Publications

Some Assembly Required: Making a Smart Editor

Beechum, Andrew Rogers

ic

May 1996

AUP in EECS, MIT

Abstract
Film is a powerful visual medium that transmits an artists concept of a narrative through the use of images and sounds arranged according to complex cinematic language. Some Assembly Required (SAR) is a system that attempts to solve the problem of dumb cropping that occurs in the film to video transfer process today. Utilizing the methodology of structured video, SAR allows a director to control a dynamic editing process via annotations and the rules of Master Scene Language. This dynamic editing preserves the vital visual information that the director deems important to his narrative.

We have produced a structured video movie, Two Viewpoints, to demonstrate the usability of SAR.

My evaluation of the current implementation of SAR is that the resulting product, while answering some questions, still leaves room for further development, specifically in the area of narrative intelligence.

SAR was developed in conjunction with David Tames. A more detailed discussion of the theory behind SAR can be found in Tames' Master's Thesis, "Some Assembly Required: Cinematic Knowledge-based Reconstruction of Structured Video Sequences."


http://mf.media.mit.edu/pubs/thesis/beechumAUP.pdf