Affective Analysis on Patterns of Shot Types in Movies

In film-making, the distance from the camera to the subject greatly affects the narrative power of a shot. By the alternate use of Long shots, Medium and Close-ups the director is able to provide emphasis on key passages of the filmed scene, thus boosting the process of identification of viewers with the film characters. On this basis, we here investigate the use of camera distance in famous movie scenes, highlighting the relations between the employed shot types and the affective responses by a large audience. Results obtained by using statistical classifiers suggest that patterns of shot types constitute a key element in inducing affective reactions in the audience, with strong evidences especially on the arousal dimension. Findings are applicable to support systems for media affective analysis, and to better define emotional models for video content understanding.