In defining interactive story forms that will comprise the Movies of the Future, the MIT Media Lab is developing a range of new tools for filmmakers. One of those is Moviemaker's Workspace, a new previsualiation tool that allows cinematographers to create a set and experiment with the position of actors and cameras prior to shooting.
Developed by former MIT student Scott Higgins, the software, which runs on a Silicon Graphics workstation, allows previsualization and rapid prototyping of a scene in a 3-D environment. Blocking and camera placement/setup can be visualized using video representations of the actual actors and sets. The software breaks new ground by applying for the first time a cinematic language to previsualization in a 3-D environment, said Professor Glorianna Davenport, director of the Interactive Cinema Group at the Media Lab. "Up until now people have used storyboards and video for animatics. In powerful 3-D environments you texture map characters and actions into a 3-D space and then move the camera to find the right spot. An important part of our research is to map cinematic language onto camera moves so the animatic or storyboard artist does not have to specify every detail of framing at a point level."
In order to allow fast real-time manipulation of the characters on the set, the actors are represented as 2-D video objects in an otherwise 3-D environment. "Rather than spend a lot of time rendering lifelike images, (we) photograph the character every 22.5 degrees. We are able to approximate different positions," said Davenport.
The breakthroughs result in a quick and responsive system with "smart" capabilities. "Say you have two characters," said MIT student Dave Tamés. "You tell the system what kind of framing you want - master shot, close-up, whatever - and it will compute all the camera positions and create a starting point for you. You don't have to position each camera manually. Based on certain cinematic rules that the system is aware of, it will create a basic camera setup for the kind of shot you are looking for."
Beyond basic placement, the system can simulate tilts, pans, tracking shots and elevated crane shots. It can also simulate the view of each camera through lenses of different focal lengths. A script player creates a shot-by-shot time line.
Eventually, Moviemaker's Workspace will be integrated with other tools for making interactive movies. "Ultimately, all filmmakers will need previsualization in order to deal with the complex story scenarios of interactive cinema," said Davenport. -FB