CORA has been an unusual first project for a voice designer.
Why?
Because it was no attempt at creating a voice interaction — CORA is an original voice character.
In 2005, my co-producer Jochim and I had secured the rights to adapt the German language SF book series MARK BRANDIS into full cast audio drama. The series chronicles the adventures of a spacefaring test pilot in a time roughly 100 years in the future.
In general, to adapt novels into full cast audio, substantial changes need to be made and decided upon. In these books, the computer mainframe is a bulky thing that needs to be re-programmed every time the spaceship changes course. That would not do for us, we wanted to have a fully fleshed out character.
This soon blossomed into the first iterations of a persona, although at the time I did not know what that was:
CORA (acronym for „Central Oral Response Avatar“) functions as the universal interface between the human crew members and the ship, covering all the interaction in multiple instances simultaneously, thus allowing the ship commander to engage in an evaluation of strategic options while advising a crew member on their preferred choices for lunch and maintaining routine voice-based interaction with ground central. CORA’s voice patterns are built on the signature of one space agency employee NINNI PERSBRANDT, assistant of a Dr. Tyrell (!) in A.I. research. In consequence, the system appears in the acoustic form of a female scientist in her 30s. The voice engages in conversations in a friendly yet always neutral demeanor. This, along with CORA’s complete lack of comprehension for humor, will allow for a multitude of situations and a chance for comic relief.
Upon mention of her name, CORA will respond with a chirp. After having received a subsequent instruction or request, the go-to reply will be „Understood, [crew member rank].“ CORA will stop listening for new instructions after ten seconds and needs to be re-addressed by name afterwards.
(excerpt of series bible translated from the original German)
RECORDING AND IMPACT
We refined the design further, and a voice actress (left) was cast to record the utterances. Here we took special care to create the requested sense of stoicism and neutrality that should still allow for her persona to be perceived as friendly. Since A.I.s do not breathe, the actress was instructed to keep her inhaling separate from her sentences so we could edit that out.
CORA’s public debut was in May 2007, four years before the idea of personal voice assistant interaction became a popular feature with Apple’s SIRI.
To give CORA „more to do“ through the run of the series, I gradually increased the challenges. CORA would eventually engage in debates about regulations at the most inopportune moments, participate in a conspiracy and continue to mis-understand humor as well as any human declarations of affection or dislike.
CORA turned out to be an unqualified success.
Listeners adopted the new character instantly, leading to demand for a RINGTONE with a classic character punchline, a voice file for navigation devices as well as T-Shirts with the CORA logo.
The voice actress tells me she is still running into fans of the series asking her for autographs.