Scene Information Extraction Method by using a Structured Screenplay for Producing a Cast List

Abstract

The making of the cast list is an intermediate step in the video production. It is a list of the stages and the characters appearing in each scene. In Japan the cast list is derived from the screenplay manually, with someone getting out the information from the screenplay. To help with this step, the system studied in this paper proposes a structured screenplay which makes it possible to extract the necessary information automatically. With a structured screenplay, the writer makes annotations while analyzing the content. However, the annotations added at this step still do not provide enough information to produce a cast list. Therefore, we propose a system that is able to extract the additional required information. We have conducted experiments with producing a cast list from a structured screenplay. With the results of these experiments, we can confirm that it is possible to extract the information necessary to produce a cast list from a structured screenplay. We were also able to confirm that, by using this system, the time used for getting out the necessary information compared to working without this system, is shortened by about 30-40 percent. It has become evident that by using a structured screenplay together with this system, the production of cast lists becomes more efficient. Therefore this system will be helpful in production of video content.