The Realto Live Cinema project.

A realto (rēăl-tō) is a new, hybrid form of visual storytelling -- part live narrative, part pre-recorded movie, part text, part electronic theater -- all coming together in a unified, blended experience perhaps best described as Live Cinema.

In a realto, the live storytelling "sayer," working on a special greenscreen stage, is also simultaneously inserted as a live actor into a sayer-controlled, interactive "movie" world that unfolds on two immediately adjacent projection screens.

What the realto audience ("seers") experience is intentionally ambiguous, connected and yet disconnected -- live versus pre-recorded, three dimensional versus two dimesional, aural/visual versus textual.

The invented term "realto" is comprehensive: it describes the means of its production, i.e., the realto toolset, digital and physical; the means of its delivery, i.e., the realto electronic theater or story-space; and the artistic result, i.e., the realto story experience.

An over-arching goal of the Realto project is to enable individual artists, individual artist-engineers, individual "artineers" or "realtoists" -- call yourself what you will -- to be largely self-sufficient while creating the realto, performing the realto and even transporting the realto.

To the degree possible, realto software and schematics are designed as open source works-in-progress to encourage do-it-yourself experimentation and exploration. Carpe diem!

• https://tree.taiga.io/project/jnevin-realto/ -- to be made public soon

This repository contains versioned software application tools and templates for the Realto Live Cinema project.

The Realto Live Cinema application is Mac-OSX-only software. The application's components are built on top of three foundation frameworks:

• Quartz Composer
• CoGeVJ
• Vezer

The application has four main components:

• the Cue Manager -- connects the live realto "sayer" to timed realto media playback
• the Timeline Manager -- synchronizes and triggers media playback and theatrical events
• the Media Manager -- organizes, mixes and projects layered playback media, live greenscreen and special effects
• the Text Manager -- coordinates display of sequenced text media with other playback media

Communication between these four components is over the local IP network, primarily via OSC, Open Sound Control. The application uses other protocols such as DMX and ART-NET to control lighting and MIDI for certain types of device input.

The project uses Quartz Composer to create its Cue Manager and its Text Manager. Quartz Composeer is a free developer tool bundled with Mac OS X.

The Cue Manager responds to messages from OSC-enabled and MIDI-enabled interactive devices that are available to the live realto sayer (the realto's narrator/actor). In turn, sending OSC messages of its own, the Cue Manager triggers playhead movement in the realto's Timeline Manager, cueing media playback and other theater events.

The Text Manager responds to OSC messages from the Timeline Manager in order to advance through the realto's sequence of text clips, which are then displayed via the Media Manager.

The project uses CoGeVJ to create its Media Manager. CoGeVJ is an amazing, low-cost commercial VJ software app from Imimot.

The Media Manager manages a realto's audio/visual media, such as video clips, images, effects and layers, and live streams from video cameras and green screen. The Media Manager's interactive mixer responds to OSC messages from the Timeline Manager, composites the media and then displays it for projection.

The project uses Vezer to create its Timeline Manager. Vezer is a unique, low-cost commercial sequencer software app also from Imimot -- amazing, as well!

The Timeline Manager is realto "communications central." It receives OSC message inputs from the sayer-controlled Cue Manager. In response, it moves its playhead through the realto composition timeline.

Each timeline's composition contains a set of synchronized media control tracks that trigger events in the Media Manager with outbound OSC messages.

• Early Realto template for CoGeVJ Media Manager.

• Add Vezer Realto Timeline Manager model
• Add Cue Manager Quartz Composer tool
• Add Text Manager Quartz Composer tool with Syphon server support
• Fine tune CoGeVJ Realto template
• Normalize sample media
• Provide sample project
• Provide quickstart installation instructions and FAQ