WS_Towards Applying the Virtual Director Concept to 360 Degree Video Content

This paper aims to contribute to the discussion on 360◦ video storytelling. It describes the ’Virtual Director’ concept, an enabling technology that was developed to personalize video presentation in applications where multiple live streams are available at the same time. Users are supported in dynamically changing viewpoints, as the Virtual Director essentially auto- mates the tasks of a human director. As research prototypes on a proof-of-concept maturity level, this approach has been evaluated for personalized live event broadcast, group video communication and distributed theatre performances. While on the capture side a 180◦ high-resolution panoramic video feed has been used in one of these application scenarios, so far, only traditional 2D video screen were investigated for playout. The research question this paper aims to contribute to is how technology in general, and an adaptation of the Virtual Direc- tor concept in particular, could assist users in their needs when consuming 360◦ content, both live and recorded. In contexts when users do not want to enjoy the freedom to look into any direction, or when content creators want them to look in a cer- tain direction, how could the interaction with and intervention of a Virtual Director be applied from a storytelling point of view?