On the Physical Variables Filmmakers Use to Engage Viewers

It is widely acknowledged that people are emotionally affected by movies, but how does the physical structure of movies contribute to emotional engagement? To answer this question, we measured subjective and objective emotional tension as 40 viewers watched a series of short movies. We mapped the resulting data against the dynamic low-level structure of each movie, isolating the effects of clutter, luminance, motion, shot density, shot scale, and sound amplitude on emotional response. Across all measures, viewers' responses to the movies were notably synchronized, and this synchrony appears to be partly driven by low-level cinematic structure. These findings provide empirical support for several long-standing ideas that lie at the intersection of film theory and the psychology of emotion.