Publications

"The Structure of Narrative: the Case of Film Scripts", by Fionn Murtagh, Adam Ganz and Stewart McKie, in press, Pattern Recognition. http://arxiv.org/abs/0805.3799

... So what made Casablanca such a success? The answer could be revealed by script-reading software designed to help writers create blockbusters rather than flops. Such software is in hot demand in Hollywood, and over the past few years companies have been developing tools to help producers predict box-office takings, given a script and casting and budget information.

Now, a team at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK, has developed an algorithm to keep scriptwriters ahead of the game. The algorithm assesses how good a script is as it is being bashed out on the keyboard (F. Murtagh, A. Ganz & S. McKie Pattern Recognit.; in the press). Computer scientists Fionn Murtagh and Stewart McKie teamed up with screenwriter Adam Ganz to find an objective way to compare new scripts with successful ones in their genre. They analysed a selection of scripts from films deemed successful by critics to find common patterns.

discussed in Nature on June 4 2008, see
www.nature.com/news/2008/080604/full/453708a.html

and also at: http://arxivblog.com/?p=452