Determining Affective Events Through Film Audio

This chapter provides a brief introduction to the use of sound in film as motivation for the examination of affective aspects of film audio. A method is presented to search the audio track of film for sound energy events that are hypothesized to be associated with an affect or a thematic event within the film. The sound energy events are characterized by specific patterns in the dynamics of the sound energy of the film audio. Four sound energy events are examined, each associated with a specific affect or symbolic meaning, that occur predominantly, although not solely, in films of the horror genre. The occurrences of the sound energy patterns of interest are investigated in six full length film audio tracks and experimental results are presented.