The Book of True Feelings

Objective: To explore how malleable perception of emotion is by using VR to focus on visual cues

Setup: A single actor first lays down a vocal track of a monologue that is written to be emotionally ambivalent. The monologue could be interpreted emotionally in many ways when witnessed I the context of experiential cues, such as tone of voice, facial expression, prior experience, etc. However the actor will deliver the audio performance in as dry a tone as possible in order to strip it of emotional context. The goal is to achieve an audio performance that remains emotionally ambivalent in order to isolate the variables of the experience to visual cues. After the audio is recorded, the actor will do six video performances in which they lip-synch to the audio. Each performance will be designed to convey one of the “six basic emotions” – anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise. The performances will be in a fixed position utilizing primarily facial expressions. Hand and arm performance can be employed at the discretion on the actor and director. There are moments in the script where the actor will lean into the camera to exploit the mirror neuron activation effect of 3D immersive video and audio. All six performances will be stitched together as if six avatars of the actor were positioned in a circle around the viewer. During the experience, only the original audio performance will be played. The viewer will be able to turn in any direction and focus on any Avatar and observe the importance of visual cues on the emotional impact of an interpersonal encounter.

Built With

• adobe-premier
• garmin-360-virb
• mystika-vr