a quality story in real time.  If the quality of the story is impaired they will get discouraged and inform others not to see the story.  When you offer an audience ONE story to suspend belief in and then somewhere in the middle of that story the characters in the story start watching another story -- you are asking your audience to suspend their suspension of the first, while at the same time suspend disbelief in the second story you started.  This effectively "double negates the suspension of belief" (DNSOD) and it becomes impossible to re-suspend disbelief once more when you start into the original story again. Do it twice and you’re finished.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

10.  Not Taking Self Seriously, Disrespecting Its Own Content or 2x’s Cinema Vérité (looking into camera)

                                               

Whenever a script takes note of itself or its own premise it discredits its validity as a truthful possibility in the moment -- and thus it contradicts the audience’s belief that it really exists. 

 

Whenever a script makes fun of itself or its own conception it discredits its validity as a truthful possibility in the moment -- and thus it contradicts the audience’s belief that it really exists. 

 

When anyone turns directly to camera with intent they thereby recognize the audience’s existence and thus they are making note of the movie as a scripted item -- and again that discredits the product as a truthful possibility and thus it contradicts the audience’s belief that it really exists. 

                                     

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief to accept a premise that you are offering them.  If the premise of the product is contradicted during the premise by the offering itself, the audience feels entirely betrayed and will advise others not to attend that product’s exhibition. 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

11.  Un-Reconstructable Storyline or Character Not Wanting to Exist As Such

                  

When a storyline or a script or a character in such does not support the logic or cause and effect relationship of its own existence (or its purpose for existence) the audience is left adrift without a reason to continue suspending disbelief.

 

When an audience cannot reconstruct the journey of the character or storyline, it cannot construct a rational for maintaining the suspension of disbelief.

                            

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief and is completely willing to accept the premise that you are offering them a quality product.  If the product itself does not wish to exist or cannot be reconstructed the audience is disheartened by the lack of inherent quality and will inform others not to attend.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

12.  The Unredeemable, Illogical or Cheap Ending (through relevant scoring to overtime)

                                               

Every story has a beginning due to the effort required to attract an audience and convince them that they should listen to your story instead of anything else.  This creation of a beginning automatically dictates the creation of an ending to justify and verify its beginning in the first place.  In a cause and effect universe, it’s just the way it goes.

                                                         

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends its disbelief and is completely willing to accept the premise that you are offering them a quality product.  The foundation of suspending disbelief is to give you the benefit of the doubt that you will provide a meaningful or justifiable outcome to rationalize the time and money they spent observing the product.  If the end quality of the product is unredeemable, cheap or illogical the audience will feel betrayed and inform others not to attend the beginning.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

13.  Non-Historic Overtime

                            

Because of historical precedents established many generations ago, film going audiences have come to expect a certain amount of time to pass in which they must maintain their suspension of disbelief.

 

They have also been programmed through generations of storytelling to expect their suspension of disbelief to begin to pay off about 1/3 of the way into the storytelling process and end after approximately ninety minutes.  Fulfilling that expectation is crucial to helping them digest your story properly and to help them avoid loosing patience. 

 

If a story is of historic significance they will incorporate the suspension of disbelief in a manner that accommodates however long it may take you to tell the story with quality – but anything else begins to lose favor with the audience after sitting still for 90 minutes.

                                                                                                         

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief and trusts the story teller to keep them from disillusionment by following certain pre-conditions established deep into their theater going psyche’.  If you disrespect their fundamental programming, they become confused and terminate their suspension of disbelief in an effort to find their own way out of the tale.  If the timing of the product is unjustifiably lengthy, the audience will become stressed and advise others not to attend the unrelenting journey.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

14.  Mid-Film vocal narration, Documentary, Comedy narration throughout or Mocumentary

                            

While sitting quietly and responsibly watching the screen, the audience has the privilege of interpreting what they see for themselves, any way they think or feel is appropriate.  Their suspension of disbelief may allow you SHOW them whatever you choose to, but it lets them IDEALIZE or literate it inside their own minds any way that they choose to.

                                                                                                         

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

Suspension of disbelief cannot be denied or dictated.  It must exist voluntary.  The audience suspends disbelief and trusts the filmmaker to allow them to do so without interruption or refusal. Narrations, dictations or vocal explanations deny the audience their own literary interpretation of what they have just seen, and they feel their privilege betrayed.  The enforcement of the narrator’s own point of view will cause them to dismiss the film’s visuals when sharing the experience with friends.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

15. Pretentious Sounds, Score or Soundtrack or the Lack of Music or Background sound

                            

A film audience is only 33% involved in seeing sights. 

 

The rest of their attention is devoted entirely to sound.

 

Hearing sound in a film accounts for 66% of the audience’s enjoyment in motion pictures.  Proportionately, this amount comprises 22% in verbal linguistics, 11% for environmental background effects and 33% to music from the score and/or soundtracks (as derived from CFI field research data). 

 

In the theater or at home,

Visuals that represent a thought, are easier to imagine than music that represents an emotion.  Faces that represent a personality are easier to visualize than the intricate sounds of environmental activity or the innate and unique sounds of people speaking. 

 

Therefore, audiences do not need you to provide them with visuals, as much as they need you to provide them with the audio.  This very important fact makes “hearing your sound” twice as important to audiences as compared to “seeing the sights”. 

 

The proof? 

A script with poor visuals and GREAT sounds, will out-perform

the same exact script using great visuals and POOR sounds.

                            

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief and is willing to accept the premise that you are offering them a quality product that compliments mental and emotion qualities on screen.  If the quality of the music or sound is below average the audience will be disappointed and clue others not to attend. 

 

In motion pictures, there are only two mental or emotional contexts, which can be represented, in musical content.  One context will destroy a perfectly good film and the other will make it shine.  The destructive context pushes or dictates to an audience, which nullifies their voluntary suspension disbelief.  The constructive context pulls an audience in and facilitates their SOD.

 

These two contexts are further explained in confidential, proprietary details available from CFI.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

16. Lacking in set-ups thereby Spoiling Suspense, Exposing the Premise / Concept Early or a Movie Remake within the last 33 years

                                     

Before “SATISFACTION” can exist …, “SUSPENSE” must exist FIRST.

 

The most intriguing aspect of the cinematic experience for the audience is the opportunity and ability to sneak in on the characters, to “peeping tom” the scenarios and voyeur their way into the storyline.  This activity creates the emotion of suspense, which in turn provides the emotion of satisfaction when the suspense is realized or relieved.

 

Audience suspense is initiated through suspending doubt or disbelief, sneaking into the screen life of another person and accepting as real the possibility that anything could happen.  That voyeuristic activity generates an intense mystery or curiosity as to which possibility will eventually exist.  Lacking an answer creates the suspense.  The longer they spend without the answer, the greater the suspense.  The greater the suspense … the greater the satisfaction when the outcome is finally given.

 

Suspension of disbelief allows the screenwriter an opportunity to hint at several scenarios, which the audience allows to exist.  Later the writer can satisfy the audience’s suspense with an outcome that fulfills the best of them.  The later the writer waits, the more suspense he creates. The more suspense he creates the more satisfaction will await.

                                                                                                        

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief to accept the premise that you are offering them quality suspense and satisfaction.  If the quality of the suspense is below average the audience will be discouraged and inform others not to attend.  Failing to set-up several scenarios betrays the audience’s willingness to suspend.  Exposing the only scenario prematurely destroys the suspense and its satisfaction.  A movie remake within two generations automatically exposes the premise prematurely and handicaps the suspension and satisfaction available.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

17.  Subtitles Or Dubbing For Caucasian, Contemporary Or Comedic Actors

                            

Repetitious parameters in commercial motion pictures create mental conditioning which programs the majority of audiences into the accepting congruent patterns in mass films with suspended disbelief -- while causing them to reject other films with dis-similar routines failing to meet their pre-conditioned expectations.  These redundant motion picture experiences are responsible for creating “audience anticipations” (AA).

 

Subtitles or dubbing are a device audiences are conditioned to believe should only be used for non-English speaking actors in the specific scene the appear.  Audiences have been conditioned or programmed in the U.S. to believe that only non-Caucasian aliens or historical characters are unable to speak English and are therefore the only actors needing subtitles.

                                                                                                                                      

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief to accept premises that you have offered them before.  If the quality of the premise is contradictory to premises you have previously offered, the audience will be confused and inform others of their discomfort.  Audiences are willing to suspend disbelief or suspend doubt that an actor cannot speak English and therefore requires subtitles -- which are a forced narration on screen if the actor anatomically APPEARS to be from a nationality that doesn’t look English or Caucasian.  In other words, actors need to look Non-English or historical for the audience to trust them, suspend disbelief and accept their remarks as reality although they are really captions.  Newly marketed actors are also “audience anticipated” to speak English as the U.S. audience is programmed by their marketing being presented in English. 

 

While watching a comedy, the audience is affected by a socio-psychological construct called “OTTER” (opposite their true existential of reality).  OTTER is responsible for the existence of “funniness” while “contradiction of esoteric reality” (COER) is responsible for “seriousness”.  If while suspending disbelief in a comedy (as though it were a reality) they view an activity that is opposite their own reality, an electro-chemical signal from the brain generates a neurological reaction releasing muscular tension (created during “audience anticipation”) and smiling or laughter ensues.   (The opposite effect occurs with COER.)   When the comedy uses subtitles or dubbing, the audience is required to suspend disbelief of the character’s verbal delivery for a character that it had already suspended disbelief in.  This creates the DNSOD (double negative suspension of disbelief) effect which nullifies the suspension process for all the words and actions delivered. Since the words and actions are no longer taken as reality, any routines in the story cannot trigger an “opposite of reality” OTTER construct and the comedy fails.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

18.  Celebrity Cameo Role (without multiple angles and career continuity in more than one scene)

                            

Celebrities are afforded or receive the suspension of disbelief outside of the film theater everyday of our lives,.  Their image and social status are created by the public and press or media who withhold doubt for us, and encourage us to belief that they are true celebrities.  This is a methodology opposite the one film audiences voluntarily employ for screen actors. 

 

Celebrities are publicized for their own specific personalized activities, rather than representing other personas on screen for the audience to use.  The celebrity’s publicity is designed to involuntarily intrude on the awareness of the audience and this automatically interferes with the motion picture methodology.

                                                                                                                                     

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief and is willing to accept the premise that you are offering them actors pretending to play real people so that they can indiscriminately suspend disbelief.  When you provide an audience with real people representing themselves, filmatic suspension of disbelief dictates that they must be taken as someone other than themselves. This creates the double negative SOD effect that nullifies the suspension process for all the imagery delivered by the celebrity.  This contradicts the celebrity’s portion of the storyline and that confuses the audience.  The audience will then be discouraged and avoid informing others to attend the film.  The only way this defect can be overcome is for the celebrity to play a character similar to its own publicity and to play it through several camera angles as a character required for continuity and not for effect.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

19.  Show Biz or Entertainment Production Based Plot Lines

                                     

The production activities that combine to provide a film audience with a magical platform on which to enter into the suspensions of disbelief are usually kept hidden from the audience.  This is necessary to prevent disillusionment or disenfranchisement of the audience from the unpleasantness or practicalities of the art form.  If the audience is given too much information about the real business behind their fantasy, the glittery illusions are tarnished, and they are disappointed by the harshness of the technical activities and the mundane realities of the humans who were providing them with big screen reverie.

 

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief and is willing to accept the product you offer them as the most singular magical product you alone can deliver.  If the quality of the product is shown to be an effort of technology or a laborious effort of many co-workers entrenched in the everyday realities of schedules, budgets, crisis, criticism and coercion -- the audience will become dis-enchanted, refrain from risking their fragile awareness on the suspension of disbelief and inform others not to attend.

 

The machine that delivers the candy is a harsh, cold, mechanical reality that itself tastes like steel and can annihilate the hope and trust of audiences willing to suspend their doubts and let the magic carry them away.  The industry (and all it takes to produce the ear and eye candy) is anything but magic ... and the revelation of such sours the fantasias value of motion picture attendance, so NON-INDUSTRY audiences just refrain from going or never give it credit when they share it with their friends.

 

The only audience you can expect to attend an industry film -- is the industry itself.  (Not exactly a large enough audience to justify the cost of production.)

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

20.  Governmental, Political or Religion based plot lines (i.e. death & taxes)

 

There are a few realities so concrete, so absolute, that the mass audience finds it literally impossible to imagine otherwise.  The old adage that the only things you can count on in life are death and taxes continues to hold true and continuously interferes with the suspension of disbelief.  The only way around the blocks are spiritual oriented/NON-religion or insider/ANTI-government flicks.

                                                         

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief and is willing to accept a premise that you are offering them as flexible enough to bend with suspension.  If the product you offer is too rigid, they will be discouraged and inform others not to attend.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

21.  Multiple Sub-Plots Failing to Merge or Intermingle before Redemption

 

During the suspension of disbelief, the audience becomes suspense driven.  This causes them to seek satisfaction. 

 

When you create a screenplay with multiple story lines, you are asking the audience to share their suspension of disbelief with more than one story.  If the multiple lines share the suspension of disbelief, there must be a merging of the storylines before conclusion of the centerline for COMPLETE SATISFACTION to evolve. 

 

If there are storylines outstanding, they can no longer share suspension of disbelief when other storylines have concluded disbelief with the reward of satisfaction. 

                                                                                               

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief to accept the premise that you are offering them a complete product.  If the satisfaction of the product is incomplete, the audience will be discouraged and inform others not to attend.  Without complete satisfaction the audience is betrayed and will wish they had ever risked their time on your film

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

22.  Twins, Musicals, or Female Crossovers without career based continuity

                                     

The miscellaneous items listed in this component are only related by the value of the percentage of the point reductions they receive.  Each has its own independent “cause and effect relationship” (CAER) on the filmatic suspension of disbelief.

 

TWINING – It should be obvious to most that this content causes a major betrayal of SOD as no movie about twins has cleared a profit at the box-office since Haley Mills was a child.  As filmmaking grew more sophisticated it created more intricate physical features on screen and the audience grew more sophisticated or aware of those intricacies and this encouraged more AA (audience anticipations).  It has grown into a vicious cycle.  The more Hollywood improves the reality of the visuals, the more demanding the audience becomes for reality.

 

For a producer to now expect the audience to observe a face in one scene and react to it as a True-hero archetype and then suspend disbelief for it in another scene as if it were the face of an Anti-Hero is ludicrous.  You can not ask your audience to suspend disbelief in two different fashions for the same face.  You must therefore use REAL twins and hope you have cast their faces correctly or know for sure by incorporating CFI Dynamics.

                                     

MUSICALS – Is it tragedy that video not only killed the radio store, but that MTV killed the Hollywood musical as we knew it?  (Some say yes, but the majority says no.)  Motion pictures was once the only place we could see our favorite musicians act and dance out their ballads in color.  Now it is so much easier and efficient to just turn on MTV or VH-1.

 

CELEBRITY CROSSOVER TO ACTOR W/O CAREER CONTINUITY – The misfortunes of several studios or production companies have been born from this loins of this component.  The audience will only suspend disbelief for a modern celebrity in a leading role if that celebrity plays a character (NOT ITSELF) that is continuous with the current movement of that celebrity’s career.  It’s the double negative suspension of disbelief effect again.

                                     

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief and is completely willing to accept the premise that you are offering them a quality product.  If the quality of the product is below par, the audience will be discouraged and inform others not to attend it.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

23.  Post-Apocalyptic Human Survival, Global Conflict without a previous solution, or Brand New Mythologies

                            

The miscellaneous items listed in this component are also related by the value of the percentage of the point reductions they share.  Each has its own independent “cause and effect relationship” (CAER) on the filmatic suspension of disbelief.

 

POST-APOCALYPTIC  HUMAN  SURVIVAL and GLOBAL CONFLICTS without a PREVIOUS  SOLUTION –

Besides death and taxes, there is no other thing besides this component formulation that scares the majority of audiences so badly that it is impossible for them trust any producer enough to suspend their disbelief and give you the benefit of the doubt that your film could be true.  (Just a few of us are brave enough to suspend our disbelief for these kind of movies, huh Kevin.)

 

BRAND NEW  MYTHOLOGIES – The sophistication of audiences brought on by the incredible realism of recent special effects and CGI have created a displeasure in the audience for any non-historic, unattached or brand new mythological story.  They don’t want to see a “new” myth, one you created just for the movies... 

 

It is one of many genre’ that have fallen victim to entertainment technology and require virtual perfection in every other component they can contain in order to score a percentage high enough to guarantee success at the U.S. box-office. 

 

Reality programming and visual technology can turn a film species into a mass audience dinosaur.

                            

POINT VALUATION

 (The value reduction of this component is confidential.)

 

Suspension of Disbelief and Audience Betrayal:

 

The audience suspends disbelief and is completely willing to accept the premise that you are offering them a quality product comparable to the current products in distribution.  If the quality of the product is below par with the rest of the modern compilations, the audience will be discouraged and inform others not to attend.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


   
   
   


CFI Motion Picture Index™

Extended Example of a well-known 'NEGATIVE' word-of-mouth Story Component



No. 5  SPORTS, RACE OR ADULT CONTEST ORIENTED PLOTLINES
(including Male to Female point reduction variations, but excluding female beauty or sexuality contests and courtroom contests)

In decades of film evaluations
(comparing those films which fail against those which succeed), some of the most consistent cinematic formulations failing to accomplish a profit at the domestic box office are those with sports, race or contest oriented plotlines. 

These narrow-focused products receive serious point reductions and can rarely score enough additional points from other enhanced components to make up for the deduction.
  (Due to a conflict with reality programming, these failures began to occur ever more consistently after television began to creep into the sub-consciousness of the motion picture consumer.)
                  

COMPONENT PERCENTAGE POINT VALUATION:
(The point value deduction for this component remains confidential with CFI.)
 


Suspension of Dis-Belief and Audience Betrayal by Component Formulation No. 19

 
Commercial audiences are programmed NOT to suspend disbelief while watching televised races or contests between adults because these events are (or were recorded) in reality and were not organized as a creative or entertaining possibility.  They are designed to present the content as "reality", requiring no suspension of disbelief from the audience.  This becomes a habit in the audience's psyche. 

During the observation of these sporting events, races or adult contest oriented activities on TV, domestic audiences are programmed to turn off the theatrical suspension of dis-belief needed to participate in the normal film experience.  Television viewing requires an emotionally skeptical, and analytical, mental human evaluation which is then immediately followed by a publicized numerical response.  These two psychological enforcements become a habit as they subconsciously accompany viewers into a motion picture associated with sports, racing or contest oriented plotlines.  This is what pollutes the intimate cinematic experience and disappoints the audience.  It's their own in-home or in-bar programming.

Audiences are unwilling to accept your imagined premise when they are entirely entrenched in the reality of the sports genre through television broadcasting.  Your motion picture will only fall short of the absolute reality that is reinforced on their home screens.  Audiences will only be disappointed by your attempt to create a reality they are already saturated with -- and they'll inform their friends to avoid your product in droves.

Additionally, valuation reductions are assigned to sport, racing or contest plotlines associated with female athletes or characters.  In real life, the public is subconsciously disappointed and perplexed by the inability of females to achieve the same level of athletic accomplishment as males do.  Their already damaged suspension of disbelief is now limited by a personal reality which they cannot suspend, as they knowing surrender to the fact that females are generally unable to succeed as well as the males do.

(This handicapped female conception also causes a preponderance of male film roles and more male star power talents inside the film industry.  Audiences expect males to excel in the majority of quadrant environments -- and will respond to a male gender oriented suspension of disbelief more comfortably.  Thus there are a preponderance of male roles available in all motion picture genre.)


No. 5   EVALUATION OF SPORTS, CONTEST OR RACING CONTENT  
                   VS. 
U.S. WIDE-RELEASE BOX-OFFICE SUCCESS IN 2002

                                                       MONEY MAKERS                                                             MONEY LOSERS
WIDE-RELEASED
FILMS WITH
SPORTS,                          of total       of winners   of genre    # films                    of total     of losers        of genre   # films

CONTEST OR 
RACING CONTENT             1.3%             4%           __0%           2                             5%           8%                80%  __     8

(of 152 total wide-released films in 2002)  


CONCLUSION:
This component error is probably the least understood of component errors. 
1 out of 5 WIDE-RELEASE films with this component FAILED THAT YEAR.

THE TOTAL MONEY LOST for just those 8 films that contained component #19 was a staggering TWO-HUNDRED and FIFTY-FIVE MILLION DOLLARS
($255,000,000.00). 

That's a segment of the industry which accounts for only 5% of the product share -- but which accounted for 10% of the total industry losses for wide-release films in 2002!   It generates an average loss of 32 million dollars per film containing this damaging component.

Fortunately only 6.3% of all wide-released films contained this component error that year.

This CFI component is the most obvious and the only well-known 'negative' film component available in the over 200 plus possibilities. We chose to provide it here so that the majority of our investigators could identify with its detriments and get an idea of how our other components are identified or validated.

Most film professionals are aware of the sports problem -- but some still persist in their ignorance and try to beat the odds. Filmmakers in general are NOT informed of any of our other paradigms and they continue to suffer financially and intellectually from their lack of awareness of it.  The explanations for all the other positive and negative film components for
U.S. profitability are available through private consultation with CFI.
                          
CFI website map for 2011

1.1 FUTURE FILM Forecasts
2.1 Introduction to CFI
3.1 Unseen Components
4.1 Archetype vs. Stereo
5.1 Screenplay Consulting
6.1 Old Studio System
7.1 CFI CONTACT INFO
1.2 LAST WEEKEND Forecast
2.2 Twenty-One Questions
3.2 Simple Components
4.2 Modern Archetypes
5.2 Assist Flow Chart
6.2 Studio System Assists
7.2 Similar Companies
1.3 2011 Profit & Loss Chart
2.3 Beta-Testing Complete
3.3 Complex Components
4.3 Good/Bad Guys ID Keys
5.3 Production Benefits
6.3 Agent & Mgr. Benefits
7.3 Actor Archetype Lists
1.4 2010 Profit & Loss Chart
2.4 Products & Services
3.4 Resolution Components
4.4 Line by Line Paradigm
5.4 Database Tracking
6.4 Improvements 4 Talent
7.4 Bibliography for Study 
1.5 2009 Profit & Loss Chart
2.5 Application & Benefit
3.5 Horrific Components
4.5 Face Mapping Tools
5.5 Client Confidential
6.5 Attending to Imagery
7.5 URLs to Continue Study
1.6 2008 Profit & Loss Chart
2.6 Comparing Methodology
3.6 The Two Behaviors
4.6 The Classic Archetypes
5.6 Forecast Fallibility
6.6 The Best Attributes
7.6 ROIs for 1999 - 2000
1.7 2007 Profit & Loss Chart
2.7 Client Applications
3.7 Audience Psychology
4.7 Casting Examples
5.7 How the Others Fail
6.7 Talent Research
7.7 ROIs for 2001 - 2002
1.8 2006 Profit & Loss Chart
2.8 Four Screen Dynamics
3.8 Suspending Disbelief
4.8 Writers and Archetype
5.8 Weekend Mentality
6.8 Star Power Ratings
7.8 ROIs for 2003 - 2004
1.9 2005 Profit & Loss Chart
2.9 Playability Errors
3.9 Four Media Approach
4.9 Subtypes & Essences
5.9 Neuromarketing News
6.9 Star Client Results
7.9 ROIs for 2005 - 2006
1.10 2004 - 2002 P & L Chart
2.10 Quadrant Solutions
3.10 Reading Their Faces
4.10 Act As vs. Act Like
5.10 Neuromarket Article
6.10 Secret Sex Chemistry
7.10 ROIs for 2007 - 2008
1.11 2001 - 1999 P & L Chart
2.11 Forecasting Accuracy
3.11 Observing Audiences
4.11 Jung Archetypal Map
5.11 Film Neuromarketing
6.11 Archetype Inventory
7.11 ROIs for 2009 - 2010
1.12 CFI CONTACT INFO
2.12 Edge on Competition
3.12 Observing Emotions
4.12 The MBDI vs. MBTI
5.12 Older Methodologies
6.12 Sub-Type Inventory
7.12 Senior Analyst Bio