Did you know that while you’re watching the screen at some movie theaters, the screen is sometimes watching you?
That’s right! If you think being recorded in the dark is something new, you’re sorely mistaken. In an effort to curb piracy, many modern movie theaters have already installed systems that automatically catch camcorder-carrying/movie stealing patrons. But now, those same theaters are prepared to take that same technology to a much higher level.
Aralia Systems, producer of one of the popular anti-piracy solutions, has received a $350,000 grant to develop a system that will watch moviegoers and analyze how they’re reacting to what they’re seeing on the big screen for film directors, cinema advertisers, and theater chains. Or in other words, these theaters will analyze in real time just how much you’re enjoying, or not enjoying, the movie.
Dr. Abdul Farooq from the University of the West of England’s Machine Vision Lab, a collaborator on the project, explained it this way:
We want to devise instruments that will be capable of collecting data that can be used by cinemas to monitor audience reactions to films and adverts and also to gather data about attention and audience movement.
Using 2D and 3D imaging technology we aim to do this in two ways. Obviously cinema audiences are spread out in large theatre settings so we need to build instruments that can capture data for different purposes. We will use 2D cameras to detect emotion but will also collect movement data through a 3D data measurement that will capture the audience as a whole as a texture.
Within the cinema industry this tool will feed powerful marketing data that will inform film directors, cinema advertisers and cinemas with useful data about what audiences enjoy and what adverts capture the most attention. By measuring emotion and movement film companies and cinema advertising agencies can learn so much from their audiences that will help to inform creativity and strategy.
