''Yoostar'' is a video-based gaming system developed by Yoostar Entertainment Group that allows users to insert themselves into movie or television scenes to perform with the films' original actors and post the resultant video on the Yoostar web site, as well as in third-party

social networking A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...

environments like Facebook, YouTube or MySpace. The game is a video karaoke, judging individuals performances. YooStar Entertainment's first product – ''YooStar 1'', for PC and Mac – was initially released in an exclusive marketing partnership with the Bloomingdale's department store chain on August 26, 2009.

Gameplay

To populate the ''Yoostar'' clip library, in-house artists digitally erase actors or other key figures in a licensed film or television clip. The company has patented this technique. Users film themselves saying either the original lines from the clip using the software's teleprompter, or ad-libbing their own versions. A chalk outline is overlaid on the scene to help position the user in scale with the other actors. Users are allowed as many takes as needed to get a satisfactory result. The software then composites the user's filmed content with the original clip in the same fashion Hollywood actors are filmed against

green screen Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to r ...

s on set and inserted into digitally created backgrounds. The final product is then labeled and stored on the user's local machine, with the option to upload it to Yoostar's website. The site provides the ability to embed content in any Flash-supporting HTML environment using raw code, or in blogging platforms and social networking sites such as Facebook. Yoostar site users can rate, comment, and share content with the public or a group of "

Friends ''Friends'' is an American television sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994, to May 6, 2004, lasting ten seasons. With an ensemble cast starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa ...

," depending on each clip's settings.

Yoostar 2

On Tuesday June 15, 2010, to coincide with the beginning of the 2010

Electronic Entertainment Expo E3 (short for Electronic Entertainment Expo or Electronic Entertainment Experience in 2021) is a trade event for the video game industry. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) organizes and presents E3, which many developers, publisher ...

, Yoostar announced a second version of the game and launched a new website called ''Yoostar 2''. ''Yoostar 2'' is playable via the Xbox 360 (

Kinect Kinect is a line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB cameras, and infrared projectors and detectors that map depth through either structured light or time of flig ...

required) and PlayStation 3 ( PlayStation Eye required, PlayStation Move optional) video game consoles. ''Yoostar 2'' includes 80 film scenes from major Hollywood studios. ''Yoostar 2'' for the Xbox 360

and PlayStation Move released in North America on March 8, 2011. In the fall of 2011, Yoostar cooperated with MTV to allow users to star in scenes from MTV's TV shows and music videos. ''Yoostar on MTV'' for Xbox 360

released in North America on November 15, 2011.

References

External links

* {{official website, https://web.archive.org/web/20090819103151/http://www.yoostar.com:80/ Entertainment software Film and video technology 2011 video games PlayStation 3 games Video game franchises Xbox 360 games PlayStation Move-compatible games Kinect games MacOS games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Windows games