Rewriting Video: Text-Driven Reauthoring of Video Footage
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Abstract (arXiv)
Video is a powerful medium for communication and storytelling, yet reauthoring existing footage remains challenging. Even simple edits often demand expertise, time, and careful planning, constraining how creators envision and shape their narratives. Recent advances in generative AI suggest a new paradigm: what if editing a video were as straightforward as rewriting text? To investigate this, we present a tech probe and a study on text-driven video reauthoring. Our approach involves two technical contributions: (1) a generative reconstruction algorithm that reverse-engineers video into an editable text prompt, and (2) an interactive probe, Rewrite Kit, that allows creators to manipulate these prompts. A technical evaluation of the algorithm reveals a critical human-AI perceptual gap. A probe study with 12 creators surfaced novel use cases such as virtual reshooting, synthetic continuity, and aesthetic restyling. It also highlighted key tensions around coherence, control, and creative alignment in this new paradigm. Our work contributes empirical insights into the opportunities and challenges of text-driven video reauthoring, offering design implications for future co-creative video tools.
Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 11 of its 29 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 13 Jan 2026.
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References · 11
- 2022CoAuthor: Designing a Human-AI Collaborative Writing Dataset for Exploring Language Model Capabilitiescited by 245
- 2021Design Guidelines for Prompt Engineering Text-to-Image Generative Modelscited by 216
- 2025Video models are zero-shot learners and reasonerscited by 208
- 2019Text-based Editing of Talking-head Videocited by 102
- 2023Promptify: Text-to-Image Generation through Interactive Prompt Exploration with Large Language Modelscited by 67
- 2024PromptCharm: Text-to-Image Generation through Multi-modal Prompting and Refinementcited by 61
- 2025Reconstruction Alignment Improves Unified Multimodal Modelscited by 48
- 2022How to Prompt? Opportunities and Challenges of Zero- and Few-Shot Learning for Human-AI Interaction in Creative Applications of Generative Modelscited by 43
- 2019B-Script: Transcript-based B-roll Video Editing with Recommendationscited by 16
- 2023PodReels: Human-AI Co-Creation of Video Podcast Teaserscited by 12
- 2024Copying style, Extracting value: Illustrators' Perception of AI Style Transfer and its Impact on Creative Laborcited by 8
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