Closed-eyes Movies
As entertainment media are continuously striving for more immersion, consumer electronics tend to go 'high definition': screens are getting bigger, and the building of a private 'home cinema' has become a popular hobby.
Background
Every screen and speaker setup serves only one purpose: to cast light into our eyes and sound waves into our ears. Regardless of the size of the screen, we create a mental image of the situation, based on what we see. Movies in high definition are one approach to make this experience more intense, or, realistic. It is possible to get lost somehow in the situation the film displays.
Concept
In the following, I present an alternative: the basic principle of this approach is to inspire the mental image visually, by regularly showing the film. Subsequently, the black borders implied by displaying a movie in 16:9 format on a 4:3 format screen are expanded towards the centre of the screen until it is entirely black. The users are instructed to close their eyes at this point until they receive a signal to open them again. My hypothesis was that the mental image, once inspired (visually) and constantly supported (auditory), can work as a very intense type of media.
I was curious if my theory would work in practice and how the users would experience 'watching' the movie.
Implementation and user test ´
The first iteration consisted of a movie showing a bungee jump, filmed with a camcorder while jumping. The eye closure-points were set from one second after jump-off (the start of the falling motion could be seen for about one second) with intervals of ca. 10 seconds. The sound in this video was mostly distorted, as it was directly recorded through the camera's microphone during the jump.
The second iteration was a scene from an episode of TV series 24 96, showing the protagonist in a tense 'russian roulette' situation. In the course of the scene, a gun is being loaded next to the protagonist's head; in a audio editor, I moved this clicking sound of the gun to the right stereo channel. Through headphones, it was supposed to appear closely to the viewer's right ear, in order to cause a greater feeling of immersion.
As a side note, it might be mentioned that somebody, would he be in the described 'russian roulette' situation in the reality, might indeed want to close his eyes. To make this point clear: Letting the beholder close his eyes in a fictitious situation that would also involve eye-closure in reality, this might feel very realistic: closing the eyes would be part of the imagined action, and not of the 'special eyes-closed movie'.
In the test setup, the users were wearing headphones. They were informed about the fact that they should close their eyes whenever the screen was faded to black. A test round was conducted, in which also the signal for opening the eyes was tested: a white flashing screen. Setting the screen to high brightness and flashing it black/white a couple of times over a half second turned out to be a possible way to regain the user's attention, also in a daylight environment (yet not in bright sunlight). Both videos were not shown in full-screen, but about 10cm in width on the actual display.
Summary of findings
Using closed eyes as a 'mental display' is, according to the test group, one of the strongest concepts of this project. The second iteration was rated more positively than the first one, as the sound in the first video was heavily distorted and confusing. I see potential for a bigger project, a movie 'for closed eyes' that makes more use of this concept.
An interesting difference was found when some users were watching the videos for the second time - they were able to focus more on 'how it would feel', and were less occupied with the uncommon feeling of closing the eyes. Another moment that might be interesting in future applications is the moment of opening the eyes, as it holds potential for surprise moments.
It should also be mentioned that there might be safety issues - if, for example, a fire alert is caused while a group of people watches - with, at that time, closed eyes - a movie in which the same would be possible, then the reality could be taken for the illusion.
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The state of closed eyes should, to avoid disturbance of the viewer, not be used on too frequent basis, but rather as a means of special emphasis.
Nonetheless, closing the eyes offers great potential for 'imaginative display' when the situation is clear and can easily be rendered in the beholder's mind. Using eye-closure for scenes in which the protagonist would also close his eyes is another interesting point that was found through the design of this concept.
