DETERMINING HOW PEOPLE FEEL DURING MOVIES Kennedy Byrd Cary Academy ABSTRACT

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1 DETERMINING HOW PEOPLE FEEL DURING MOVIES Kennedy Byrd Cary Academy ABSTRACT Six volunteers were tested to see how their body felt after watching a series of different categories of movies. It was hypothesized that every volunteer would have the same reaction as each other. The method was performed by having the volunteer sit in a chair. While sitting in the chair the volunteer would then watch the movies. The movies were The Lion King, Happy Feet 2, Joyful Noise, The Blind Side, and Harry Potter 4; Remember the Titans and The Pursuit of Happyness. After viewing each movie, the volunteer was to describe how they felt. The list of responses to choose from were upbeat, scared, sad, disgust, confused, inspired, or intense. The movie the Lion King got 5 upbeat, and 1 confused. Happy Feet 2 had 5 upbeat and 1 confused. Joyful Noise got 4 inspired and 2 upbeat. The Blind Side had 3 sad and 3 inspired. Harry Potter 4 had 3 scared, 1 sad, and 2 intense. Remember the Titans had 3 inspired, 2 intense, and 1 sad. The Pursuit of Happyness had 5 sad and 1 confused. INTRODUCTION The purpose of the experiment was to determine if the background music in movie scenes from different genres make people feel the same emotions. The genres of movies that are going to be tested are happy, intense, sad, and reality movies. Most of the same types of movies have similar background music. So that means the music in sad movies are going to make people feel the same way. That is only 6 out of the 10 times people watch a movie. So the other 4 times that means the person does not like the movie or the person is not paying attention. As it was found some people do not pay attention to the music in the background unless the actor is

2 singing. Another way that the music might get noticed is if the music is a song the person likes or knows. It was found that emotions such as happiness have two scientific solutions. The first way of explaining the nature of emotions is. According to the cognitive appraisal theory emotions are judgments where the situation meets people s personal goals or expectations. Like happiness satisfies the body, sadness is not satisfying, and anger is whatever is blocking the accomplishment. The other way that William James and others are arguing is more physical. People believe it is the awareness of changes in the body. Such as heart rate, hormone levels, and breathing rate. A lot of times when the body gets scared in movies it makes the body feel different but, it depends on the person. Sometimes people s hands will get sweaty, the heart will beat faster, and the pupils will dilate. Sometimes it even gets to the point where people just completely leave or close their eyes during certain parts in the movie. After seeing a movie it can make people afraid that what was in the movie will happen to them. This leads people to be very fearful when it is just a movie and not real life. The background music in movies is sometimes just during certain scenes of the movie, other times it is sounds of instruments. The sound of instrument is intended to make people feel a certain way. Or if it is the actor singing it usually lasts the whole scene with a few words in the beginning or end. The observations that were taken were all based on visual results. To get the visual results a person was observed for a period of time. It was found that people smile when something good or exciting happens. When people are unsure or confused they look up trying to figure out what to do. When something shocking or scary happens they flinch or have a disturbed look on their face. It was hypothesized that every person will have the same emotions for the same genres. The reason being is because many people have the same opinions about movies and people usually feel the same as others about a particular movie.

3 MATERIALS & METHOD - Computer - 8 Movies - 6 volunteers - Chair First movie scenes were searched on YouTube. The movie scenes were The Lion King s Hakuna Matata scene when Pumbaa and Timon sing, Happy Feet 2 Fluffy Back when the penguin sings fluffy back, Joyful Noise Higher Medley when the choir is performing at competition, The Blind Side The Move in when the family takes big Mike home, Karate Kid Final Fight when Jaden Smith fights, Harry Potter 4 Harry vs. Voldemort in the fourth one where there fighting, Remember the Titans inspirational speech, and The Pursuit of Happyness where Will and Jaden Smith sleep in the subway bathroom. The volunteer s watched the scene in a chair on a computer and then when it was over the volunteer was asked how the volunteer felt while watching the movie. The categories were scared, upbeat, sad, confused, intense, inspired and disgust. The control of the experiment was how people felt or acted while seated or standing. The independent variable was the movies the volunteers watch. The dependent variable was the emotions that people feel when watching the movie.

4 Figure 1- Person watching one of the few movie scenes in a chair. RESULTS & DISCUSSION The experiment was conducted and all of the emotions were recorded. The Lion King scene had 5 people feel up beat and 1 feel confused. In Happy Feet 2 5 people felt up beat and 1 felt confused. In Joyful Noise felt inspired and 2 felt up beat. The movie The Blind Side 3 felt inspired and 3 felt sad. Karate Kid 5 felt intense and 1 felt disgust. Harry Potter 4 3 felt scared, 2 felt intense, and I felt sad. In Remember the Titans 2 felt inspired, 3 felt inspired, and 1 felt sad. The last movie The Pursuit of Happyness 5 felt sad, and 1 felt confused. From the data that was collected there was a trend in the genres of movies. In the children movies people felt up beat and excited. In sad movies almost all people felt sad and inspired to help. In the movies that were very intense people really were into the movie. This shows that movies do relate when the genre is the same. While conducting the experiment the people did do some different reactions. When the movie was intense people would lean close to the screen through the whole clip. When there was songs in the movie some people would start to sing or dance in the chair. During sad movies people would lean back and have a gloomy look on their face.

5 Movie Scenes Emotions Lion King- Hakuna Matata U x 5, C x1 Happy Feet 2- Fluffy Back U x 5, C x1 Joyful Noise- Higher Medley I x4, U x 2 The Blind Side- The Move In I x 3, Sa x 3 Karate Kid- Final Fight In x 5, D x 1 Harry Potter 4- Harry vs. Voldemort S x 3, In x 2, Sa x 1 Remember the Titans- Inspirational Speech In x 2, I x 3, Sa x 1 The Pursuit of Happyness- Subway scene Sa x 5, C x 1 Figure 2- These are the emotions. U= Upbeat, C= Confused, SA= Sad, I= Inspired, In= Intense, D=Disgust, S=Scared CONCLUSIONS It was found that the hypothesis in the beginning was wrong. The hypothesis stated that every person would have to same opinion. The reason why was because although people have similar opinions they also can have different opinions. Even though they were not exactly the same a lot of the time there were people that had the same but it just was not the whole 6 volunteers. So it was a partly all the same. There are a few different ways that the experiment could have improved and been better. It would have been better to have them in a room with no one else but them or had headphones on. Just so that they could concentrate and not be distracted by other things around them. Another thing is still have 6 volunteers and maybe less movies. This would be so there could be more experiments. Some future experiments would be adding variables to the experiment to see if the data changes. The volunteers could be drinking or eating anything while they are watching the movie scene. Or the volunteers could take their heart rate before and then

6 take it after to see if it goes down or up. Another is having them use headphones to block the outside noise. These are a few of the future experiment that could be done. REFRENCES - Answers.com. "What happens to your body when you get scared?" WikiAnswers. Answers Corporations, Web. January 12, Carter, Rita et al. The Human Brain Book. New York: Dorling Kindersley, Print. - YouTube. "Hakuna Matata (English)." YouTube. YouTube, December 21, Web. January 12, YouTube. "Harry Potter vs. Voldemort." YouTube. YouTube, May 26, Web. January 12, YouTube. "Happy Feet 2 - Bringing Fluffy Back Dance Scene." YouTube. YouTube, November 10, Web. January 12, 2012.hed4pod - YouTube. "Higher Medley - dolly Parton." YouTube. YouTube, January 8, Web. January 12, YouTube. "Remember the Titans - Inspirational Scene." YouTube. YouTube, March 2, Web. January 12, YouTube. "The blind side_best scene. flv." YouTube. YouTube, February 24, Web. January 12, 2012.

7 - YouTube. "The new Karate kid final fight." YouTube. YouTube, August 7, Web. January 12, YouTube. "The Pursuit of Happyness Subway scene." YouTube. YouTube, December 21, Web. January 12, 2012.