Videos with Fast Movement and Changes

The following sections present an analysis of the viewing behaviour on the last two videos in the dataset.

Video #7

Video #7 is from the 2010 film ‘Alice in Wonderland’. The 40 second long clip is of Alice falling down a hole with objects constantly moving past her and the camera view changing every few seconds. Alice is also spinning around throughout the clip. The wide array of objects flashing past (like pianos, books, lamps, etc.) adds to an atmosphere of confusion. The audio is of Alice screaming for the duration of her fall and of an orchestra playing a rhythmic piece to suit the mood.

There was very little difference in viewing behaviour between the 2D and 3D ver- sions of this clip. The fast changing scene gave participants little time to grasp any- thing concrete and most of the gazes were focussed on the middle of Alice while she was falling both in 2D and 3D. There is a significant difference (according to our t-test) when Alice is first shown to the viewers (frames 80-115). During this time nearly all of the 2D participants were focussed on the middle of the screen. The 3D participants, however, took the opportunity to examine the person that had just appeared to them - see Figure B.12 (a)-(d). Once the character is grasped as being a young girl, the dif- ferences between 2D and 3D become minimal. The viewing behaviour for most of the frames flagged as being significantly different by our t-test appears to be erratic and random in nature (sometimes there is a little more spread in 2D and sometimes in 3D, for example) - this would coincide with the fast-paced scene. None of the objects that fly past Alice are focussed on despite some of them being prominent in 3D - they move

past too quickly. The scene does slow down a little, relatively speaking, two times. Once when a big piano comes into scene (frames 495-575). First the camera shows it moving close to Alice’s face who subsequently tries to protect herself from it with her arm. Then there is a close-up of its keys being invisibly pressed. During this time no significant differences in 2D and 3D were recorded. The last ‘slow’ scene is at the very end of the clip. Alice falls onto a bed, bounces off it and then is seen falling deeper into the hole with the camera not following. There is a small difference in viewing behaviour when Alice falls on the bed. In 2D the middle of the bed is the main area of interest. In 3D some of the participants followed Alice down onto it. Figure B.12 (e)-(h) shows this.

Video #8

Video #8 is from the film ‘Life of Pi’. The clip shows Pi (the protagonist of the film) inside a lifeboat while it is being tossed around at sea by big waves at night. There is a large ship in close proximity that can be seen at the beginning and end of the scene. The camera follows Pi and the lifeboat erratically and changes angles frequently. The audio is of Pi struggling to remain in the boat and the waves crashing around him.

As with the previous video, there is little here to distinguish the viewing behaviour between the groups who saw the 2D and 3D versions of the clip. The salient object was Pi throughout the scene and viewers faithfully followed his struggles with the waves. There were only a few groups of frames where the viewing was flagged as being significantly different - it is difficult, however, to determine the reasons for this and, as with the previous video, appear to be random (to suit the erratic nature of the video, perhaps). The first is when the boat goes up a wave and all we see is the side and bottom of it - Pi disappears for a short time (frames 160-180). The 2D viewing pattern was a little more dispersed than the 3D one (Figure B.13 (a)-(d)). The second scene is when the boat is seen from a distance riding a wave (frames 265-300). Once again, viewing behaviour in 3D is more focussed (Figure B.13 (e)-(h)). The last two groups of frames flagged for being significantly different belong to the one scene: the boat is riding on top of a wave with the camera positioned at the back of it (frames 430-493). This scene is relatively less ‘frantic’ than the other parts of the clip. This time, however, the 3D viewing pattern is the one that is more dispersed (Figure B.14

(a)-(d)). As with the other two scenes flagged as having significantly different frames, the dispersion is minimal. No major exploring took place, i.e. the focus still remained on the salient object.

We saw in these last two videos, therefore, that there is very little difference between 2D and 3D viewing behaviour when a scene has fast changes throughout it. Although the general ambience can be altered with the addition of an extra viewing dimension (e.g. objects can be caught by peripheral vision flying at the user through the screen) it is a lot easier for film makers to predict where people are going to look - if they can predict this in 2D then chances are it will be the same in 3D. Even when a scene, relatively speaking, slows down for a short amount of time, viewers will not explore the scene too much because they know (subconsciously) that they have to remain focussed as things may change quickly any second.