Cross Pollination of Narrative Grammars

While studying Roland Emmerich’s “10,000 BC” (Roland Emmerich, 2008), I came across other examples of cross pollination of grammars between the real and the virtual, like in the “evil bird” scene from “Popeye the Sailor meets Sindbad the Sailor”. In two of the scenes that are heavily dependent on its use of computer generated effects, they use slow motion with a low frame rate, as we know from action replays from sports on television. But in the battle scenes where the protagonist is focus, where there is no obvious use of computer generated effects to hide, the use a smooth slow motion to emphasize the emotions of the protagonist.

This shows that there is a constant borrowing of grammars between the real and the virtual, both in current and past productions, and that this has more to do with narrative functions than technological innovations.