Brain scans gauge horror flick fear factor

• Story Highlights
• Film producer Katz used fMRI brain scans to measure scariness of horror movie
  
• He teamed up with researchers to scan brain activity of subject viewing his film
  
• Data from scan gives real-time view of what's going on inside the brain
  
• He wants to use brain scans to make better, more enjoyable movies
  

updated 2:42 p.m. EDT, Tue September 29, 2009

By Grace Wong
For CNN

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Film producer Peter Katz doesn't just want his horror movies to scare you. He wants to pinpoint how frightened you are down to an exact moment in a scene.

Producer Peter Katz wants to harness the power of brain scans to make better movies.

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To do that, he recently teamed up with researchers and used MRI scans of brain function to determine the degree of fright caused by certain scenes from his latest horror flick, "Pop Skull."

For the experiment, researchers at functional MRI research facility Mindsign Neuromarketing, based in San Diego, California, scanned the brain activity of a subject while she watched two scenes of his movie. Analyzing the data from the scan, they were able to pinpoint the exact moments when her brain was lit up with fear.

Should movie directors use medical science to test audience reactions -- or go with their filmmaking instincts? Tell us

"I wanted to understand how we can make a horror film quantifiable," Katz told CNN, explaining the inspiration behind the experiment. "On the timing, I wanted to see just how precise we can get."

In search of better ways to reach their audiences, industries like marketing have been exploring the promise of brain research. Market research firm Nielsen made a strategic investment in NeuroFocus, a firm that applies neuroscience to advertising and product branding, last year. Watch Katz explain the experiment in a YouTube video

Now Katz is using the technology to better understand how people experience his movies. He thinks so-called neurocinema, while still in its early stages, could change the way films are made in the future and result in more interesting movies.

Mapping brain activity with fMRIs can help filmmakers identify not just whether scenes from a movie are working for audiences, but to what extent they are engaging with them, he told CNN.

During Katz's experiment, researchers analyzed scans to identify the exact moment during each film scene that the viewer's amygdala -- the part of the brain linked to several emotions, including fear -- was activated, and to what degree. Watch Katz explain the experiment in a YouTube video

The test subject reacted as expected to some parts of the film -- one scene designed to get audiences to jump out of their seats registered fear on the brain scan. But surprisingly, she showed just as much fear in the sequence that led up to that moment, he explained.

Los Angeles-based Katz, who has produced three horror movies, including "Pop Skull," believes neurocinema is a win-win for movie makers and movie-goers alike. Filmmakers get a baseline template for understanding what's effective and audiences get a more entertaining film.

But does tailoring a film so precisely to what viewers want spell the end of the art of movie making? Katz doesn't think so. On the contrary, he believes it will lead filmmakers to be more innovative.

"In every genre, there are formulas that are repeated that are no longer effective," he said. But filmmakers rarely know at which point they lose the audience's interest.

Many studios rely on focus group testing that involves viewers filling out a questionnaire after watching a test screening. The problem with this approach is that often audiences find it difficult to accurately remember and articulate how they felt about certain sequences.

Brain scans solve that problem, giving filmmakers a clear window into viewers' minds. It should help the people making films to identify scenes that don't work and adjust them to truly entertain the audience, Katz said.

As he sees it, the technology is applicable beyond the making of horror films: It could be used to make better dramas and comedies, he said, naming some of the genres that could potential utilize the technology to their benefit.

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He isn't the only filmmaker contemplating the advantages of brain scans. Oscar-winning director of upcoming 3-D epic "Avatar" James Cameron told industry publication Variety last year that he believed "a functional-MRI study of brain activity would show that more neurons are actively engaged in processing a 3-D movie than the same film seen in 2-D."

Currently, measuring brain reactions to films is still in early stages. MRI scans can be costly, and getting a focus group to fill out a questionnaire after a screening is a lot easier than getting them to lie still and be scanned for the duration of a feature film.

Katz has tried out his experiment on just one subject so far, although he plans to further explore the technology in upcoming movie projects, which include another horror well as a sci-fi.

But he foresees brain scans playing an increasingly important role in Hollywood as studios -- especially those working on big-budget films -- face added pressure to deliver theatrical experiences that resonate with audiences.

For more auteur-driven fare, it may not necessarily make sense to use this technology, but, says Katz, it is also part of the evolution of filmmaking as it becomes more collaborative.

In today's social networking world, people have more influence than ever before, he said, especially when it comes to big-budget pictures, where success hinges on getting people into the theaters.

"Now more than ever you want to make sure that people are satisfied. You can kill a film over Twitter."

An Insider's Guide to Eclipse

By Lisa Ingrassia

Originally posted Wednesday August 12, 2009 03:25 PM EDT

Pattinson and Stewart as Edward and Bella

There's never a dull moment for the Twilight cast, who headed to Vancouver Monday to begin pre-production for Eclipse, the third installment of Stephenie Meyer's hit vampire series.

Eclipse will have all of the tortured, mortal angst that Kristen Stewart's character, Bella Swan, goes through in Twilight and New Moon – but with more action, more blood, and yes, more Robert Pattinson.

The book picks up with Pattinson's character, Edward Cullen, and Bella reunited as a couple, while Jacob (Taylor Lautner) continues to vie for Bella's heart. But as Edward and Jacob compete for Bella's affections, the clans of vampires and werewolves unite over the common enemy: A set of murderous vampires (including the Volturi) who are on the hunt for Bella.

Here's what to expect on and off set in Vancouver as filming gets underway.

• New Faces on Set
With Rachelle Lefevre no longer portraying the blood-thirsty Victoria, Bryce Dallas Howard will step in to fill her role. Another new face is Australian actor Xavier Samuel, who plays a recruit in Victoria's army of vampires out for Bella's blood. Eclipse also provides meatier plotlines and more screen time for fan favorites Nikki Reed and Jackson Rathbone, who play Rosalie and Jasper Hale.

• Rob and Kristen Together
While their characters get engaged in the movie, Pattinson and Stewart have been spending more time together off set as well. Starting Aug. 6 in Los Angeles, the pair spent two nights in a row together, attending concerts at the Hotel Café and then mingling with pals at the Chateau Marmont. Word on the movie set is that "[Michael] Angarano and Kristen Stewart are completely broken up," a source tells PEOPLE. "Everyone is pretty convinced that the Pattinson and Stewart are hooking up."

• Fierce Fights!
The vampires and werewolves are training for more intense fight scenes. "In Eclipse there is an epic battle," screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg told Entertainment Tonight. "With every book, with every episode of the movie, it gets grander in scale." The actors are planning accordingly: In Vancouver, they've begun fight training and getting in shape for the demanding roles. Peter Facinelli joked that to prepare, "I re-read Eclipse, I read the script. And then I got on a treadmill."

• Cast Bonding
After arriving in Vancouver, Reed, Facinelli, Lautner, Howard, Rathbone, Kellan Lutz, Ashley Greene and producer Wyck Godfrey all convened over dinner in a private room at CinCin Restaurant on Robson Street. "It's really enjoyable," Greene says of hanging with the cast. "We can just be open and honest." Other favorite hangouts include the Glowball Grill, where Pattinson likes the spaghetti and meatballs, and the Yaletown Brewery, where the male cast members have gone for after-work drinks.

• Final Film?
Eclipse is the last planned filmed adaptation of The Twilight Saga – for now. "I haven't heard anything about Breaking Dawn," Facinelli told Twilight Examiner on Aug. 3. "When we shot Twilight, no one knew if it was going to be a success or not, and we didn't know if we were going to shoot a second movie or not … If New Moon performs in the box office, and the fans come out, and Eclipse, then that's their way of saying they want more. I'm hoping when New Moon comes out they'll push the green button."

• With reporting by CHRISTINE KILPATRICK, ALICIA DENNIS and SHRUTI DHAWALA

Woody Allen

ZURICH, Switzerland (CNN) -- Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar and Martin Scorsese have "demanded the immediate release" of fellow filmmaker Roman Polanski, who was arrested in Switzerland on a U.S. arrest warrant related to a 1977 child sex charge.

A supporter displays a "free Polanski" tag on his shirt during the Zurich Film Festival.

They were among 138 people in the film industry who signed a petition against the arrest.

Polanski was on the way to the Zurich Film Festival when Swiss police detained him in response to the American warrant.

The filmmaker pleaded guilty in 1977 to having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor but fled before he could be sentenced. He settled in France, where he holds citizenship. Investigators in the United States say Polanski, then 43, drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl.

The filmmakers objected to his being arrested en route to the film festival, which held a tribute to him this year.

"It seems inadmissible to them that an international cultural event, paying homage to one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers, is used by the police to apprehend him," said the petition, backed by France's Societe des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers). Watch report on Polanski's detractors among the Swiss »

"The arrest of Roman Polanski in a neutral country, where he assumed he could travel without hindrance ... opens the way for actions of which no one can know the effects," said the signatories, who also included actresses Monica Bellucci and Tilda Swinton and directors David Lynch, Jonathan Demme, John Landis, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Wim Wenders.

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In the United States, powerhouse movie producer Harvey Weinstein is trying to recruit more supporters for Polanksi.

"We are calling every filmmaker we can to help fix this terrible situation," his company told CNN in a statement.

Polanski has filed an appeal against his extradition to the United States, Swiss authorities said. They added that they would act on the case within weeks.

Polanski won an Academy Award for Best Director in 2003 for "The Pianist." He was nominated for a Best Director Oscar for "Tess" and "Chinatown," and Best Writing for "Rosemary's Baby," which he also directed. See examples of Polanski's work »

On Monday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that he hoped authorities would respect Polanski's rights "and that the affair [will] come to a favorable resolution," the ministry said in a statement.

The French culture and communications minister, Frederic Mitterrand, said he "learned with astonishment" of Polanski's arrest and expressed solidarity with Polanski's family.

Polanski, 76, was arrested Saturday on his arrival at Zurich's airport.

A provisional arrest warrant had been issued last week out of Los Angeles, California, after authorities learned that he was going to be in Switzerland, Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, said Sunday.

In a written statement, Polanski's California counsel said Monday that "an issue related to the Swiss extradition matter is presently being litigated before the California Court of Appeal. We had hoped that this would be determinative of this case."

"We were unaware of any extradition being sought, and separate counsel will be retained for those proceedings."

The lawyers -- Douglas Dalton, Chad Hummel and Bart Dalton -- said prior deputy district attorneys had told them that no efforts were being made to extradite Polanski, who "owned a home in Switzerland for many years and worked throughout Europe during that time."

There have been repeated attempts to settle the case over the years, but the sticking point has always been Polanski's refusal to return to the United States to attend hearings. Prosecutors have consistently argued that it would be a miscarriage of justice to allow a man who "drugged and raped a 13-year-old child" to go free.

The Swiss Justice Ministry said Polanski was "in provisional detention." But whether he can be extradited to the United States "can be established only after the extradition process judicially has been finalized," ministry spokesman Guido Balmer said in an e-mail.

"It is possible to appeal at the federal penal court of justice against an arrest warrant in view to extradition as well as against an extradition decision," Balmer wrote. "Their decisions can be taken further to the federal court of justice."

Gibbons said the extradition process will be determined in Switzerland but said authorities are ready to move forward with Polanski's sentencing, depending on what happens in Zurich.

Polanski was accused of plying the teenage girl with champagne and a sliver of a Quaalude tablet and performing various sex acts, including intercourse, with her during a photo shoot at actor Jack Nicholson's house.

Nicholson was not at home.

Polanski's lawyers tried this year to have the charges thrown out, but a judge in Los Angeles rejected the request. However, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza left the door open to reconsider his ruling if Polanski shows up in court.

Espinoza also appeared to acknowledge problems with the way the director's case was originally handled.

According to court documents, Polanski, his lawyer and the prosecutor thought they'd worked out a deal that would spare Polanski from prison and let the young victim avoid a public trial.

But the original judge in the case, who is now dead, first sent the director to maximum-security prison for 42 days while he underwent psychological testing. Then, on the eve of his sentencing, the judge told attorneys he was inclined to send Polanski back to prison for another 48 days.

Polanski fled the United States for France, where he was born.

In the February hearing, Espinoza mentioned a documentary film, "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired," that depicts backroom deals between prosecutors and a media-obsessed judge who was worried his image would suffer if he didn't send Polanski to prison. The documentary was first broadcast in June 2008.

"It's hard to contest some of the behavior in the documentary was misconduct," Espinoza said. But he declined to dismiss the case.

Polanski's victim long ago came forward and made her identity public, mainly saying she was disturbed by how the criminal case had been handled.

Samantha Geimer, now 45 and a married mother of three, sued Polanski and received an undisclosed settlement. She is among those calling for the case to be tossed out. Watch Geimer speak about the incident »

In court papers filed in January, she said, "I am no longer a 13-year-old child. I have dealt with the difficulties of being a victim, have surmounted and surpassed them with one exception.

"Every time this case is brought to the attention of the court, great focus is made of me, my family, my mother and others. That attention is not pleasant to experience and is not worth maintaining over some irrelevant legal nicety, the continuation of the case."

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CNN's Jennifer Wolfe, Morgan Neill, Frederik Pleitgen, Brooke Bowman, Karan Olson and Ann O'Neill contributed to this report.

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Building High Performance Web Applications in asp.net

Part I: Overview and Architecture

Overview

In the hands of a master coder and architect Asp.net can be a very powerful platform for building high performance web applications. All too often Asp.net is used more like a rapid development tool rather then a framework for building high performance web applications. As a result the general view of the IT community is that general performance of .net web applications is inferior to that of it's competitors. This is unfortunate because though it is true that some platforms do offer slightly better overall performance, most of the performance issues in .net web applications are due to bad development practices.

In this article I will review the common mistakes made by some .net developers as well as document .net performance tips, suggestions and best practices for developers and architects when developing web applications in .net.

The Problem

Before we review guidelines and best practices we need to first address the problem. I find that many .net web developers do not consider the performance of their web applications until the point of near completion. At this point in the process their is very little that can be done to properly address the overall performance problems without rewriting the entire application.

The first thing that you need to do in order to write a high performance web application is admit to yourself that you are a developer working on a web site. Visual Studio has many nice features that work effectively to disguise your web application as a winforms application. These features can be great when implementing rapid development on a content management system which will have at most 10 simultaneous users sitting all of 10 feet away of the production environment, but if you are building a client facing web application this is frankly just not going to cut it. As a developer working on a high performance web application you will need to understand the execution of a .net web page and the architecture of a web development application. You will also need to write html, write javascript and understand object oriented concepts. This article will touch on many of these concepts but I urge you to be aware that ultimately your project is a web application which states that ultimately you will need to employ the skills of a web developer in order to achieve the results you require.

Be A Leader

As the developer of a high performance web application you will be required to make decisions in terms of business rules, best practices, architecture and implementation. If you want to build a high performance web application it is important that you be the champion of your web application. It will not fall into place by itself and no one is going to do it for you. Regardless of your role in your organization if you wish to build a high performance web application you will need to lead by practice and example.

Requirements Gathering

Despite your life-cycle development framework good up front requirements gathering is always required at the start of any high performance web application. The information gathered at this stage of development will define you business objects and business logic. These two items define your web application architecture and based on that architecture you will determine best practices for performance. It is very important that you as a developer come to an understanding and agreement with all parties of how everything will work. All to often I hear the excuse from a developer that the his perfect system was destroyed by the decisions made by others while he was in development. As a developer it is your responsibility to organize and manage your own project. You are the experienced professional and they are depending on you to make good choices. A good doctor does not treat his patients based solely on what they think their ailment is, he will first conduct tests to verify the ailment and consider other ailments before starting treatment.

Some advice on requirements gathering:

• Meet strictly about business requirements: Often times organizations will try to kill many birds with one stone. You may find yourself being brought into a meeting which encapsulates marketing, design, goals and some business requirements. This is not enough information to begin working! Use this time to understand the basic concepts of your project and formulate the questions you need answered. Then schedule a second meeting with decision makers to define your business rules. Make sure you are prepared with the right questions for this meeting.
• Make sure you understand the project completely: Before you put pen to paper make sure you understand everything completely. Don't be afraid to ask a question. In most cases if there is an item you do not understand it usually points to something that has not been thought through completely. You cannot design an application for peak performance without understanding it.
• Trim the fat: Often times "the fat" is the cause of bad performance in web applications. Try to remove as many unnecessary business rules and features that you feel will effect performance. Make recommendations to the decision makers in your organization and provide alternate methods of achieving the same goals.
• Define Risks Publicly: Don't keep risks to yourself, define them publicly. Any design pattern you choose will have a shortfall. Defining risks publicly will give players on your team a chance to chime in and make a correction before you are near completion of development.
• Force people to review your specifications: After you have put together specifications make sure the decision makers in your organization read them and understand them. Often times they may tell you everything is good but they did not take the time to review your specifications completely.
• Be adaptive and predictive: Despite all of the techniques defined above changes will creep their way into your web application project for the entirety of its lifetime. Understanding this, design your application to both adapt to changes and still deliver high performance.

Architecture

The .net framework does assume some generic architecture guidelines for your project but be sure that when defining your architecture that you are choosing the right architecture for your specific project. Be sure to research the latest and greatest technologies available to you at the time of implementation and analyze the performance advantages of each. As a general rule when designing the architecture of your project try to design it with a five year shelf life. This may seem like a short time but in the world of web development five years is a very long time. Also be sure to make your architecture scalable and adaptive while still retaining excellent performance.

Class Structure

One of the most common mistakes I see developers make is when they are designing applications is that they by default think about the data model first and class structure secondly. This often times results in a class structure that is simply a dump of the data model, or which is not object oriented at all. Using this methodology sells the potential performance of your web application short.

For this reason I recommend that you first design your class structure then design your database model. When considering performance at the class level many more options are available to you. You can define many complex geometric shapes such as cubes and trees and much data can be stored in a way that cannot be done as efficiently when forced to store data in flat relational tables.

• Use Inheritance: Inheritance is a very basic concept that most developers have a good understand of but often times do not employ. In .net web application your web application will be compiled at runtime to the gac so unlike many interpreted web programming languages you will not get as much of a performance increase from using inheritance based on limiting the lines of code you write, but by defining relations between your objects using inheritance rather than creating new instances of objects to define relations the overall memory footprint of your web application will decrease as well as decreasing the amount of time it takes to construct an object.
• Think about how your data objects persist in memory: From your requirements gathering you should have a good idea of how your business data objects should persist in memory. Generally in web applications your data will fall into 3 categories.
  • Data that is the same for every user and is frequently accessed: For data of this kind you will get best performance if all users access the same instance of the same data. this will limit the number of transactions back and fourth from our data store. Implementing these techniques will be covered more in debt in Part II of this article.
  • Data that is the same for each user and is frequently accessed: For data of this kind you will get best performance if you employ state management techniques to hold this data. Thus limiting transactions going back and fourth between your database and at the same time protected this data in an instance that is only accessible to the user. State management techniques will be covered more in debt in Part II of this article.
  • Real time data and data which is not frequently used: For this type of data it is best to just recall the data from your data store and will want to design your class structure in a way that it can be constructed an deconstructed efficiently. If your specific web application consists of mostly real time data you may want to consider implementing a SQL cache dependency for this data.
• Think about how data will be accessed by your application: Also from your requirements gathering you should have a good understanding of how your objects and the data stored inside your objects will be accessed. You do not necessarily want to look at the best possible way of organizing your classes, rather you want to look at the best way of organizing your classes for your application. For instance, If your data were to be generally requested all at once it may be better stored in one method rather than another method which would be better if the data were to be selected one record at a time. Choosing the right data type is important for your implementation, carefully review you options and use the data type that best suits your needs.
• Use smaller transactions when possible: At this point in the game if you find yourself designing large transactions you may want to reconsider your design pattern. For a high performance web application you should try to minimize the number of transactions it takes to accomplish any given task. For instance in an ecommerce system, if a user were to add an item to his or her cart, this should be one simple transaction. If you find yourself inserting the data into 3 different places and recalculating inventory, then you are doing something wrong.

Data Structure

Now after you have defined your class structure and have done good user requirements gathering you should have a much better idea of how your data model should look. There are already many articles online about data modeling so I am not going to go into too much in this article. For more generalized information on this topic please read Database Design and Modeling Fundamentals. Here are a few extra tips on maintaining good database performance.

• For data that is frequently accessed try to use a model that is good for performance. You will find that by first defining your class model you will not need to define your business rules by the relationships of your tables. It is still a good practice to keep these types of dependencies in your database for integrity sake, but every single relation does not necessarily need to be reflected in your data if it will cause performance to fall off.
• Avoid the need for aggregate functions: Like in designing your class, when designing your database model consider the way your data will be accessed, if at this stage you see that you will need to write aggregate functions for the basic functionality of your web application, you may want to reconsider your model. A key value pair system is nice, but if you need to return search results back on items containing the instances of a certain key value you are going to suffer performance problems.
• Define Database Maintenance Procedures from the start: At this point of the process you will have a much better idea of what data can be safely removed or archived periodically. This is also the best time while decision makers are still engaged in the project to define these types of rules.

In the Building High Performance Web Applications in asp.net: Part II we will review actual implementation. Topics include: Caching, HTML, CSS, Javascript, State Management, Binding, Paging, Searching, Compression, Ajax, Asynchronous Programming and coding Tips and Techniques.

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