Cinemotion

A movie index inspired by the film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”.
The logic behind the index is to allow the user to compare the emotional journey each movie has to offer by allocating colors to the main emotions in it chronologically. That way, each movie has its own unique emotional and visual identifier.

Type of project

Index Prototype

Role

Tools used

Figma, After effects

Year completed

2020

The emotional division of the index is loosely based on Paul Ekman’s universal emotion theory. Ekman proposed seven basic emotions: fear, anger, joy, sad, contempt, disgust, and surprise; but he changed to six basic emotions: fear, anger, joy, sadness, disgust, and surprise. In this index I chose to use his proposed 6 universal emotions with an added one - love. the universal emotions are later organized on an axis, ranging from negative to positive and high vs. low arousal.

I drew inspiration from a few sources:
After researching Ekman’s universal emotion theory, brain activity scans were my first source, as they have a very unique aesthetic that seemed relevant to the project’s theme.
Aside from neuroscience, I drew inspiration from data visualization and art projects, such “We Feel Fine” by Jonathan Harris.

Visual and conceptual inspirations examples:

Exploring different visual identifiers for index items:

After feedback I’ve decided to go with an identifier that treats every emotion separately, for visual and informational clarity. The length of the identifier represents the length of the movie, while each ‘wave’ is a different emotion. The wave’s amplitude represents emotional intensity throughout the film.

Another issue was - how to represent the movie cluster? Since this Index was made as a design exploration and was not meant for commercial use, I allowed myself to go with a more ‘artistic’ approach and create a data cluster with a craft feel to it. Each dot is a movie, colored by the main emotion in it. The user clicks on the dot and is transferred to the movie data page. To view the flow, you can click on the demo in the link.

How the movie data page should look & what should it contain: Since the main focus is the emotional journey throughout the film, the data identifier should take the top space. It should also contain some information on the ‘amount’ of the main emotions experienced during the film. This project is all under the caveat that emotions are very subjective and at the moment not quantifiable, but is index is a suggestion as to new ways we could choose content in the future.

Final design for the main index flow, after feedback. The main change was to shift the focus into creating a holistic experience from the beginning of the flow to the end, while also encouraging the user to stay and explore the index after viewing an item. To view the entire flow, please click on the demo in the link.

Early explorations of index user flow:

Final item design

Contact

Contact