If you thought sensurround was (ugh, cliché alert) immersive, McCann Melbourne and Airbag have developed an emotion-stimulating movie chair.
The MIFF Emotion Simulator is part of McCann’s campaign for the Melbourne International Film Festival, created in advance of its launch on July 30.
It lets Melbourne film goers to physically experience the emotions of a MIFF film, before they see it.
The custom-built movie chair electro-stimulates the faces of willing participants to give them a potted experience of how an MIFF movie will make them feel, before they choose to see it. 12 electrodes are placed on the various major muscles of the faces of participants, allowing the simulation of happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, anger and surprise. Participants can then choose which films from this year’s Festival they’d like to experience and the emotions that film elicits in its two hour screening are turned into a minute-long emotional experience.
A camera, mounted on the chair, films each experience, creating one-off film clips that can be shared via social media throughout the Festival’s duration, by MIFF itself as well as the participants. These become unique facial movie previews for the people of Melbourne to watch to determine what sort of film they wish to watch from the over 370 on offer at this year’s MIFF.
The emotional experience for each film was determined by tracking the emotions of a range of Melburnians as they watched selected MIFF films while wearing a pulse-rate monitoring Fit-Bit. The chair itself builds on the work of Guillame-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne’s 1862 study, “The Mechanism of Human Facial Expression”.
McCann Melbourne, executive creative director, Pat Baron explained, “Great film should be felt, not just seen. With the MIFF Emotion Simulator we are allowing people to preview the way a movie will make them feel, rather than simply condensing the plot into two minutes of trailer.”
Michelle Carey, artistic director of MIFF, commented, “The Melbourne International Film Festival is always looking to push boundaries, and to move our city forward. Because as we all know, movies have the power to move us in ways we never thought possible. And the MIFF Emotion Simulator is an exciting exploration of every human’s emotions. Because no matter what language we speak, we all feel the same things.”
If you’re in Melbourne and want to give it a go, express interest in participating here: MIFF.com.au/emotionsimulator. [Places are limited]
The MIFF Emotion Simulator will be located at the MIFF Lounge at the Forum throughout the Festival, July 30 to August 16.
Creative credits:
Agency: McCann Melbourne
Managing director: Adrian Mills
Executive creative director: Pat Baron
Creative director/writer: Alex Wadelton
Creative director/art director: Andy Jones
Senior account director: Caroline Macmillan
Head of broadcast: Victoria Conners
Senior producer: Anne Comber
Assistant producer: Afrim Memed
Director/editor: Patrick Jennings
Camera operators: Anthony Koreny & Jack Murtagh
Camera assistant: Adrian Ortega
Sound: Jack Mcculloch
Photography: Jay Hynes
PR: Chris Baker
Production company: AIRBAG
Executive Producer: Rob Stock
Technologist: Steven Nicholson
Producer: Eliza D’Souza
Art direction: Illusion Studios
