NU 2014-079
Inventors
Lawrence A. Birnbaum*
Kristian J Hammond
Patrick S. McNally
Jason Gabriel Cohn
Rachel S. Birnbaum
Short Description
A platform that dynamically constructs scripts for live theatrical experiences by drawing online content, assembling it into scripts, and delivering it to actors in real time
Background
The development of automatic content has roots in both the computer science and theatre disciplines. Computer science has used machine curation to assemble online content based on a set of rhetorical goals. Once the content of the narrative has been determined, online content is retrieved, filtered and assembled to meet those goals, and then presented using text-to-speech technology voiced by animated characters. On the theatre side, content has previously been generated through manual curation. Here, a human author generates a script by selecting and ordering excerpts of content.
Abstract
Northwestern inventors have developed a technology that uses automatic content generation to produce a dynamic theater experience using online content. This technology combines computer science with theatre and is capable of generating real-time automatic scripts into a larger overall narrative according to a predetermined set of rhetorical goals. The overall narrative determines the nature of the content and how it will be arranged. As a result, a back-and-forth style discussion can be created using, for example, movie reviews, in which a dialogue is generated using positive and negative reviews. While other methods of dialogue generation have used human selection and ordering of content, this technology utilizes computer algorithms. Likewise, instead of using text-to-speech or animated characters to present the content, human actors deliver lines, and finally, instead of preproduction of scripts, the dialogue is assembled and delivered in real time to human actors. This technology captures the diversity and dynamic nature of online content to create a unique and engaging experience that can be time-dependent, localized and/or personalized.
Applications
Advantages
IP Status
A US patent application has been filed.