It sure depends on the genre and we all know that famous Hitchcock story about the bomb under the table.
However in absolute, should the character or the audience know more about the plot, about actions from different characters to enjoy at its best a movie?
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It just depends what you hope to achieve with the story telling.
The audience knows there's a monster under the bed. so the audience reacts to the impending doom of the character. The audience doesn't know and it's a shock to them to have it revealed when the character is attacked. It can work both ways. Who's seeing your story? Do you wish to create suspense or a series of jump scares. Jaws had both because of the music.
It depends on the genre as you say, I don't think there's any absolutes.
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Riffing off of what Karen has said: if the audience knows, but the character doesn't, that's suspense; if both the character and the audience don't know, that's mystery.
But be careful giving your hero more knowledge of the plot than the audience, especially early on in the story. People will get bored if they think the hero has figured things out too fast. It's OK to have the hero solve a problem/figure out what happened towards the end of Act 3 and then hold on to that knowledge to build suspense until the final reveal.
However, mentor characters are different. They usually have some foreknowledge of facts or events. Classic example - Obi Wan Kenobi knows Darth Vader is Luke's father, but Luke doesn't.
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man I really struggled with this exact issue for months - do I let the audience in what is going on before the characters/protagonist or should they be on the same journey as the protagonist. For me, I chose them to be on the same journey.
But that was for my specific script. For you and everyone else it may be different. And the next script I write I may do the opposite.
I did actually write a draft of my script where I showed the audience more than the character so they knew what was going on and what was coming. But just didn't work. It felt like the audience was "seated high" and looking down at the characters like they are in snow dome or something or the audience had some sort of eagle view. As the script called for 1 primary location and sense of being trapped/confined, I felt it worked better for the audience to "be in the moment" with the characters.
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The technical term for when the audience knows more than a character is "dramatic irony." It's used in every genre. You'll find it in Shakespeare plays as well as HItchcock films. Whether to use it should be done on a case by case decision, it seems to me.
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Pete Whiting haha exactly man. As you said and Phil Parker , Karen Stark as well, in the end it all depends on what you want to achieve with the storytelling and emotions involved. Thank you Eric Christopherson for the term, i was looking for it.
But don't you all think suspense is more powerful than mystery in term of audience involvement in the story and characters emotions? If the audience knows there's a monster under the bed , to take Karen Stark example but the characters don't know. Therefore the audience is more involved in the story and the character's emotion because of the anticipation. However if the audience discovers at the same time as the characters that there's a monster under the bed, don't you think the audience would feel less involved as they were unaware of the situation or on the contrary, that news make them more involved?
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Depends what you want the viewer to feel.
Surprise = they should learn things the same time as the character.
Dred = they should be ahead of the character
Wonder = the character should be ahead of the audience.