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Video Structure Meaning
Brian C. O'Connor and Richard L. Anderson
www.morganclaypool.com
ISBN: 9781681736471 Paperback
ISBN: 9781681736488 eBook
ISBN: 9781681736495 Hardcover
DOI 10.2200/S00945ED1V01Y201908ICR068
A Publication in the Morgan & Claypool Publishers series
SYNTHESIS LECTURES ON INFORMATION CONCEPTS, RETRIEVAL, AND SERVICES
Lecture #68
Series Editor: Gary Marchionini, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Series ISSN 1947-945X Print 1947-9468 Electronic
Video Structure Meaning
Brian C. O’Connor and Richard L. Anderson
e University of North Texas
SYNTHESIS LECTURES ON INFORMATION CONCEPTS, RETRIEVAL,
AND SERVICES #68
M
&C
MORGAN
&
CLAYPOOL PUBLISHERS
xii
ABSTRACT
For over a century, motion pictures have entertained us, occasionally educated us, and even served
a few specialized elds of study. Now, however, with the precipitous drop in prices and increase in
image quality, motion pictures are as widespread as paperback books and postcards once were. Yet,
theories and practices of analysis for particular genres and analytical stances, denitions, concepts,
and tools that span platforms have been wanting. erefore, we developed a suite of tools to enable
close structural analysis of the time-varying signal set of a movie. We take an information-theoretic
approach (message is a signal set) generated (coded) under various antecedents (sent over some
channel) decoded under some other set of antecedents. Cultural, technical, and personal anteced-
ents might favor certain message-making systems over others. e same holds true at the recipient
endyet, the signal set remains the signal set.
In order to discover how movies worktheir structure and meaningwe honed ways to
provide pixel level analysis, forms of clustering, and precise descriptions of what parts of a signal
inuence viewer behavior. We assert that analysis of the signal set across the evolution of lm—
from Edison to Hollywood to Brakhage to cats on social media—yields a common ontology with
instantiations (responses to changes in coding and decoding antecedents).
KEYWORDS
computational lm analysis, video structure, functional ontology, photons in and out
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Contents
Preface ................................................................ xvii
Acknowledgments ....................................................... xix
1 Introduction ....................................................... . 1
1.1 Trailer: Movies as Structured Collections of Photographs ............... 1
1.2 Origin Stories ................................................. 6
1.2.1 Brian Mise en Scène ...................................... 6
1.2.2 Rich Mise en Scène ..................................... 10
2 Five Stories to a Model of Video Structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1 Story One: Mirror with a Memory ................................. 13
2.1.1 Just What Is a Photograph? ............................... 13
2.1.2 Photons In, Photons Out ................................. 15
2.2 Story Two: First Steps .......................................... 17
2.2.1 Background ............................................ 17
2.2.2 Inadequacy of Current Access Tools ......................... 17
2.2.3 Elements for a Surrogate .................................. 19
2.2.4 Discussion ............................................. 22
2.3 Story ree: Key Frames ........................................ 22
2.3.1 Problem Setting ......................................... 24
2.3.2 Units of Meaning ....................................... 28
2.3.3 Analysis Environment .................................... 30
2.3.4 Document Discrimination ................................ 31
2.3.5 Results ................................................ 32
2.3.6 Key Frames and Structure Patterns .......................... 32
2.3.7 Pedagogical Environment ................................. 33
2.4 Story Four: Functional Ontology .................................. 34
2.4.1 Looking to the Practice of Film Editing ..................... 36
2.4.2 Automating the Semiotic Analysis of Film ................... 37
2.4.3 e Structure of Moving Image Documents .................. 37
2.4.4 Diculties for Bellour ................................... 39
2.4.5 Binary Systems of Structure and Function .................... 40
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