Alferd Hitchcock once said of films creation is based on an exact science of audience reactions, many years after that shower scene audience reaction are becoming an exact same science. Neuro scientist are looking at how we watch movies to figure out which styles of film making have maximum control on viewer’s brain. It’s popularly being called Neurocinema.
In one study participants watch 30 minutes of The Good, The bad, and the Ugly (Movie) in an FMRI machine so that their brain activity was recorded. The research is compared the pattern of activity in participants brain and was found it was remarkably similar. During particular scenes of movie activity in certain brain areas increased and decreased at same time across the participants, and their eyes track the same area of the screen. The research is suggested that it was an indication those scenes were engaging. A follow up study compared the participant’s brain activity watching The Good, The Bad, and Ugly (movie) to watching other things like an episode of Alferd Hitchcock Presents, and an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Real Life 10 minute unedited shot of New York City Park.
The research is again used to similarity of participant’s brain activity as measure of how engaging the scenes were. They found that Hitchcock episode work similar brain activity across all viewer and over 65 percent of the cortex the outer layer of the brain. Similar activity was seen in 45 percent of the cortex for The Good, The Bad, Ugly but only 18 percent for Curb Your Enthusiasm and 5 percent for Real life New Your City Park. The study shows Hitchcock responses of different brain regions in a timely fashion across all viewers. Off course FMRI evaluate the artistic and static value of the movie, and some movies and TV shows are not to control audience reaction more than others. It depends on the director’s style and intentions but soon we could see the audience sitting in the director’s seat. It’s been suggested that films in future will be so interactive that they will respond to you brain activity will you watching them so that they can be the most engaging. It’s like the ultimate choose your own adventure that could end up being the true definition of a Horror film. Neurocinema can objectively measures some of the entertainment value on audience reaction to movies and TV shoes, and they can use the results to define how engaging and emotionally affective they are. But it can’t tell us who will walk away with this year Oscar. Although Big Data can!