Abstract: A method for authoring video documents includes the steps of inputting video data to be processed, segmenting the video data into shots by identifying breaks between the shots, subdividing the shots into subshots using motion analysis to provide location information for motions of objects of interest, describing boundaries for the objects of interest in the video data such that the objects of interest are represented by the boundaries in the shots and creating an anchorable information unit file based on the boundaries of the objects of interest such that objects of interest are used to identify portions of the video data. A system is also included.