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In the process of making a movie, directors constantly care about where the spectator will look on the screen. Shot composition, framing, camera movements, or editing are tools commonly used to direct attention. In order to provide a quantitative analysis of the relationship between those tools and gaze patterns, we propose a new eye-tracking database, containing gaze-pattern information on movie sequences, as well as editing annotations, and we show how state-of-the-art computational saliency techniques behave on this dataset. In this work, we expose strong links between movie editing and spectators gaze distributions, and open several leads on how the knowledge of editing information could improve human visual attention modeling for cinematic content. The dataset generated and analyzed for this study is available at https://github.com/abruckert/eye_tracking_filmmaking [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of entertainment industry motivates the explosive growth of automatically film trailer. Manually finding desired clips from these large amounts of films is time-consuming and tedious, which makes finding the moments of user major or special preference becomes an urgent problem. Moreover, the user subjectivity over a film makes no fixed trailer caters to all tastes. This paper addresses these problems by posing a query-related film clip extraction framework which optimizes selected frames not only meet the semantic meaning of the queries but also have visual similarity on appearance between the query and selected clips. The experimental results show that our query-related film clip retrieval method is particularly useful for film editing, e.g. automatically finding movie clips to arouse audiences' interests on the film. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though stereo-DIC is widely used in the field of experimental mechanics, uncertainty quantification techniques lag behind. Camera motion for example is often neglected, even though it is present and it can introduce bias. We propose to estimate the error caused by camera motion, based on the epipolar distance, by using a 3-camera system. This solves the problem of the lack of sensitivity along the epipolar line by placing a third camera perpendicular, providing sensitivity in both directions. The third camera provides modest improvement on the results with an optimized triangulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wide spread acquisition and use of ultra-high resolution color images obtained from high-resolution imaging sensors introduces open problems of optimal storage and transmission while securing important color information as well as preserving fine details in these high quality images. This paper describes a steganography-based paradigm for high-quality compression of fine-detailed color megapixel images highly applicable to forensic imaging applications. Our scheme combines space-domain and frequency-domain image processing operations where in the space domain, color-brightness separation is exploited, and in the frequency domain, discrete cosine transform energy compaction properties of the transformed luminance image is exploited. Experimental results as well as empirical observations show that our technique is very competitive with the highest quality JPEG image compression standard in the overall fidelity of the decompressed image while achieving high compression ratios. However, the main purpose of this new compression scheme is not to compete with the JPEG standard in terms of visual quality measures, but to provide a means for securing vital color information in the original image from potential tampering while allowing high compression ratios without loss of important fine details. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professionally edited videos entail frequent editorial cuts - that is, abrupt image changes from one frame to another. The impact of these cuts on human eye movements is currently not well understood. In the present eye-tracking study, we experimentally gauged the degree to which color and visual continuity contributed to viewers' eye movements following cinematic cuts. In our experiment, viewers were presented with two edited action sports movies on the same screen but they were instructed to watch and keep their gaze on only one of these movies. Crucially, the movies were frequently interrupted and continued after a short break either at the same or at switched locations. Hence, viewers needed to rapidly recognize the continuation of the relevant movie and re-orient their gaze toward it. Properties of saccadic eye movements following each interruption probed the recognition of the relevant movie after a cut. Two key findings were that (i) memory co-determines attention after cuts in edited videos, resulting in faster re-orientation toward scene continuations when visual continuity across the interruption is high than when it is low, and (ii) color contributes to the guidance of attention after cuts, but its benefit largely rests upon enhanced discrimination of relevant from irrelevant visual information rather than memory. Results are discussed with regard to previous research on eye movements in movies and recognition processes. Possible future directions of research are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a response to the growing trend of academic assignments that involve some type of video production, this paper advocates that campuses need to provide instructional as well as technical support for such projects. Universities invest in writing centers to help cultivate writing skills because they understand that providing the latest word processing programs doesn't ensure students become better writers. Similarly, students with flip/cell video cameras and editing software are not likely to produce quality projects without guidance and thus need a similar network of support for these 21st century forms of communication. This paper presents a model for offering documentary services to entire campus communities - including technology, technique, and pedagogical considerations that lead to educational film productions with strong academic content and integrity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last 15 years much effort has been made in the field of segmentation of videos into scenes. We give a comprehensive overview of the published approaches and classify them into seven groups based on three basic classes of low-level features used for the segmentation process: (1) visual-based, (2) audio-based, (3) text-based, (4) audio-visual-based, (5) visual-textual-based, (6) audio-textual-based and (7) hybrid approaches. We try to make video scene detection approaches better assessable and comparable by making a categorization of the evaluation strategies used. This includes size and type of the dataset used as well as the evaluation metrics. Furthermore, in order to let the reader make use of the survey, we list eight possible application scenarios, including an own section for interactive video scene segmentation, and identify those algorithms that can be applied to them. At the end, current challenges for scene segmentation algorithms are discussed. In the appendix the most important characteristics of the algorithms presented in this paper are summarized in table form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a novel scene analysis algorithm based on three-dimensional discrete wavelet transform (3D DWT). Based on the correlation among the adjacent frames, video frames can be considered as four categories: abrupt scene transition, motion scene, gradual scene transition and static scene, which are ranked from low to high according to the strength of the correlation. Through the investigation of the particular temporal and spatial distribution of each category, the correlation among adjacent frames could be described by the 3D DWT coefficients related statistical features, which are the energy of high-frequency coefficients difference, the sum of high-frequency coefficients magnitudes and the difference of low-frequency coefficients magnitudes. The energy of high-frequency coefficients difference is first used to detect the abrupt scene transition including cut and flashlight. Then all the three features are input to SVM for the purpose of analyzing the residual scenes and detecting the gradual scene transition, such as dissolve and fade. Experimental results show the method to be effective not only for the abrupt scene transition detection, but also for the gradual scene transition detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pursuing or maintaining beautifulness nowadays has become a trend in modern society, especially among the celebrity community. In some cases, one may choose to adopt drastic procedures to alter his or her facial or body features to achieve the desired beauty, thus the blossom of industry on cosmetic plastic surgeries. In addition, people whose faces got damaged due to accidental burns or wounds may also find these surgeries necessary. However, as performing the related surgeries are still considered intrusive and costly, it is better to 'preview' the result before a surgery is actually carried out. As many believe that facial appearance matters most, we have developed a system that allows a user to input a photo and changes the associated individual facial feature in an automatic and user-friendly manner. Overall speaking, our system makes contributions in the following four aspects. First, our system not only offers the previewing functionality, but also allows users to interactively fine-tune the desired results, thus making it a useful companion tool for facial cosmetic surgeries. Second, instead of exchanging the overall look of a face, as being done by some existing approaches, our system offers much finer granularity by allowing each and every facial feature to be changed individually and independently, thus achieving higher face-off flexibility. Third, while existing tools generally entail manual effort to locate or align facial features, our system, through the help of Active Shape Model or ASM for short, characterized by a scheme of automatic feature extraction, eliminates most of the needs of user assistance. Finally, for convenience, we have constructed a database of facial features to facilitate the facial feature alteration process. To justify our claims, we have rendered results and compared them with those from existing approaches to demonstrate the effectiveness of our system. We have also conducted a user study to further confirm the usefulness of such a system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

utomatic video content classification attracts much attention from researchers in multimedia analysis because the management of video content is a challenging task. In this paper, a visual feature representation composed of editing, color, texture and motion features is proposed which is shown to be effective in differentiating among various video contents. A modified Directed Acyclic Graph Support Vector Machine (DAGSVM) model as the classifier is also presented. Experiments show that the features extracted have improved the discriminative ability between different video contents and the computational complexity has also been reduced. By introducing the DAG policy, the performance of the classifier has been enhanced and the classification results demonstrate the precision and effectiveness of this approach, compared with the other two classification methods. In addition, the proposed algorithm can be applied to video searching and harmful-video content filtering, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital imaging has provided scientists with new opportunities to acquire and manipulate data using techniques that were difficult or impossible to employ in the past. Because digital images are easier to manipulate than film images, new problems have emerged. One growing concern in the scientific community is that digital images are not being handled with sufficient care. The problem is twofold: (1) the very small, yet troubling, number of intentional falsifications that have been identified, and (2) the more common unintentional, inappropriate manipulation of images for publication. Journals and professional societies have begun to address the issue with specific digital imaging guidelines. Unfortunately, the guidelines provided often do not come with instructions to explain their importance. Thus they deal with what should or should not be done, but not the associated 'why' that is required for understanding the rules. This article proposes 12 guidelines for scientific digital image manipulation and discusses the technical reasons behind these guidelines. These guidelines can be incorporated into lab meetings and graduate student training in order to provoke discussion and begin to bring an end to the culture of 'data beautification'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Especially in a constrained virtual environment, precise control of foot placement during character locomotion is crucial to avoid collisions and to ensure a natural locomotion. In this paper, we present an extension of the step space: a novel technique for generating animations of a character walking over a set of desired foot steps in real time. We use an efficient greedy nearest-neighbor approach and warp the resulting animation so that it adheres to both spatial and temporal constraints. We will show that our technique can generate realistic locomotion animations over an input path very efficiently even though we impose many constraints on the animation. We also present a simple footstep planning technique that automatically plans regular stepping and sidestepping based on an input path with clearance information generated by a path planner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the post-production stage of film making, the film editor is faced with large amounts of unedited raw material, called rushes. Developing tools to view and organize this material is an important component of video processing. This paper describes an approach for summarizing rushes video based on the detection of repetitive sequences, using a variant of the Smith-Waterman algorithm to find matching subsequences. We rely on the evaluation methodology that has been introduced in the TRECVID BBC Rushes Summarization Task. We propose an automation of the manual TRECVID evaluation using machine learning techniques to train an automatic assessor. We compare the automatic assessor evaluation to the evaluations provided by the TRECVID manual assessors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First-order editing violations in film refer either to small displacements of the camera position or to small changes of the image size. Second-order editing violations follow from a reversal of the camera position (reversed-angle shot), leading to a change of the left–right position of the main actors (or objects) and a complete change of the background. With third-order editing violations, the linear sequence of actions in the narrative story is not obeyed. The present experiment focuses on the eye movements following a new shot with or without a reversed-angle camera position. The findings minimize the importance of editing rules which require perceptually smooth transitions between shots; there is also no evidence that changes in the left–right orientation of objects in the scene disturb the visual processing of successive shots. The observed eye movements are due either to the redirecting of attention to the most informative part on the scene or to attention shifts by motion transients in the shot. There is almost no evidence for confusion and/or for activities to restore the spatial arrangement following the reversal of the left–right positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of film manipulation on men’s and women’s attitudes toward women and film editing. One hundred and seventy-four participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups. Three groups viewed a particular manipulation of the treatment film (i.e., uncut, mosaic-ed, or edited) The Accused, a movie about gang rape that was based on a true story. The fourth group served as a control. As predicted, men reported significantly higher levels of traditionalism and rape myth acceptance-related attitudes at the onset of the study, whereas women reported higher levels of empathic attitudes. Following the study, and as expected, women experienced significantly more attitude change as a result of viewing the treatment film; men’s rape myth-related attitudes nonetheless continued to exceed those of women. Finally, men’s positive attitudes toward favoring editing decreased as sexual violence increased, whereas women’s pro-editing attitudes increased as sexual violence increased. The theoretical implications of the study, as well as the impact of viewing sexual violence in a more reality-based, versus a more entertaining, forum are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the role of film cuts in facilitating the perceptual and cognitive organization of activity sequences. Dependence of segmentation behavior on the occurrence of breakpoints; Occurrence of more detailed recall protocols for sections of the film when cuts are accompanied by a breakpoint.

The article offers tips on film editing in student productions. Suggestions include depicting the film's time passing than the actual running time of the production, being aware of the time extension and making use of the "slow motion" device, and manipulating the scene's space by using the "Cross Cutting" editing technique. It also tackles the Post-Production phase of film and states that the editing devices functions through the innate abilities of human perception and understanding.

The article provides information on the factors to be considered in teaching film productions by inculcating visual literacy to K-12 student with the use of visual motion media, photography, and technology. It states that the literary criteria of media productions requires characters and conflict. Meanwhile, the production convention criteria requires color combination, lighting technique, camera angle selection, framing, editing, as well as sound and music.

This article explains that with Adobe Photoshop Elements v.3, working to color correct and enhance digital photos is now really easy. After years of dialogue boxes that require even the best minds to upgrade through training, Photoshop Elements now allows this entire process to be button and slide operated via the Quick Fix feature. This allows students to judge the immediate results on the screen from each adjustment they make. Sliders allow them to tweak light and darkness, hue, color saturation, contrast, color temperature, tint and sharpness.