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United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
2.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motion pictures. The Academys corporate management and general policies are overseen by a Board of Governors, the roster of the Academys approximately 6,000 motion picture professionals is a closely guarded secret. While the great majority of its members are based in the United States, the Academy is known around the world for its annual Academy Awards, now officially known as The Oscars. The Academy plans to open the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles in 2017, the notion of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences began with Louis B. He said he wanted to create an organization that would mediate labor disputes without unions and he met with actor Conrad Nagel, director Fred Niblo, and the head of the Association of Motion Picture Producers, Fred Beetsonto to discuss these matters. The idea of this elite club having a banquet was discussed. They also established that membership into the organization would only be open to people involved in one of the five branches of the industry, actors, directors, writers, technicians, and producers. That evening Mayer presented to those guests what he called the International Academy of Motion Picture Arts, everyone in the room that evening became a founder of the Academy. Several organizational meetings were held prior to the first official meeting held on May 6,1927 and their first organizational meeting was held on May 11. At that meeting Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was elected as the first president of the Academy, while Fred Niblo was the first vice-president and that night, the Academy also bestowed its first honorary membership, to Thomas Edison. Initially, the Academy was broken down into five groups, or branches. The original five were, Producers, Actors, Directors, Writers, the initial concerns of the group had to do with labor. However, as went on, the organization moved further away from involvement in labor-management arbitrations and negotiations. By July 1928 the board of directors had approved a list of 12 awards to be presented, during July the voting system for the Awards was established, and the nomination and selection process began. This award of merit for distinctive achievement is what we know now as the Academy Award, the initial location of the organization was 6912 Hollywood Boulevard. In May 1928, the Academy authorized the construction of a state of the art screening room, the screening room was not completed until April 1929. With the publication of Report on Incandescent Illumination in 1928, the Academy began a history of publishing books to assist its members. Another early initiative concerned training Army Signal Corps officers, in 1929 Academy members in a joint venture with the University of Southern California created Americas first film school to further the art and science of moving pictures
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Academy Awards
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The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname Oscar. The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by AMPAS, the awards ceremony was first broadcast on radio in 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953. It is now live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Academy Awards ceremony is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording – are modeled after the Academy Awards. The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2016, were held on February 26,2017, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, the ceremony was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and was broadcast on ABC. A total of 3,048 Oscars have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 88th, the first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16,1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel, the cost of guest tickets for that nights ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the industry of the time. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes, winners were announced to media three months earlier, however, that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since then, for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11,00 pm on the night of the awards. The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and he had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier, this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, for the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27,1957, until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award. The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies always end with the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Academy also awards Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, see also § Awards of Merit categories The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. The five spokes represent the branches of the Academy, Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers. The model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio El Indio Fernández, sculptor George Stanley sculpted Cedric Gibbons design. The statuettes presented at the ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze
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Sound design
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Sound design is the process of specifying, acquiring, manipulating or generating audio elements. Sound design most commonly involves the manipulation of previously composed or recorded audio, such as sound effects, in some instances it may also involve the composition or manipulation of audio to create a desired effect or mood. A sound designer is one who practices the art of sound design, the use of sound to evoke emotion, reflect mood and underscore actions in plays and dances began in prehistoric times. At its earliest, it was used in religious practices for healing or recreation, in ancient Japan, theatrical events called kagura were performed in Shinto shrines with music and dance. Plays were performed in times in a form of theatre called Commedia dellarte. The use of music and sound in the Elizabethan Theatre followed, in music and sound effects were produced off stage using devices such as bells, whistles. Cues would be written in the script for music and sound effects to be played at the appropriate time, italian composer Luigi Russolo built mechanical sound-making devices, called intonarumori, for futurist theatrical and music performances starting around 1913. These devices were meant to simulate natural and man-made sounds, such as trains, russolos treatise, The Art of Noises, is one of the earliest written documents on the use of abstract noise in the theatre. After his death, his intonarumori were used in more conventional theatre performances to create sound effects. Possibly the first use of recorded sound in the theatre was a phonograph playing a baby’s cry in a London theatre in 1890, sixteen years later, Herbert Beerbohm Tree used recordings in his London production of Stephen Phillips’ tragedy NERO. The article states, “these sounds are all realistically reproduced by the gramophone”, as cited by Bertolt Brecht, there was a play about Rasputin written in by Alexej Tolstoi and directed by Erwin Piscator that included a recording of Lenins voice. A great deal of care and attention was paid to the construction and performance of these effects, but even though the sound designer has basically assumed these roles, time and technology have not ruled out non-sound designers having a hand in sound production. It was subsequently provided to both the ADC and David Goodman at the Florida USA local when they were planning to represent sound designers in the 1990s. MIDI and digital audio technology helped to drive the evolution of sound design during the 1980s and 1990s. These features were incorporated into the MIDI Show Control specification, a communications protocol used to interact with diverse devices. The first show to utilize the MSC specification was the Magic Kingdom Parade at Walt Disney Worlds Magic Kingdom in September,1991. Also, the World Wide Web has greatly enhanced the ability of designers to acquire source material quickly, easily and cheaply. In addition, software innovation has enabled sound designers to take more of a DIY approach
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Sound effect
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In motion picture and television production, a sound effect is a sound recorded and presented to make a specific storytelling or creative point without the use of dialogue or music. The term often refers to a process applied to a recording, in professional motion picture and television production, dialogue, music, and sound effects recordings are treated as separate elements. Dialogue and music recordings are never referred to as sound effects, even though the processes applied to such as reverberation or flanging effects, the term sound effect ranges back to the early days of radio. In its Year Book 1931 the BBC published an article about The Use of Sound Effects. It considers sounds effect deeply linked with broadcasting and states, It would be a mistake to think of them as anologous to punctuation marks. They should never be inserted into an already existing. The author of a broadcast play or broadcast construction ought to have used Sound Effects as bricks with which to build, treating them as of value with speech. If it fails to do so its presence could not be justified, the sound of people talking in the background is also considered a BG, but only if the speaker is unintelligible and the language is unrecognizable. These background noises are also called ambience or atmos, Foley sound effects are sounds that synchronize on screen, and require the expertise of a foley artist to record properly. Footsteps, the movement of hand props, and the rustling of cloth are common foley units, design sound effects are sounds that do not normally occur in nature, or are impossible to record in nature. These sounds are used to suggest futuristic technology in a fiction film. Each of these sound effect categories is specialized, with sound editors known as specialists in an area of sound effects, Foley is another method of adding sound effects. With this technique the action onscreen is essentially recreated to try to match it as closely as possible, if done correctly it is very hard for audiences to tell what sounds were added and what sounds were originally recorded. In the early days of film and radio, foley artists would add sounds in realtime or pre-recorded sound effects would be played back from analogue discs in realtime. Today, with effects held in digital format, it is easy to any required sequence to be played in any desired timeline. In the days of silent film, sound effects were added by the operator of an organ or photoplayer. Theater organ sound effects are usually electric or electro-pneumatic, and activated by a button pressed with the hand or foot, photoplayer operators activate sound effects either by flipping switches on the machine or pulling cow-tail pull-strings, which hang above. Sounds like bells and drums are made mechanically, sirens and horns electronically, due to its smaller size, a photoplayer usually has less special effects than a theater organ, or less complex ones
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Ben Burtt
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Benjamin Ben Burtt, Jr. is an American sound designer, film editor, director, screenwriter, and voice actor. He has worked as designer on various films, including the Star Wars and Indiana Jones film series, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial, WALL-E. Burtt is also known for voicing the character, Wall-E. He also created the sound of Wall-Es voice, along with all the other characters in WALL-E. The winner of four Academy Awards, he is the director of documentary films. He is also the editor of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Burtt was born in Jamesville, New York, and graduated with a major in physics from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. For his work on the special-effects film Genesis, Burtt won a scholarship to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California, Burtt pioneered modern sound design, especially in the science-fiction and fantasy-film genres. Before his work in the first Star Wars in 1977, science-fiction films tended to use electronic-sounding effects for futuristic devices, Burtt sought a more natural sound, blending in found sounds to create the effects. He is personally responsible for some of the sounds heard in films, in Star Wars, Episode III – Revenge of the Sith he provided the voice for Lushros Dofine, captain of the Invisible Hand cruiser. The heavy-breathing of Darth Vader was created by recording his own breathing in an old Dacor scuba regulator, Burtt used the voice of an elderly lady with a very low voice that he had met in a photoshop for the voice of E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The womans low voice was the result of heavy smoking. He created the voice of the character and many other robots in Pixars film WALL-E. Additionally, he is responsible for the effects in Indiana Jones. Burtt has a reputation for including a sound effect dubbed the Wilhelm scream in many of the movies hes worked on, one of Burtts more subtle, but highly effective sound effects is the audio black hole. The effect of second or less of silence is to accentuate the resulting explosion in the mind of the listener. In those days they would paint out the sound with ink. Then I thought of the airlock entry sequence in 2001, I guess the seeds were there for me to nourish when it came to the seismic charges. Burtt was among the golden ears that critically reviewed the audio compression systems that were proposed for the ATSC1.0 digital television system
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Matthew Wood (sound editor)
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Matthew Russell Wood is an American sound engineer and employee of Skywalker Sound. For the last 15 years, he has worked on film projects, his work being credited as sound editing. He has been a force within the industry, pioneering new technologies for motion picture sound. He is currently a Supervising Sound Editor employed at Skywalker Sound in Marin County, California. He also voiced the character General Grievous in Star Wars, Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars, The Clone Wars TV series, in Attack of the Clones he played Seboca and Magaloof. In the movie, he dubbed the voice of stuntman Kyle Rowling who played General Grievous utilizing motion capture and he would later come back to Star Wars and work with the Star Wars Expanded Universe. He reprised his role as General Grievous and the droids in the Star Wars, The Clone Wars movie. In the series, he again voiced Grievous as well as Wat Tambor, HELIOS-3D, senate guards. He provided the voice of RO-GR/Roger, a battle droid in Lego Star Wars. Wood made an appearance in Adult Swims Robot Chicken as Fygar, a Pooka, Matthew Wood - Skywalker Sound Matthew Wood at the Internet Movie Database
