Can immersion in games exist the same way in films?

After reading 03, I knew that immersion can be divided into two forms. They may coexist in gameplaying, but can they coexist during film watching? For me, probably not.

By applying Taylor’s understanding of immersion into films, I think that diegetic immersion can be interpreted as the situation where spectators lost themselves into the film story, and intra-diegetic or situated immersion happens when the viewers are immersed into the overall film making. Before I study film as my major, I always found myself emotionally lost into the film, feeling how the protagonist feels. It’s like I were the character in the film and experienced the same life with them. I think it is what Taylor called diegetic immersion. Sometimes it took me hours or days to recover from the negative emotions resulted from watching tragic films. And I thought this diegetic immersion alone would be enough to study films. But I was wrong after discovering that apart from this, the situated immersion is also essential during film study. Not only need to have the emotional connection with the roles, I also need to focus more on the overall shooting techniques, such as the camera angle, the sound or the genre, etc. Then it turns out that when I put myself into this situated immersion, I tend to ingore the emotional line and the details revealed by the character. As a result, I do not know how story develops or why it ends in a certain way. Most of the time, I try to focus on both immersions, but can only acheieve 50% of each. Then watching film became a task as I could not be totally immersed on either side. I wonder if I am the only person feel like this?

However, as for games, it is easier for me to achieve both immersions. Like when I am playing Plants vs. Zombies, I will focus on both putting more plants on the ground to destroy zombies and making quick decision on which plants to choose, paying attention to the overall situation. And this decision is made by the different spatial space, such as when I need to fight zombies on the roof, I would choose the special emitter, as the missile will not hit the zombies since the roof is curved.

So for me, the two forms of immersion which can coexist while playing games can not coexist when watching film…Or do I still need more time to train myself to be both emotionally involved as well as pay attention to the techniques of film-making while watching films.

Xu Can