Video editing is always a bit of a hassle, especially when dealing with more complex editing tasks, such as editing an object or person across multiple frames. This week, Adobe released a short video demonstrating new video editing capabilities that the company has developed in their Advanced Technology Lab, based around the idea of object manipulation within video instead of merely editing video footage itself. Among the tools demonstrated are the ability to add drawings and text to moving objects, overlaying arrows to illustrate the path taken by an object or person, inserting thought bubbles that move with their assigned individuals, etc.

More impressively, because the tools are designed around object manipulation, they allow you to create scenes that simply didn’t exist before in the original footage. For example, objects in a scene may be dragged into a different location from their original placement or facial expressions may be generated from a series of other facial movements. In short, if these tools ever make it to a consumer-level application, it will turn us all into video wizards.