Here's a little Flash application I made that charts emotions over a timeline
according to the three-factor emotional model as outlined by Russel. It takes
text files containing data points, charts them, and can be suplemented with
images at keypoints. This particular example is a charting of the film Memento.
Emotion Diagramming Project
I chose
to diagram the film “Memento” for this project. My choice
was made based on the interesting timelines and mood shifts in the work. In
hindsight, the film might be a little too chaotic to get a good overview
of the emotional flow. The use of temporal fluctuation coupled with
the memory lapses of the main character made it difficult to fully discern
emotions. This was an effective tool of the film to emulate Lenny’s
inability to develop ongoing memories.
I decided
to use the three-factor emotional model as outline by Russel. While
I think there are some problems with this model, I determined it to be effective
for this use. It is very well suited to graphing, which many other
emotional models are not. Charting the three dimensions was an interesting
way to view the emotional flow and structure of the narrative.
In order
to fully understand the true story timeline, I watched the film from end
to beginning, the order in which the scenes would be chronologically. I
had already seen the film in its original, time-altered format. Emotional
components were noted throughout the course of the work and plotted according
to dimension, time, and degree. I built an application that reads in text
files to chart the emotional content. The emotional points were extracted
out into the various emotional dimensions as arrays of plots with a time
and a degree value. The application reads these in and charts them. I
also mapped the true order of the timeline (which was quite a task for this
film!) and created a new timeline based upon my interpretation of the true
timeline of the events. Both graphs are place on the screen in comparison
with one another. Key emotional swings in the graph are highlighted
in the application with screen shots from the film at that point. This
is an interesting way to analyze the dynamics of emotional content.
I determined
that the driving emotion of the film was arousal. This is what seemed
to give the film it’s shape and form. Pleasure tended to hover
around the middle, as Lenny did not have the ability to form any true connection
with happiness due to his memory problems and his deep emotional scars. Dominance
and submission was very erratic, highlighting the chaotic nature of the
film and the confusion that accompanies Lenny’s condition.
