Ramblings: Diegesis in Movies and Games.

The Concept of Diegesis (described in a previous post) is something that manifests in similar manners in both movies and games (at least if we consider action/FPS games). Both media rely (almost) entirely on visuals and audio to convey information to the viewer/player.

Therefor games and movies share many non-diegetic elements that do not, to any real extent, brakes immersion or engrossment. These elements would be things like the musical score - while being a strictly non-diegetic element, a musical score often adds to immersion and engrossment rather than diminishing it. The same might be said of sub-titles - giving important information to the viewer/player that adds to his understanding and appreciation of the experience.

However - consider someone hitting the menu button on the DVD remote during a crucial scene in a movie, or a player opening an inventory screen during an epic fight with a monster. These are non-diegetic elements that really breaks the immersion for us.

I believe that in the thesis we should really look at the differences between the non-diegetic instances that breake immersion and the ones that does not. And also to consider the usability aspect of diegetic and non-diegetic HUD solutions. Navigating in Mirror’s Edge without the little cross-hair dot would probably be a lot harder, although the dot itself is a non-diegetic object.