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This creative project consists of a short fiction film which is finished on DVD and features a full length video commentary. The video commentary is an invention of my own which utilizes an often overlooked element of DVD technology, the multi-angle ability, to effectively merge two of the most popular features of modern motion picture DVD releases: the director's commentary and the production documentary. The disk actually contains two tracks of video, each of identical length. One is the film; the other is a documentary on the making of the film, with certain sections that correspond in real time with events in the film. The user has the ability to switch between tracks at anytime for comparison. This to my knowledge has never been done before, and because of the enormous popularity of the DVD and these features, may find widespread application. This project, while only an exploration of its potential, shows that the idea has feasibility and legitimacy. / Department of Telecommunications

This study examines the traditional claim that in 1903, while an employee of the Edison Manufacturing Company, Edwin Stanton Porter discovered the principle of editing construction which made possible the fictional motion picture narrative. It will show that Edison studio policy in the period would have discouraged such an achievement and that the crucial first step in the elaboration of the early film narrative was the development of a compositional aesthetic derived from the staged or 'fake' newsreel. Based on that aesthetic between 1904 and 1907 film directors including Edwin Porter turned out a short-lived, tableau-action narrator-dependent story film in actuality style that became the basis of the nickelodeon boom dating from 1906. The social and industrial pressures engendered by that success led to the fragmentation of the complete action tableau and the displacement of the tableau narrative by a shot-dependent, autonomous narrative constrained by the formal features of actuality composition. The final chapter analyzes a leading example, the 1907 emergence of parallel editing in the production of one-reel screen tales of last-minute rescue.

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Thesis (M.Mus.)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In South Africa there has been an increase over the last few years in audio engineering courses which include modules of study in audio post-production or even offer audio post-production as a major focus of study. From an academic standpoint however, and despite the growth in the local film industry, very little study of this field has been undertaken in South Africa until recently. In 2005, a MMus thesis was submitted at the University of KwaZulu-Natal entitled Acoustic Ambience in Cinematography: An Exploration of the Descriptive and Emotional Impact of the Aural Environment (Turner, 2005: online). The thesis briefly outlines the basic components of the soundtrack and focuses on describing and analysing the properties of ambience, a sub-section of sound effects. At Stellenbosch University, research has recently begun in the fields of film music and Foley (sound effects associated with human movement onscreen). The purpose of this thesis is to provide an overview of audio post-production and the contribution of sound to the film medium. It provides an outline of the processes involved in creating a soundtrack for film and includes a description of the components of the soundtrack and recommendations for practical application. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Gedurende die afgelope paar jaar was daar ‘n toename in oudio-ingenieurskursusse, insluitend studiemodules in oudio post-produksie, en selfs ‘n aanbod vir modules in post-produksie as hoofstudierigting. Desnieteenstaande, en ten spyte van die groei in die plaaslike filmindustrie is tot onlangs min akademiese studies op dié terrein in Suid-Afrika onderneem. In 2005 is ‘n MMus-tesis aan die Universiteit van KwaZulu-Natal voorgelê, met die titel Acoustic Ambience in Cinematography: An Exploration of the Descriptive and Emotional Impact of the Aural Environment (Turner, 2005: aanlyn). Hierdie tesis gee ‘n basiese oorsig oor die basiese komponente van die klankbaan, en fokus op die beskrywing en analise van die eienskappe van ambience – ‘n onderafdeling van klankeffekte. By die Universiteit van Stellenbosch is onlangs ‘n begin gemaak met navorsing oor die terreine van filmmusiek en Foley, d.w.s. klankeffekte geassosieer met menslike bewegings op die skerm.. Hierdie tesis beoog om ‘n oorsig te gee van oudio post-produksie en die bydrae van klank tot die filmmedium. Dit verskaf ‘n oorsig oor die prosesse betrokke by die daarstelling van ‘n filmklankbaan en sluit ook in ‘n beskrywing van die komponente van die klankbaan en aanbevelings vir die praktiese toepassing daarvan.

Shadows in indoor scenarios are usually characterized with multiple light sources that produce complex shadow patterns of a single object. Without removing shadow, the foreground object tends to be erroneously segmented. The inconsistent hue and intensity of shadows make automatic removal a challenging task. In this thesis, a dynamic thresholding and transfer learning-based method for removing shadows is proposed. The method suppresses light shadows with a dynamically computed threshold and removes dark shadows using an online learning strategy that is built upon a base classifier trained with manually annotated examples and refined with the automatically identified examples in the new videos. Experimental results demonstrate that despite variation of lighting conditions in videos our proposed method is able to adapt to the videos and remove shadows effectively. The sensitivity of shadow detection changes slightly with different confidence levels used in example selection for classifier retraining and high confidence level usually yields better performance with less retraining iterations.

Virtual Reality (VR) video is emerging as a new art form. Viewing VR video requires wearing the VR headset to fully experience the immersive surrounding of the content. However, the novel viewing experience of VR video creates new challenges and requirements for conventional video authoring tools, which were designed mainly for working with normal video on a desktop display. Designing effective authoring tools for VR video requires intuitive video interfaces specific to VR. This dissertation develops new workflows and systems that enable filmmakers to create and improve VR video while fully immersed in a VR headset. We introduce a series of authoring tools that enables filmmakers to work with video in VR: 1) Vremiere, an in-headset video editing application that enables editors to edit VR video entirely in the headset, 2) CollaVR, a networked system that enables multiple users to collaborate and review video together in VR, and 3) a set of techniques to assist filmmakers in managing and accessing interfaces in stereoscopic VR video without suffering depth conflicts. The design of these applications is grounded in existing practices and principles learned in interviews with VR professionals. A series of studies is conducted to evaluate these systems, which demonstrate the potential of in-headset video authoring.