Bomb Under the Table Theory: If you want the audience to care deeply and stay hooked, create 15 minutes of suspense instead of 15 seconds of surprise. Build tensions through dramatic irony and leverage the gap in knowledge between the audience and the character.
Podcast: McFly's Movie House: Mastering Film Suspense with Hitchcock’s Bomb Theory
Two people sit at a table, talking. If a bomb suddenly explodes without warning, the audience is shocked. That's a surprise. Brief and intense.
But if the audience sees someone place the bomb under the table and notices it's set to explode in 15 minutes, while the characters talk unaware. That same conversation becomes nerve-wracking. The clock is ticking. The tension builds. That's suspense.
Alfred Hitchcock, known as the master of suspense, coined this as the "bomb under the table" theory. Giving the audience more information can create more emotional involvement. He called it the difference between "15 seconds of surprise" and "15 minutes of suspense."
Suspense builds through dramatic irony, a literary device that leverages a gap in what the audience knows and what the character doesn't. The audience knows more, waits longer, and feels deeper tension.
Therefore, if you want the audience to care deeply and stay hooked, give them the danger early. Let them WAIT for the boom.
Kuleshov Effect is another cognitive phenomenon used by filmmakers, I learned from Hitchcock in I/O #60.