Biometrics tool measures audience response to The Revenant

Bioanalytics platform Lightwave enables film companies to monitor the emotions of audience members in the midst of their viewing experience.

Whether positive or negative, cinema inevitably elicits emotional responses from its audience. Movie-makers have always played to these emotional reactions but have never had a reliable tool for measuring how successful they have been, since the feelings of the viewer tend to evaporate as soon as the lights come up. Now, Lightwave is a bioanalytics technology company that can enable film companies to monitor the emotions of audience members in the midst of their viewing experience.

We have already seen biometrics used by marketers to monitor audience response to enhanced video ads and now Lightwave have partnered with 20th Century Fox to investigate the emotional response to the new Oscar-nominated epic The Revenant, directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu. Lightwave monitored the audience’s physiological responses at pre-release screenings using a wearable device that measures heart rate, motion and electrodermal activity — changes in the electrical activity of the skin. The studio will be able to use the results to inform future productions. They have also translated the data into a marketing tool, informing audiences of the 14 heart-pounding moments and 4716 seconds they can expect to be transfixed.

What other experiences could be monitored and improved upon through biometrics?