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M. Zeppelzauer, D. Mitrovic, C. Breiteneder:
"Automatic Analysis - First Results in Shot Boundary Detection";
Maske und Kothurn, 55 (2009), 3; 45 - 59.

The project Digital Formalism: The Vienna Vertov Collection1 is a joint effort of archivists,
film- and computer scientists with the goal of gaining insights into the work of the Sovjet
avant-garde filmmaker Dziga Vertov (1896-1954). The project partners are the Austrian Film
Museum, the Department for Theatre, Film and Media Studies at the University of Vienna,
and the Interactive Media Systems Group at the Vienna University of Technology. We
present work and results in the context of this project from the perspective of computer
science.
In this project, we address the development of automatic film analysis methods that should
assist film theorists in their work. The films of Dziga Vertov have not been subject to
automatic analyses, so far. Vertov is famous for his highly formalized style of making films,
containing spatio-temporal structures and montage patterns that follow complex (sometimes
hidden) rules and artistic principles. The film material provided by the Austrian film museum
poses challenges to all areas of content-based analysis due to its complex temporal structure
and due to substantial degradations.