The Scene

Movies and TV shows become increasingly aggressive and suggestive to catch the eye. For viewers who are sensitive to graphic scenes, I've created an interactive mobile scene controller and informational community.

process deck

Project Type
MFA Thesis/School/Solo Project

Committee
Mike Strobert, Adam Smith

Duration / Year
12 month(Fall 2019 – Spring 2020)

Domain
Video Streaming Service

Tool
Figma, Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effect

Problem

As the current content rating system is becoming more and more lenient, there is no practical way for the viewer to avoid uncomfortable scenes in advance.

Solution

Build a personal viewing experience that allows viewers to effectively check the rating issues, control uncomfortable scenes, and share their opinions.

Objectives

Clear Criteria

The Scene provides detailed categories of the rating issues that may cause anxiety in the video with visualized symbols.

Controllable Scenes

The users can easily control uncomfortable scenes by applying filters before or during watching a video.

Informative Community

Reviews and ratings help the user get sufficient information and share their opinion about the rating issues.

Background

01

Movie & TV in the modern world

The movie or tv is an essential medium for modern people to satisfy emotional and social needs. According to the 2018 Nielsen Total Audience Report, U.S. adults now spend nearly 6 hours per day watching the video.

Entertainment

It is the cheapest and simplest way of relaxation and enjoyment to escape from the pressures of the day.

Socializing

People can join conversation about popular media and feel aware of of what's happening in the world.

Experience

Various genres of movies and TV shows can stimulate viewers' imagination and provide knowledge.

02

Increased violence and sexual content to catch the eye.

2x

the violent sequence in the film in 2013 has more than doubled from 1950 to 2012.

American Academy of Pediatrics

12%

increased sexual content on TV during the 1999-2000 season than in the past one.

American Psychological Association

03

Limits of the current rating system

There are two types of content rating systems in the US: Motion Picture Association of America(MPAA) Film Rating System and TV Parental Guide. Both system simply classifies the type of video into age.

In the overall trend, these systems don’t provide a clear standard of content to viewers. A study shows that today’s PG-13 movies contain more violence and sexuality than the one in the past and this is coming near to the R-rated movie a decade ago.

Motion Picture Association Film Rating System

TV Parental Guide

Movies with the same rating can differ significantly in the amount and type of potentially objectional content. Age-based ratings alone do not provide good information about the depiction of violence, sex, profanity and other content.

- Harvard School of Public Health

Who suffers from this trend?

Based on the research, two groups of people feel uncomfortable with this current rating system: parents and highly sensitive people. These people can be prospective users of this project.

*Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) is someone who is easily overwhelmed by physical, mental, or emotional stimulus and responds to them acutely. They are approximately 15 to 20% of the population(Aron 2020).

Parents

...who want to watch the movie peacefully with their children.
...who want to control children watching a movie without her knowing.

*Highly Sensitive People

...who is terribly scared of the gory or horror scene.
...who has a trauma of violence, abuse or accident.
...who is highly sensitive to light and sound.

Interview takeaways

I interviewed four prospective users to get qualitative resources. Based on the takeaways below, I concluded my users need a new maturity rating system that is categorized, informational and digital.

→view interview question

Need to be categorized

Each interviewee has different scenes that they didn't want to see or show their kids. Considering they're all adults, They need an alternative rating system categorized by content.

Need to be informational

All Interviewees think the current rating isn't enough to get information to avoid scenes they feel uncomfortable about. They use other sources before they watch the movie and feel that this is time-consuming.

Need to be digital

When they watch uncomfortable scenes, they usually use physical ways such as closing or hiding their eyes. Currently, there are no faster ways than these basic actions to control uncomfortable scenes.

Personas

User Flow

Real-time Control

Function

It allows users to control uncomfortable video scenes in real-time.

Objective

The function gives users the flexibility to apply filters while watching videos.

Target Audience

It is suitable for parents watching a video with their child together and highly sensitive people.

Presettable Control

Function

Users can apply filters to uncomfortable scenes before watching the video.

Objective

The function allows users to enjoy the video without interruption or control the video remotely.

Target Audience

It is suitable for parental control and highly sensitive people who want to control the video in advance.

How It Works

01

Playback Bar

The Playback bar is designed to allow users to conveniently control the video and check the problem scene. The number of squares equals the number of whole scenes.

The current time and ending time
Play/Pause Button
Draggable progress bar
Issue marking

02

Scene Gallery

The Scene divides the entire video into several scenes. Each scene has a distinct color setting depending on its state to easily understand the app's system.

The past scene: gray out
The safe scene: photo
The problem scene: orange with problem symbols
The current problem scene: orange-colored moving bar
The current safe scene: cyan-colored moving bar

1 issue(Skip filter applied)

2 issue(Blur and Beep filter applied)

3 issue(Mute and Blur filter applied)

03

Filters

The Scene has five applicable filters which can control uncomfortable image and sound. In the filter panel, When the user selects one filter, other incompatible filters are greyed out for error prevention. For example, if the user taps the Skip button, the other buttons are disabled to prevent confusion.

Skip the current problem scene and show the next scene.

Blur out partial or the entire problem scene. The basic blur and mosaic effect look boring. The filter is designed to effectively cover the graphic scenes without irritating viewer's eye too much.

Apply a sound effect to the swear words or sexual slangs.

Turn off the sound of the entire scene.

Lower brightness and contrast of the scene. Some people are suffered from strong or flashing lights in the video. This filter only appears when a scene has this photosensitive issue.

04

Real-time Control

By connecting streaming services through the app, the user can control uncomfortable scenes in real-time. With this feature, the user can have flexibilty to apply filter while watching video.

04

Presettable Control

The user can control uncomfortable scenes before they play the video using the presettable control. This feature allows users to watch videos without interruption. The user can also use this feature as a remote parental control.

Remote Parental Control

The parent registers their children's profiles to the parental control setting.
The app sends a push notification whenever children approach inappropriate content.
The parent can apply a filter in advance then approve of children's watching the video.

← swipe the page →

Sketches & Exploration

Because the timeline screen is key to this project, I focused on designing a significant and creative interaction. There is no existing product I can get inspiration from so I sketched many ideas and digitally explored possible layout and style.

Iteration

Step 1. New Inspiration

After several explorations, I wanted to approach the timeline screen with a completely different style. Inspired by various graphic works like posters, I studied how to apply their visually impressive and creative style to the screen.

Taking layout, color, typography and symbols from posters.
Various playback bar styles by exploring tools such as rulers and controllers.

The Current Scene_Safe

The Current Scene_Issued

Filter Controller

Filter Applied

Step 2. Contrast

I was satisfied with the layout but the background was too bright to focus on watching a video and the colors needed contrast more. In this step, I thought about how to make the screen stand out without disturbing the viewers.

Dark background.
The color contrast between safe scene and problem scene.
Explore various playback bars.

Ver 1

Ver 2

Ver 3

Ver 4

Step 3. Simplification

Based on user feedback, I realized that the screen looks busy and unclear. Therefore, I started my design from sketches and tried to make it intuitive and straightforward to use it as much as possible.

Play/Pause button.
Simplification of the playback bar.
Change of the layout and interaction to unify the eye flow.
Symbolization of the Filter applied state with the icon, tags and pattern.

Colors & Symbols

Inspiration

Traffic lights and traffic signs have inspired the colors and style because they effectively tell people about safety and danger.

Strong & Simple

The Scene uses minimal complementary colors so that the issues stand out of the scenes and easy to understand.

Logo

Concept

The collection of visually distinct scenes is the most crucial feature of this thesis. Inspired by the shape of the film, these scenes have been described as a collection of squares.

Shape & Color

The main shape has been decided after paper exploration with the concept. Using the color and patterns used in the app, the logo builds and expresses the entire project's brand identity.

Data Visualization

The Scene had four steps of the data visualization process to find out the most effective way for visualized scenes. The image below is the final movie summary and the collection of the visualized scenes.

Divided the whole movie into short scenes in writing.
Tagged the issues next to the scenes with rating issues.
Visualized written scenes with captured poster cut.
Overlayed the brand color and issue icon to the problem scene.

Movies touch our hearts and awaken our vision, and change the way we see things. They take us to other places, they open doors and minds.

- Martin Scorsese

Conclusion

The Scene provides an effective way for viewers to check and avoid uncomfortable scenes in a data-based and digitalized way. It is also a good community to share the necessary information for the users who are vulnerable to the violent and suggestive video trend. The Scene can be an alternative way to enjoy a movie or TV show without anxiety in the current age-based rating system.

Reference

Aron, Elaine. 2020. “The Highly Sensitive Person.” Accessed November 21, 2020. https://hsperson.com.
Ballie, R. "Study shows a significant increase in sexual content on TV." American Psychological Association, May 2001, Vol 32, No.5.
https://www.apa.org/monitor/may01/sexualtv.
Bong, Jun-ho. 2019. "Parasite."
Bushman, Brad J. Jamieson, Patrick E. Ilana Weitz. Romer, Daniel. "Gun Violence Trends in Movies."
Pediatrics, December 2013. 132 (6) 1014-1018; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2013-1600
Keegan, Rebecca. "Film, TV violence is an intensely sensitive subject for some.” Los Angeles Times, February 15, 2003. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-xpm-2013-feb-15-la-et-mn-violence-sensitivity-20130217-story.html
Nielsen. 2018. “TIME FLIES: U.S. ADULTS NOW SPEND NEARLY HALF A DAY INTERACTING WITH MEDIA.” July 31, 2018.
https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2018/time-flies-us-adults-now-spend-nearly-half-a-day-interacting-with-media.
Ross, Ronald. "The Impact of Films on Modern Society." November 12, 2019.
https://www.voicemag.uk/blog/6394/the-impact-of-films-on-modern-society,
Thinkbox. 2018. "Why do we watch TV and Netflix, or use YouTube? ‘The Age of Television’ reveals all." November 15, 2018.
https://www.thinkbox.tv/news-and-opinion/newsroom/why-do-we-watch-tv-and-netflix-or-use-youtube-the-age-of-television-reveals-all.
Waxman, Sharon. 2004 “Study Finds Film Ratings are rowing More Lenient,” New York Times, July 14, 2004.
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/14/movies/study-finds-film-ratings-are-growing-more-
lenient.html#:~:text=A%20new%20study%20from%20the,more%20lenient%20in%20their%20standards.

Stay in touch

studiohaena@gmail.com

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