I just started reading a lengthy article by Malcolm Gladwell in the October 16 issue of The New Yorker, and it already has me all hyped up. My mind is spinning.

The article is called “The Formula” and carries the sub heading “What if you built a machine to predict hit movies?” (Unfortunately it isn’t available on line.) Essentially, the article asks why certain movies really resonate with us while others, although they may be “good,” don’t move us to laugh or cry or feel. Then it takes that question, which probes at human nature and emotion, and looks at how a group of people have been working to create a formula to explain which combination of elements hit us. Ultimately, their work is geared at predicting which films will deeply move the largest number of people.

Here’s an excerpt from the first pages of the article:

“…each additional narrative detail has complicated emotional associations, and it is the subtle combination of all these associations that makes us laugh or choke up when we remember a certain movie, every single time…

“Of course, the optimal combination of all those elements is a mystery. That’s why it’s so hard to make a really memorable movie, and why we reward so richly the few people who can.”

Gladwell goes on to ask if it’s truly possible to put together an “international team of story experts” and figure it out. A very intriguing question to me. We’ll be back with more on SpoutBlog after we’ve had a chance to read and digest…