Since some years ago I've been discovering that some of the awesome movies I watched as a kid actually had some of my favorite actors and actresses in them making those movies even cooler. I also end up finding that some of those great movies were directed by some of my favorite directors or they were written by my favorite writers or that they had some of my favorite composers. It's pretty much a great serendipity event for me. Going beyond that, these things have made me think and explore on the way the mind operates.

Why Didn't I Notice? Why Didn't I Remember?

I have a good memory. It's nothing photographic but it's certainly far above average. I pay lots of attention to the movies and I've been able to figure out complex movies in a single viewing which many people have trouble with. Most people still have trouble figuring out what the end of The Matrix Revolutions (2003) actually was and I had no trouble understanding it without having to re-watch the movie. Some consider the following speech mind boggling while it made so much sense to me:

So it doesn't seem like a problem with memory or understanding and processing information. I have both of them fairly covered. I institutionally realized that I was simply not paying attention to certain aspects/information and I didn't process what I saw and heard in certain ways at a certain time of my life. Later, through the process of elimination I confirmed what really was the problem.

Inattentional Blindness

Why do we remember the actors of certain roles? Except for some of the big 80s/90s action heroes and some martial artists like Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Bruce Lee etc. I didn't even knew the names of most actors and actresses and I certainly didn't know much about the directors, writers composers etc. My hypothesis on my personal accounts is that I never payed much attention to these things because i didn't see much value/importance in them. I watched the movies that ad cool trailers/names and posters. I also loved movies starring certain action stars. that was me as a kid. At the time, editing mistakes didn't have a whole lot of importance and it was the same for who played the role or who directed the movie. re-watch the above video with dedicated attention and you'll easily pick few things up. The first time I watched it I only noticed 3-4 mistakes of the 9 and if I were just casually going over it I would have missed even more.

Now watch this famous clip and be on a multi-tasking mode to notice an anomaly:

I came across a great article on Inattentional Blindness in video games which you can read here. I'll quote few important parts below.

Papers, Please puts you in the unlikely role of an immigration inspector responsible for screening people who want to pass through a checkpoint into a faux Eastern European nation. Most are immigrants, but a few are spies, terrorists, and lunatics. Your job is to review their papers (please) and make sure that they are all in order –that the names match, that the bearer isn’t from a certain city that’s been highlighted as a terrorist threat, that nothing is missing, and more. That means you have to constantly scan the documents and focus your attention skillfully without missing anything important. What’s worse, the rules change and get more complicated with every passing day and you have to do it under time pressure without letting any miscreants through. Papers, Please is inattentional blindness elevated to a game mechanic. Focus solely on city of origin and you may miss that the work permit is not signed. Start focusing on work permits and you may miss that the names on two documents are spelled differently. And then the gorilla will waltz right through your checkpoint and it’s game over.

Not even professional searchers whose job it is to notice things are immune. In one recent study researchers gave a group of radiologists a stack of X-ray scans and asked them to look for lung cancer nodules –a task all of them expertly perform every day. But in the last of the scans, the researchers had inserted the image of a gorilla, 48 times larger than the typical nodule. Most of the radiologists didn’t even notice. As Simons says, “Looking isn’t the same as seeing. You have to focus attention on it in order to be aware of it. ”

Additionally There Is This Thing Called Smooth Pursuit

This is pretty much the equivalent of missing insane logical/ continuity errors and plot holes in the heat of the moment. The Godfather is ranked the 2nd best movie of all time on IMDB. Here is a joke of a scene from the movie:

Did you notice the punches? For some Cinephiles this might actually hurt, but some of the punches were almost a foot off the target. It was just plain bad film making. I'm sure there were many more like this. I just noticed this one because it is practically a miracle that this awful scene actually made it to the final cut. Then again I realized that many people actually consider this a great scene.

Maybe for them, the smooth object was the drama and not the hand that (doesn't) punch.

Look Back In life And imagine What you Could Have Missed

Above all think about what made you miss them. The values you assign to certain things may make you notice certain things more and certain things less. It could make you overly optimistic or overly pessimistic. Selective attention may lead to wrongfully biased views and even if you stick to the facts, not looking at all facts may distort your perceptions making them loose touch with reality. Don't let that happen. take some time to figure out what you may have missed.

What is even more important is that you get your priorities right. Having a great movie is more important than having your favorite stars on board. Having great tech behind the project is more important that marketing or popularity. Searching for clear and effective principles is more important than convenience or mere practicality. So don't let yourself be blinded by setting your eyes on things that are not of the utmost importance.