Digital cameras make it easy for filmmakers to record hours of video for each minute that appears on screen. But in between the set and the movie theater, film editors must sift through all that raw footage to put together the first rough cut of what will become the final production.

Now, a team of computer scientists at Stanford have built an editing tool that can help film editors make a rough cut in minutes rather than hours, so they can spend more time on the creative work of designing narratives.

The team is spearheaded by computer science graduate student Mackenzie Leake and team leader Maneesh Agrawala, a professor of computer science at Stanford, said the current software is designed to help human film editors make rough cuts based on scenes involving two or more characters engaged in dialogue.

Eventually, Agrawala envisions using this editing tool during the actual filming of a scene. For instance, film editors could quickly process the raw footage and then whip up a few rough cuts to see whether extra takes are necessary. “It’s still going to require a professional editor to produce a professional-quality edit,” said Agrawala. “But it should make their job much easier and allow them to be more creative and explore the design space of possible edits much more easily.”

Read the entire article by Shara Tonn HERE