Thread by @AlexandraErin

Here's a thing about clowns:

Classic clown make-up was designed to create recognizable characters with visible expressions who could be in the center of a large arena or auditorium and still convey emotions to the audience in the seats.

The uneasiness that clowns evoke in many people is because up close (including in up-close cinematography), these exaggerations cease to serve their original purpose and simply become uncanny.

You look at a clown's face and your brain is telling you that something isn't right. The cues it looks for to tell if this person is likely to be safe or dangerous are all over the place. Covered up. Skewed. Exaggerated.

So how do you make a clown persona that can move among people, do close-up interactions at a carnival or birthday party or what have you?

Bring it in. Tone it down. A Shakespearean actor doesn't *play to the balcony* when doing a street performance.

Lot of professional clowns who are trying to adapt to what they often see as a culturally transmitted coulrophobia wind up doing this anyway because they figure they have to meet people half way. And it generally works.

Clown faces that lets the actual expression show through removes a huge amount of the uncanny valley effect when dealing with audiences up close and personal.

Oh, yes. Unreadable faces and clothes and gaits that hide telltale body movements plus the power to do and to be The Unexpected tends to make people nervous.

https://twitter.com/BondageLand/status/1143638096233107456

Anyway.

My point here is not about clowns or clowning, but about media and art. The medium affects the art and the art affects the medium.

The iconography and other standards of an art form evolve along with its medium. When you change media, there's often a period where you're using things that are maladaptive for the new environment.

It pays to be conscious and conscientious about this.

Many early film directors were first stage directors, directing as though they were directing a play and filming it. The ones who broke that mold are remembered as innovators.

Home video games that followed the model of quarter-eating arcade games were blown away by console games that took advantage of the difference of the home market, where the same player could play the game indefinitely.

In short: art is at its best when it is fluid enough to take on the shape of its container.