ANSWER

ANSWER was a new approach to the creative process of film and game production. Musicians and choreographers have long been able to express their intentions using logical symbolic structures (music notation and dance notation), yet those working in the movie industry and the games industry have to rely on cartoons and verbal description, and the only record of their artistry is the result itself. The ANSWER project sought to develop a practical implementation of Director Notation – a means for film directors to express and communicate their shooting intentions using a notation akin to musical or choreographic scores.

IT Innovation developed the semantics necessary to interpret Director Notation consistently for all users (directors, producers, DoPs, grips, post-production, lighting, etc) and created the User Interface that makes Director Notation usable and helpful for everyone involved in film production. In its initial stages the project was mainly concerned with film production (and other media applications such as commercials, pop videos, 3D effects, cartoons and computer graphics). However, the film and games industries are converging in the way that their creative content is perceived by consumers, so we extended the results to include the needs of the games industry, thus offering a bridge between digital media production and animation for game design.

To see how IT Innovation's information architects supported this exciting new approach to filmmaking, take a look at the ANSWER Consortium website or download the latest Notation Editor and Notation Reader distributions.

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ANSWER received EC research funding.