Romeo & Juliet in Hades

Romeo & Juliet in Hades, 1998-99
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Romeo & Juliet in Hades, 1998-99
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Romeo & Juliet in Hades, 1998-99
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Romeo & Juliet in Hades, 1998-99
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Romeo & Juliet in Hades, 1998-99
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180 × 240

Romeo & Juliet in Hades, 1998-99
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Rome & Juliet in Hades is based on the play by Shakespeare. There are two main characters, Romeo and Juliet, in the story and, therefore, this story supplies a good example of multi-person participation. People have a strong desire to act out the role of hero or heroin. Therefore, it is expected that people can easily get involved in the movie world and experience the story. The main plot of the story is as follows. After their tragic suicide their souls are sent to Hades, where they find that they have totally lost their memory. Then they start their journey to rediscover who they are and what their relationship is. With various kinds of experiences and with the help and guidance of characters in Hades, they gradually find themselves again and finally go back to the real world.

There are two participants, one plays the role of Romeo and the other Juliet. The two subsystems are located in two separate rooms and connected by a LAN. Each participant stands in front of the screen of his/her respective system wearing specially designed clothes to which magnetic sensors and microphones are attached. In the case of Romeo, the participant wears a 3-D LCD-shutter glass and can enjoy 3-D scenes. Their avatars are on the screen and move according to their actions. They can also communicate by voice. Basically, the system controls the progress of the story with character animations and character dialogues. Depending on the voice and gesture reactions of the participants, the story moves on. Furthermore, as is described before, interaction at any time is possible. When the participants utter, the characters react, according to the emotion recognition results. Consequently, depending on the frequency of the participants' interaction, this system can go anywhere between story-dominant operation and impromptu interaction-dominant operation. Figure 10 illustrates typical interactions between the audience and the system.

(Naoko Tosa)