Sensor networks for media production

Emerging sensor network technologies will enhance entertainment production, providing both increased expressive capabilities and significant cost savings. The authors explore fundamental challenges of deploying sensor networks for production, concentrating here on feature film sets and networked sensing in support of on-set activity. Film sequences are captured in an order driven by economics and logistics, which often differs drastically from the order presented to an audience. Scenes captured in ‘production time’ must be visually consistent when reassembled during editing. This demo’s driver application is continuity management, which uses records of environmental conditions on the set to support repeatable action by the cast and crew and a consistent environment among many ‘takes’ of many ‘shots’ of many ‘scenes’. Techniques developed will ultimately also enhance the creative flexibility of directors and cinematographers by decreasing setup time and providing additional information for post-production. Given a scene, the system will record lighting equipment used, locations of lights, camera, and actors, as well as light intensity measurements, by fusing data from several different sources. All data is stored and synchronized with each video frame via an interface to a standard SMPTE time clock source on the set. The data will be available during the shoot through an 802.11b connected tablet PC.