Detection of setting and subject information in documentary video

The interpretation of video information is a difficult task for computer vision and machine intelligence. We examine the utility of a non-image based source of information about video contents, namely the shot list, and study its use in aiding image interpretation. We show how the shot list may be analysed to produce a simple summary of the "who and where" of a documentary or interview video. In order to detect the subject of a video, we use the notion of a "shot syntax" of a particular genre to isolate actual interview sections.