Multilinear Storytelling

Adobe has provided the powerful video-editing tool, Premiere, which shifts video editing from linear to so-called "non-linear" processes. Video editors don't need to sequence the video shots linearly anymore. They can keep jumping from one point to another during the editing process, and reduce the time moving all those shots back-and-forth.

However, Premiere, as well as most video-editing tool to-date, facilitates people to solve only half of the problem of modern video editing. The story delivered through the video media is not edited in a non-linear, or more precisely, multi-linear, way with some particular tool. The stories are mostly created and represented linearly with text, which is a linear form itself. Only the profound directors or editors can organize the complicated multi-linear story structure and create aesthetically good video with such a tool.

In other words, to help people to edit the video content, it is now the time to help people to edit their stories.

"Multilinear Storytelling" means that, as in many of the Hollywood films nowdays and other storytelling forms, stories tend to be told in a multi-thread fashion. The story goes on as each of the intertwined lines in the story evolves, and as the corelations among these lines vary. I am trying to apply commonsense reasoning into such a tool that helps people to create and organize multi-linear stories (in the video form) more efficiently and enjoyably. I believe the project website is gonna lauch soon, and I think it's something interesting to look forward to.