The mad scientists at Disney Research have developed a new way to film big, sweeping scenes in a fraction of the time.
Imagine you’re at a Beyoncé concert, and everyone’s eyes are looking at the same thing: Beyoncé. (Duh.) Since everyone is looking at the same thing, but from different angles, the algorithm can edit together all that footage, and approximate a final product that an editor would otherwise have to assemble piecemeal.
“Though each individual has a different view of the event, everyone is typically looking at, and therefore recording, the same activity–the most interesting activity,” Yaser Sheikh, an associate research professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University tells PhysOrg. “By determining the orientation of each camera, we can calculate the gaze concurrence, or 3D joint attention, of the group. Our automated editing method uses this as a signal indicating what action is most significant at any given time.”
If you look at the news channels, you’ll see cam ops. Even steadicams. When it’s serious…it has people. Still, no need to leave the industry. Learn the new skills.
Thankfully at CNN all of our prime time shows still use 4-6 cameras run by people, although robotics are increasingly creeping in. I rue the day a natural-feeling, smooth, human-like face recognition and follow system is developed. That will be the day this industry dies a tragic death.
Normally every scene in a movie has some reason to be, perhaps plot development, perhaps building tension, perhaps foreshadowing. It is not just cutting for continuity. MIGHT be useful in a sports broadcast where the action is more or less preprogramed (back and forth) but even that would miss the stolen puck, or the interception in the back field.
This theory/software can only work with Social Media photography. This will NEVER fly in Televisions shows or movies. Do to the fact there is no emotional cutting, nor CU of people reactions. Nearly follows an object in 3D space and try’s not to jump-cut. Read the white papers
I think it should be noted here that TV stations no longer do TV shows. They do plenty of news, but nothing you could call a ‘show.’
As far as the switchboard operator, letting them all go was moronic. The station looses money. When a potential client calls and has to wait to hit 7 to get sales, then after hitting 7 they get another menu to get a human. That’s insane. Speaking in a language that management can understand, you are loosing money.
and gosh how great movies etc are these days… he said…
Computers just do not have the ‘heart and soul’ of a camera operator. Too much pre-programming by Directors for shots on programs. Example: if actor Ed Ames did the infamous tomahawk throw on Tonight now, would the camera had picked it up as impulsively via robotics? It is those ‘magic moments’ that are now lost to automation.
Meh. Any monkey can throw shots together at random; it takes an EDITOR to know what they *mean.*
Thanks to Charlie Huntley, one of the busiest guys in television, here’s something that kind of puts thing in perspective.