Application of Gaze and Head Pose Estimation Using Mediapipe for Psychocinematics and Viewer Perception on Filipino Movies

The processes that guide viewers’ attention while viewing film narratives are poorly understood; narrative comprehension is vague and often disputed as an important factor in viewer attention. Psychocinematics consists of the intention of the filmmaker and three psychological components of the viewer: sensation, knowledge, and emotion. These aesthetic responses of viewers contribute to the art of film making, and a directors' vision for their film to promote narrative comprehension. Head pose estimation provides a powerful real-time measure of viewer cognition and the scope and impact of its application to questions of film theory; a film directors' influence on visuals is important in refining their craft. Filipino directors constantly care about where the spectator will look on the screen and using heatmaps will help to analyze comprehension, satisfaction, mind wandering, and emotions on different film scenes. Participants looked at different directions regardless of genre, but certain scenes such as horror scenes observed a pattern where the participants looked at the same region. Specific emotions impacted where the participants looked and being scared compels the viewer to look away from the screen. Mind wandering occurs in brief lapses during viewing. With this, data implies that it is related to the cinematography of the scene and its genre. There is a significant difference between each participant when viewing using a Wilcoxon test. It is concluded that the sample size was too small to be deemed conclusive but can be improved upon.