Extracting information about emotions in films

We present a method being developed to extract information about characters' emotions in films. It is suggested that this information can help describe higher levels of multimedia semantics relating to narrative structures. Our method extracts information from audio description that is provided for the visually-impaired with an increasing number of films. The method is based on a cognitive theory of emotions that links a character's emotional states to the events in their environment. In this paper the method is described along with some preliminary evaluation and discussions about the kinds of novel video retrieval and browsing applications it may support.