1. A computer-implemented process for classifying visual concepts contained within a video clip based upon a prescribed set of target concepts, comprising process actions of: segmenting the clip into a plurality of shots, wherein each shot comprises a series of consecutive frames that represent a distinctive coherent visual theme; constructing a multi-layer multi-instance (MLMI) structured metadata representation of each shot; validating a set of pre-generated trained models of the target concepts using a set of training shots selected from the plurality of shots; recursively generating an MLMI kernel k MLMI ( ) which models the MLMI structured metadata representation of each shot by comparing prescribed pairs of shots; utilizing k MLMI ( ) to generate a learned objective decision function f( ) which learns a classifier for determining if a particular shot x, that is not in the set of training shots, comprises instances of the target concepts.