Retrieval of Visual Composition in Film

The spatial arrangement of visual elements of an image, i.e. the visual composition, is a research subject in the domain of visual arts which include painting, film, etc. Film experts face the problem of retrieval of visual compositions in film on a daily basis. Although, visual composition is a crucial element to consider in content-based video retrieval, little scientific effort has been invested into this problem so far. Actually, it is unclear if content-based retrieval of visual compositions is feasible. We present a user study conducted to investigate the feasibility of content-based retrieval of visual compositions as they are understood by film experts. For that reason, we create a data set derived from real world material and let the film experts evaluate the retrieval performance.The user study investigates the applicability of state-of-the-art visual features and shows differences in evaluations by film experts (test group) and computer scientists (reference group).