challenge

I wanted to capture the viewer's eye movement patterns, which differ from movie to movie. I suggested that these patterns are directly the result of movie directors' style of shooting. After capturing these patterns, I wanted to build a visualization installation to make these patterns visible, and also invite people to explore the world of info visualization, cinematography, and intuitive interfaces.

design

In the first phase, i built eye tracking glasses and a software to capture the motion of one eye of a person watching a movie scene and the looking position data.

In the second phase, I built the visualization which draws the eye movement curves on the wall, and the wooden controller lets users to explore these patterns by browsing different movies using an intuitive interface.

more info

Our focus while watching movies shifts continuously from corner to side, actor to actress, dancer to assassin, making our eyes move continuously on the screen from left to right, top to corner, etc..

What we are not aware is that the smooth/complex patterns of these focus shifts of our eyes are different in each scene/movie and posses the signature and style of the director.

"Eyes on You, Tarantino!" tries to capture and visualize these patterns by projecting the patterns on a column, and gives users the opportunity to explore the movies in reference to these patterns using a physical controller surrounding the column.

Project includes two parts:

1. Tracking the eye movements of spectators with custom made eye capturing glasses, and calibration of the captured data.

2. Creating a representation for the captured patterns, in a meaningful data visualization which allows users to browse the movies in reference to these patterns.

At the first stage, I created the eye tracking glasses with a camera attaced to one lens and recording one eye. Using Processing, I wrote a code to track the position of where the eye is looking, Using this glasses and the code, I recorded the eye movements of 4 people watching the different scenes from Death Proof (Quentin Tarantino), Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock) and Hyperballad (music video from Bjork, Michel Gondry).

At the second stage, I worked with data to see if I can observe any patterns that would be unique to the scenes and directors. The patterns I ended up focusing on:

• Directors' shooting style effects how jittery or smooth our eyes follows the screen
• In the scenes where actors stand still, Tarantino prefers providing "eye action" moving camera continuously around the actor. Hitchcock prefers positioning actors on viewport separately to provide "eye action". In Gondry's example, he uses a unique technique to oscillate the camera that makes the eyes oscillate left and right.

In order to provide this mapping between the scenes and the pattern curves, I projected the movie to the controller area, and a 'needle' icon showing where the captured eyes were looking, while generating/drawing the pattern curves on the wall.For the patterns I developed, I developed couple of different visualizations to created the installation and the visualization. I used one of the columns at ITP as the visualization medium, and build a base controller that surrounds the column. I used a knob for video switching (next/previous) to create a very simple interface for users.

More information on the project webpage.

See the project blog at itpedition.

appearances

Exhibited at:
NYU Tisch Interactive Telecommunications Program Winter Show, December 16-17th, 2007, New York, NY