Call for Papers

Research Center “Media Upheavals” (SFB/FK 615)

Digital Tools in Film Studies
Analysis & Research
A Transdisciplinary Workshop

18-19 June 2007 at the University of Siegen, Germany

Digital tools are of increasing importance in film scholarship. For example, they can easily store and supply large quantities of data, or they can perform certain analysis jobs without human intervention. At the transdisciplinary Research Center “Media Upheavals”, film scholars and computer scientists regularly discuss areas of use for digital tools and ways of optimizing them. At our workshop “Digital Tools in Film Studies: Analysis and Research”, we want to continue and deepen this discussion with scholars and scientists from Germany and abroad.

The workshop will cover three focal subjects:

(1) Theoretical framework

Using digital tools in film studies is not (yet) commonplace, and there are still a number of questions to be answered. In what areas can digital tools already be applied? What kinds of tools could and should be developed in future? How much human intervention is necessary? What new areas of research can be explored with the use of digital tools? In what ways would this change the work of scholars?
Film scholars and computer scientists will discuss these and other questions with theoreticians of computing in humanities.

(2) Areas of use

(a) Film analysis

A number of projects have developed or are currently developing software for film analysis. These range from aids for creating a shot list to powerful analysis tools that recognize cuts, shot size and other parameters.
Computer scientists will present the technology and scope of their tools as well as current and future projects to apply them, and discuss them with colleagues and users.

(b) Film databases

Especially in film historiography databases play an important role for storing and managing large quantities of data. Apart from semi-commercial and institutional databases like the “Internet Movie Database” (www.imdb.com) or the German “Filmportal” (www.filmportal.de) there is a large number of databases created by or for scholarly projects, with a wide range of structures and contents, depending on each project’s specific interests. For some time now, some of these projects have taken up international exchange, which in the long run should lead to closer linkage and increased compatibility between the databases involved.
Developers of film databases will present their work und discuss their concepts, technical solutions, interconnectability and perspectives.

(3) Technical challenges

The development of digital tools – especially in the area of film analysis – poses a number of challenges to computer scientists. How can images be recognized, stored and retrieved in a way that reflects the human interpretation of those images (“semantic gap”)? How can the great demand for resources be met (“media grid”)?

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Since we want to encourage international participation, we kindly ask participants to present their papers in English.
We plan to publish the proceedings of the workshop in 2008.
Please send your proposals corresponding to one of the three focal subjects by 18 March 2007 to both of the following organizers: Michael Ross <ross(at)fk615.uni-siegen.de> and Jens Wagner <jens.wagner(at)informatik.uni-siegen.de>. Your proposal should not exceed a length of 500 words. Please add a short CV with information on your relevant publications (max. 150 words).