Semi-Automatic Film-Direction Technique In Internet-Based Interactive Entertainment Nikoletta Mavrogeorgi, Yannis Christodoulou, Petros Kalogirou National Technical University of Athens Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering Zografou 157 73, Athens, Greece nikimav@telecom.ntua.gr , yannis@telecom.ntua.gr Abstract Interactive entertainment permits users to participate actively. In this paper, we consider the importance of cinematic presentation in internet-based interactive entertainment. We propose that a tool for the artistic and technical representation of presentation-layer demands of interactive entertainment already exists: a system called DirectorNotation. This system can provide the ability for the creation of artistically significant, adaptive, context sensitive, interactive, actionable multimedia content. In the work that has been presented so far on DirectorNotation, the applications that are considered target the professional film director in his filming activities to produce better results, or consider the “Artificial Intelligence” possibilities of exploiting a knowledge model of film directing. In this paper, we aim to create a connection to the domain of interactive entertainment, showing that this application area can achieve highly promising improvements by exploiting the suggested technology combination. Key-words: Interactive entertainment, interactive storytelling, DirectorNotation 1. Introduction Nowadays, interactive entertainment is demanded more and more and with as many ways as possible. The aim of interactive entertainment is to permit to the user to participate actively or/and change the flow of a show, a game story or even of a film or a TV series that is created using people advice. Today, users don’t make do with only watching a story or show or playing a computer game with amazing 3D graphics, but with a predefined story. They want to participate and follow a story that its continuation is created in real-time according to their choices, intentions and preferences. In order the creative user interaction to be achieved, it is necessary for the content that will be adapted to have been created with a tool, easy in use, that permits authors to describe a flexible scenario for a scene, a dynamic situation, a character behaviour, interesting camera motion and inter-character relations and adaptive camera settings, lighting, etc. Some of these aspects involve customizing the story itself. Other aspects are related to the presentation of the story. In this paper, we make the suggestion that DirectorNotation can be a useful tool for precisely the latter aspect given above, i.e. the presentation layer of interactive entertainment. Especially in a multi-user, fast-paced internet-based interactive story experience, the presentation capabilities need to be highly sophisticated – dynamic and adaptive and aesthetically well formed. DirectorNotation is a symbolic language that describes the conceptual content of a film/video creation [1][2][3][15]. It describes actors’ movements, camerawork and lighting, allowing extremely expressiveness. It is as music notes that provide a