Abstract
Intelligent multimedia information retrieval deals with massive unstructured data, especially digital video. Structuring video data from elements to their meanings is a major challenge for researchers in artificial intelligence and multimedia systems. Generic approaches to structuring video data tend to model objects and events with their spatial or temporal relationships. Representing story structures has the potential to take automatic video content analysis a step further towards the level of human understanding. The striking changes of moving images provide more opportunities to watch TV and films in new ways. My hypothesis is that story structure in digital video can be represented in a computational perspective. Two research questions are asked: i) Can a formal description of story structure, i.e., plot units, be applied to full-length feature films? ii) Does using this story structure as a basis for hypervideo improve the user’s viewing experience of films? In addressing those questions, we make three contributions: i) Analysis of story structure in full-length feature films, ii) A system to author hypervideo and record users’ browsing behaviour, and iii) An experiment to test the hypothesis that a conceptual graph, plot unit formalism, can represent the story structure of feature films to enhance hypervideo browsing experience, in particular, with a view to understanding the story better. This research presents the first analysis of representing story structures in full-length feature films based on plot units. The Navigating Films (NAFI) system is the first software to explore the idea of hypervideo browsing for films, with representation of story structures based on plot units. This experiment is the first to evaluate the idea of hypervideo browsing for films on a large scale. In conclusion, two full-length feature films were analysed with plot units. A system was built and promising results suggest that it is possible to enhance the hypervideo browsing experience and to assist viewers in understanding the story better with plot unit formalism.