In story-based communication, where a message is conveyed in story form, it is important to embody the story with expressive materials. However, it is quite difficult for users to create rich multimedia contents using multimedia editing tools. This paper proposes a web-based multimedia environment, SPOC (Stream-oriented Public Opinion Channel), aiming at helping non-skillful people to convert their stories into TV-like programs very easily. The system can produce a digital camera work for graphics and video clips as well as generate an agent animation automatically according to a narration text. Findings in evaluation experiments showed that SPOC is easy-to-use and easy-to-learn for novice users. Given a short instruction, the subjects not only mastered the operations of the software, but also succeeded in creating highly original programs. In subjective evaluation, the subjects answered that they enjoyed using the software without feeling difficulty. These results suggest that this system reduces user's cost in making a program, and encourages communication in a network community.

In virtue of great progress in computer graphics technologies, CG movies have been getting popular. However, cinematography techniques, which contribute to improving the contents' comprehensibility, need to be learned from professional experiences, and not easily acquired by non-professional people. This paper focuses on film cutting as one of the most important cinematography techniques in conversational scenes, and presents a system that automatically generates shot transitions to improve comprehensibility of CG contents. First, we propose a cognitive model of User Involvement serving as constraints on selecting shot transitions. Then, to examine the validity of the model, we analyze shot transitions in TV programs, and based on the analysis, we implement a CG contents creation system. Results of our preliminary evaluation experiment show the effectiveness of the proposed method, specifically in enhancing contents' comprehensibility.