1.
Festival
–
A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect of that community and its religion or traditions. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, next to religion and folklore, a significant origin is agricultural. Food is such a resource that many festivals are associated with harvest time. Religious commemoration and thanksgiving for good harvests are blended in events that take place in autumn, such as Halloween in the northern hemisphere, Festivals often serve to fulfill specific communal purposes, especially in regard to commemoration or thanksgiving. The celebrations offer a sense of belonging for religious, social, or geographical groups and they may also provide entertainment, which was particularly important to local communities before the advent of mass-produced entertainment. In Ancient Greece and Rome, festivals such as the Saturnalia were closely associated with social organisation, in modern times, festivals may be attended by strangers such as tourists, who are attracted to some of the more eccentric or historical ones. The word festival was used as an adjective from the late fourteenth century. In Middle English, a festival dai was a religious holiday and its first recorded used as a noun was in 1589. Feast first came into usage as a noun circa 1200, the term feast is also used in common secular parlance as a synonym for any large or elaborate meal. When used as in the meaning of a festival, most often refers to a religious rather than a film or art festival. In the Philippines and many other former Spanish colonies, the Spanish word fiesta is used to denote a religious feast to honor a patron saint. Many festivals have religious origins and entwine cultural and religious significance in traditional activities, the most important religious festivals such as Christmas, Rosh Hashanah, Diwali, and Eid al-Adha serve to mark out the year. Others, such as harvest festivals, celebrate seasonal change, events of historical significance, such as important military victories or other nation-building events also provide the impetus for a festival. An early example is the established by Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses III celebrating his victory over the Libyans. In many countries, royal holidays commemorate dynastic events just as agricultural holidays are about harvests, there are numerous types of festivals in the world and most countries celebrate important events or traditions with traditional cultural events and activities. Most culminate in the consumption of specially prepared food and they bring people together, Festivals are also strongly associated with national holidays. Lists of national festivals are published to make participation easier, among many religions, a feast is a set of celebrations in honour of Gods or God. A feast and a festival are historically interchangeable, the Sed festival, for example, celebrated the thirtieth year of an Egyptian pharaohs rule and then every three years after that
2.
University of Texas at Austin
–
Founded in 1881 as The University of Texas, its campus is in Austin, Texas—approximately 1 mile from the Texas State Capitol. The institution has the nations seventh-largest single-campus enrollment, with over 50,000 undergraduate and graduate students and over 24,000 faculty, UT Austin was inducted into the American Association of Universities in 1929, becoming only the third university in the American South to be elected. It is a center for academic research, with research expenditures exceeding $550 million for the 2014–2015 school year. J. Pickle Research Campus and the McDonald Observatory, among university faculty are recipients of the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, the Wolf Prize, the Emmy Award, the Turing Award, and the National Medal of Science, as well as many other awards. UT Austin student athletes compete as the Texas Longhorns and are members of the Big 12 Conference and its Longhorn Network is the only sports network featuring the college sports of a single university. The first mention of a university in Texas can be traced to the 1827 constitution for the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. Although Title 6, Article 217 of the Constitution promised to establish education in the arts and sciences. On April 18,1838, An Act to Establish the University of Texas was referred to a committee of the Texas Congress. On January 26,1839, the Texas Congress agreed to set aside fifty leagues of land towards the establishment of a publicly funded university, in addition,40 acres in the new capital of Austin were reserved and designated College Hill. In 1845, Texas was annexed into the United States, interestingly, the states Constitution of 1845 failed to mention higher education. On February 11,1858, the Seventh Texas Legislature approved O. B,102, an act to establish the University of Texas, which set aside $100,000 in United States bonds toward construction of the states first publicly funded university. The legislature also designated land reserved for the encouragement of railroad construction toward the universitys endowment, Texas secession from the Union and the American Civil War delayed repayment of the borrowed monies. At the end of the Civil War in 1865, The University of Texas endowment was just over $16,000 in warrants, the more valuable lands reverted to the fund to support general education in the state. The legislature additionally appropriated $256,272.57 to repay the funds taken from the university in 1860 to pay for frontier defense, the 1883 grant of land increased the land in the Permanent University Fund to almost 2.2 million acres. Under the Act of 1858, the university was entitled to just over 1,000 acres of land for every mile of railroad built in the state. On March 30,1881, the legislature set forth the structure and organization. By popular election on September 6,1881, Austin was chosen as the site, galveston, having come in second in the election was designated the location of the medical department. On November 17,1882, on the original College Hill, smite the earth, smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth
3.
St. Patrick's Day
–
Saint Patricks Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick, is a cultural and religious celebration held on 17 March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick, the foremost patron saint of Ireland. The day commemorates Saint Patrick and the arrival of Christianity in Ireland, celebrations generally involve public parades and festivals, cèilidhs, and the wearing of green attire or shamrocks. Saint Patricks Day is a holiday in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is also celebrated by the Irish diaspora around the world, especially in Great Britain, Canada, the United States, Argentina, Australia. Saint Patricks Day is celebrated in more countries than any other national festival, modern celebrations have been greatly influenced by those of the Irish diaspora, particularly those that developed in North America. In recent years, there has been criticism of Saint Patricks Day celebrations for having become too commercialised, Patrick was a 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland. Much of what is known about Saint Patrick comes from the Declaration and it is believed that he was born in Roman Britain in the fourth century, into a wealthy Romano-British family. His father was a deacon and his grandfather was a priest in the Christian church, according to the Declaration, at the age of sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Gaelic Ireland. It says that he spent six years working as a shepherd. The Declaration says that God told Patrick to flee to the coast, after making his way home, Patrick went on to become a priest. According to tradition, Patrick returned to Ireland to convert the pagan Irish to Christianity, the Declaration says that he spent many years evangelising in the northern half of Ireland and converted thousands. Patricks efforts against the druids were eventually turned into an allegory in which he drove out of Ireland. Tradition holds that he died on 17 March and was buried at Downpatrick, over the following centuries, many legends grew up around Patrick and he became Irelands foremost saint. Todays St Patricks Day celebrations have been influenced by those that developed among the Irish diaspora. Until the late 20th century, St Patricks Day was often a celebration among the diaspora than it was in Ireland. Celebrations generally involve public parades and festivals, Irish traditional music sessions, there are also formal gatherings such as banquets and dances, although these were more common in the past. St Patricks Day parades began in North America in the 18th century, the participants generally include marching bands, the military, fire brigades, cultural organisations, charitable organisations, voluntary associations, youth groups, fraternities, and so on. However, over time, many of the parades have become akin to a carnival
4.
Austin, Texas
–
Austin is the capital of the U. S. state of Texas and the seat of Travis County. It is the 11th-most populous city in the U. S. and it is the fastest growing large city in the United States and the second most populous capital city after Phoenix, Arizona. As of the U. S. Census Bureaus July 1,2015 estimate and it is the cultural and economic center of the Austin–Round Rock metropolitan area, which had an estimated population of 2,056,405 as of July 1,2016. In the 1830s, pioneers began to settle the area in central Austin along the Colorado River, in 1839, the site was officially chosen to replace Houston as the new capital of the Republic of Texas and was incorporated under the name Waterloo. Shortly thereafter, the name was changed to Austin in honor of Stephen F. Austin, the Father of Texas and the republics first secretary of state. The city subsequently grew throughout the 19th century and became a center for government and education with the construction of the Texas State Capitol and the University of Texas at Austin. After a lull in growth from the Great Depression, Austin resumed its development into a city and, by the 1980s, it emerged as a center for technology. A number of Fortune 500 companies have headquarters or regional offices in Austin, including Amazon. com, cisco, eBay, Google, IBM, Intel, Oracle Corporation, Texas Instruments, 3M, and Whole Foods Market. Dells worldwide headquarters is located in nearby Round Rock, a suburb of Austin, residents of Austin are known as Austinites. They include a mix of government employees, college students, musicians, high-tech workers, blue-collar workers. The city also adopted Silicon Hills as a nickname in the 1990s due to an influx of technology. In the late 1800s, Austin was known as the City of the Violet Crown because of the glow of light across the hills just after sunset. Even today, many Austin businesses use the term Violet Crown in their name, Austin is known as a clean-air city for its stringent no-smoking ordinances that apply to all public places and buildings, including restaurants and bars. The FBI ranked Austin as the second-safest major city in the U. S. for the year 2012, U. S. News & World Report named Austin the best place to live in the U. S. in 2017. Austin, Travis County and Williamson County have been the site of habitation since at least 9200 BC. When settlers arrived from Europe, the Tonkawa tribe inhabited the area, the Comanches and Lipan Apaches were also known to travel through the area. Spanish colonists, including the Espinosa-Olivares-Aguirre expedition, traveled through the area for centuries, in 1730, three missions from East Texas were combined and reestablished as one mission on the south side of the Colorado River, in what is now Zilker Park, in Austin. The mission was in area for only about seven months
5.
Texas
–
Texas is the second largest state in the United States by both area and population. Other major cities include Austin, the second most populous state capital in the U. S. Texas is nicknamed the Lone Star State to signify its former status as an independent republic, and as a reminder of the states struggle for independence from Mexico. The Lone Star can be found on the Texan state flag, the origin of Texass name is from the word Tejas, which means friends in the Caddo language. Due to its size and geologic features such as the Balcones Fault, although Texas is popularly associated with the U. S. southwestern deserts, less than 10 percent of Texas land area is desert. Most of the centers are located in areas of former prairies, grasslands, forests. Traveling from east to west, one can observe terrain that ranges from coastal swamps and piney woods, to rolling plains and rugged hills, the term six flags over Texas refers to several nations that have ruled over the territory. Spain was the first European country to claim the area of Texas, Mexico controlled the territory until 1836 when Texas won its independence, becoming an independent Republic. In 1845, Texas joined the United States as the 28th state, the states annexation set off a chain of events that caused the Mexican–American War in 1846. A slave state before the American Civil War, Texas declared its secession from the U. S. in early 1861, after the Civil War and the restoration of its representation in the federal government, Texas entered a long period of economic stagnation. One Texan industry that thrived after the Civil War was cattle, due to its long history as a center of the industry, Texas is associated with the image of the cowboy. The states economic fortunes changed in the early 20th century, when oil discoveries initiated a boom in the state. With strong investments in universities, Texas developed a diversified economy, as of 2010 it shares the top of the list of the most Fortune 500 companies with California at 57. With a growing base of industry, the leads in many industries, including agriculture, petrochemicals, energy, computers and electronics, aerospace. Texas has led the nation in export revenue since 2002 and has the second-highest gross state product. The name Texas, based on the Caddo word tejas meaning friends or allies, was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves, during Spanish colonial rule, the area was officially known as the Nuevo Reino de Filipinas, La Provincia de Texas. Texas is the second largest U. S. state, behind Alaska, though 10 percent larger than France and almost twice as large as Germany or Japan, it ranks only 27th worldwide amongst country subdivisions by size. If it were an independent country, Texas would be the 40th largest behind Chile, Texas is in the south central part of the United States of America. Three of its borders are defined by rivers, the Rio Grande forms a natural border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south
6.
Music festival
–
A music festival is a festival oriented towards music that is sometimes presented with a theme such as musical genre, nationality, or locality of musicians, or holiday. They are commonly held outdoors, and are inclusive of other attractions such as food and merchandise vending, performance art. Many festivals are annual, or repeat at some other interval, some, including many rock festivals, are held only once. Some festivals are organized as for-profit concerts and others are benefits for a specific cause, another type of music festival is the educative type, organized annually in local communities, regionally, or nationally, for the benefit of amateur musicians of all ages and grades of achievement. The Pythian Games at Delphi included musical performances, and may be one of the earliest festivals known, during the Middle Ages, festivals were often held as competitions. Entrants perform prepared pieces in front of an audience which includes competitors and they also usually receive a certificate, classified according to merit, and some may win trophies. The competitive element is played down, however, as the important aspect is that participants can learn from one another. Such festivals aim to provide a friendly and supportive platform for musicians to share in the excitement of making music, for many, they provide a bridge from lessons and examinations to performing confidently in public. Milwaukee, Wisconsins 11-day event, Summerfest, promotes itself as The Worlds Largest Music Festival, operating annually since 1968, the festival attracts between 800,000 and 1,000,000 people each year, and hosts over 800 musical acts. The Woodstock Festival in 1969 drew nearly 500,000 attendees, the largest annual greenfield music festival in the world is Roskilde Festival in Denmark, which attracts about 135,000 spectators each year. Glastonbury Festival has a capacity of about 175,000 spectators, for a more complete listing of active and defunct festivals by region, see Category, Music festivals by country. Some sections may also have links to related lists of music festivals by country, L. my.1 Festival, Biddinghuizen Dekmantel, Amsterdam Festival Mundial, Tilburg Incubate, Tilburg Le Guess Who. Born 1985 Salas Principales Auditorio Alfredo Kraus, Las Palmas y Auditorio Adán Martin, Tenerife. com – The most extensive music festival listings
7.
Convention (meeting)
–
A convention, in the sense of a meeting, is a gathering of individuals who meet at an arranged place and time in order to discuss or engage in some common interest. The most common conventions are based upon industry, profession, professional conventions focus on issues of concern to the profession and advancements in the profession. Such conventions are organized by societies or communities dedicated to promotion of the topic of interest. Fan conventions usually feature displays, shows, and sales based on pop culture, science fiction conventions traditionally partake of the nature of both professional conventions and fan conventions, with the balance varying from one to another. Conventions also exist for various hobbies, such as gaming or model railroads, Conventions are often planned and coordinated, often in exacting detail, by professional meeting and convention planners, either by staff of the conventions hosting company or by outside specialists. Most large cities will have a center dedicated to hosting such events. The term MICE—meetings Incentives Conventions and Exhibitions—is widely used in Asia as a description of the industry, the Convention is one of the most dynamic elements in the M. I. C. E. The industry is regulated under the tourism sector. In the technical sense, a convention is a meeting of delegates or representatives, the 1947 Newfoundland National Convention is a classic example of a state-sponsored political convention. This also applies to a convention, though in modern times the common issues are limited to selecting a party candidate or party chairman. In this technical sense, a congress, when it consists of representatives, is a convention, the British House of Commons is a convention, as are most other houses of a modern representative legislature. The National Convention or just Convention in France comprised the constitutional, the governing bodies of religious groups may also be called conventions, such as the General Convention of the Episcopal Church USA and the Southern Baptist Convention. Many sovereign states have provisions for conventions besides their permanent legislature and this process has never occurred, save for the original drafting of the constitution, although it almost happened in several cases. The US Constitution also has provisions for amendments to be approved by state conventions of the people. This occurred to ratify the constitution and to adopt the twenty-first amendment. Con is an abbreviation for convention, and some conventions use it in their names. When two or more conventions are held at the place and time they are co-located. Co-located conventions are usually in related industries, academic conference Annual general meeting Business travel Caucus Convention center Delegate Event planning Forum Summit Symposium Seminar Workshop Event Convention Congress
8.
United States
–
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
9.
Frankfurt
–
The city is at the centre of the larger Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region, which has a population of 5.8 million and is Germanys second-largest metropolitan region after Rhine-Ruhr. Since the enlargement of the European Union in 2013, the centre of the EU is about 40 km to the east of Frankfurts CBD. Frankfurt is culturally and ethnically diverse, with half of the population. A quarter of the population are foreign nationals, including many expatriates, Frankfurt is an alpha world city and a global hub for commerce, culture, education, tourism and traffic. Its the site of many global and European headquarters, Frankfurt Airport is among the worlds busiest. Automotive, technology and research, services, consulting, media, Frankfurts DE-CIX is the worlds largest internet exchange point. Messe Frankfurt is one of the worlds largest trade fairs, major fairs include the Frankfurt Motor Show, the worlds largest motor show, the Music Fair, and the Frankfurt Book Fair, the worlds largest book fair. Frankfurt is home to educational institutions, including the Goethe University, the UAS, the FUMPA. Its renowned cultural venues include the concert hall Alte Oper, Europes largest English Theatre and many museums, Frankfurts skyline is shaped by some of Europes tallest skyscrapers. In sports, the city is known as the home of the top football club Eintracht Frankfurt, the basketball club Frankfurt Skyliners, the Frankfurt Marathon. Its the seat of German sport unions for Olympics, football, Frankfurt is the largest financial centre in continental Europe. It is home to the European Central Bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange is one of the worlds largest stock exchanges by market capitalization and accounts for more than 90 percent of the turnover in the German market. Frankfurt is considered a city as listed by the GaWC groups 2012 inventory. Among global cities it was ranked 10th by the Global Power City Index 2011, among financial centres it was ranked 8th by the International Financial Centers Development Index 2013 and 9th by the Global Financial Centres Index 2013. Its central location within Germany and Europe makes Frankfurt a major air, rail, Frankfurt Airport is one of the worlds busiest international airports by passenger traffic and the main hub for Germanys flag carrier Lufthansa. Frankfurter Kreuz, the Autobahn interchange close to the airport, is the most heavily used interchange in the EU, in 2011 human-resource-consulting firm Mercer ranked Frankfurt as seventh in its annual Quality of Living survey of cities around the world. According to The Economist cost-of-living survey, Frankfurt is Germanys most expensive city, Frankfurt has many high-rise buildings in the city centre, forming the Frankfurt skyline. It is one of the few cities in the European Union to have such a skyline and because of it Germans sometimes refer to Frankfurt as Mainhattan, the other well known and obvious nickname is Bankfurt
10.
Mercedes-Benz
–
Mercedes-Benz is a global automobile manufacturer and a division of the German company Daimler AG. The brand is known for vehicles, buses, coaches. The headquarters is in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, the slogan for the brand is the best or nothing and Mercedes-Benz was one of the top growing brands in 2014 with 18% growth. The Mercedes automobile was first marketed in 1901 by Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft, emil Jellinek, an Austrian automobile entrepreneur who worked with DMG created the trademark in 1902, naming the 1901 Mercedes 35 hp after his daughter Mercedes Jellinek. The first Mercedes-Benz brand name vehicles were produced in 1926, following the merger of Karl Benzs, on 28 June 1926, Mercedes Benz was formed with the merger of Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimlers two companies. Gottlieb Daimler was born on 17 March 1834 in Schorndorf, after training as a gunsmith and working in France, he attended the Polytechnic School in Stuttgart from 1857 to 1859. After completing various activities in France and England, he started work as a draftsman in Geislingen in 1862. At the end of 1863, he was appointed inspector in a machine tool factory in Reutlingen. Throughout the 1930s, Mercedes-Benz produced the 770 model, a car that was popular during Germanys Nazi period, Adolf Hitler was known to have driven these cars during his time in power, with bulletproof windshields. Most of the models have been sold at auctions to private buyers. One of them is currently on display at the War Museum in Ottawa, the pontiffs Popemobile has often been sourced from Mercedes-Benz. In 1944,46,000 forced laborers were used in Daimler-Benzs factories to bolster Nazi war efforts, the company later paid $12 million in reparations to the laborers families. Mercedes-Benz has introduced many technological and safety innovations that became common in other vehicles. Mercedes-Benz is one of the best-known and established automotive brands in the world, for information relating to the famous three-pointed star, see under the title Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft including the merger into Daimler-Benz. As part of the Daimler AG company, the Mercedes-Benz Cars division includes Mercedes-Benz, mercedes-AMG became a majority owned division of Mercedes-Benz in 1999. The company was integrated into DaimlerChrysler in 1999, and became Mercedes-Benz AMG beginning on 1 January 1999, Daimlers ultra-luxury brand Maybach was under Mercedes-Benz cars division until 2013, when the production stopped due to poor sales volumes. It now exists under the Mercedes-Maybach name, with the models being ultra-luxury versions of Mercedes cars, Daimler coorporates with BYD Auto to make and sell a battery-electric car called Denza in China. In 2016, Daimler announced plans to sell Mercedes-Benz branded all-electric battery cars in China, beside its native Germany, Mercedes-Benz vehicles are also manufactured or assembled in, Since its inception, Mercedes-Benz had maintained a reputation for its quality and durability
11.
SXSW V2V
–
SXSW V2V is the newest South by Southwest conference, it features a startup competition, panel discussions, and mentoring workshops for entrepreneurs. Hosted in Las Vegas, it is the first SXSW event to place outside of Austin. It began in 2013 as an evolution of the competition that is held as part of the SXSW Interactive festival each spring. The conference started with the recognition that the three large spring festivals that SXSW, Inc. holds in Austin were straining the capacity of that city. One of the events is the V2Venture startup competition, where startup companies compete under five categories. SXSW V2V began in 2013 as an extension to the SXSW experience, the event brings startups and venture capitalists together across all industries. Participating companies represent the fields of Culture and Education Technology, Education Technology, Health Technology, Innovative World Technologies, trackster, the worlds first studio network for the re-amping of guitar recordings. 3DLT, a company that serves as a repository of 3D printing designs, cl3ver, a real time 3D engine share interactive scenes on any online device Scheduled speakers at the inaugural event included Zappos founder and CEO Tony Hsieh. The after-hours schedule for the event includes comedy, film, official Site - SXSW V2V. com SXSW site
12.
Startup company
–
A startup is usually a company such as a small business, a partnership or an organization designed to rapidly develop a scalable business model. Startup companies can come in all forms and sizes, some of the critical tasks are to build a co-founder team to secure key skills, know-how, financial resources and other elements to conduct research on the target market. Typically, a startup will begin by building a first minimum viable product, in addition, startups founders do research to deepen their understanding of the ideas, technologies or business concepts and their commercial potential. Business models for startups are generally found via a bottom-up or top-down approach, given that startups operate in high-risk sectors, it can also be hard to attract investors to support the product/service development or attract buyers. The size and maturity of the startup ecosystem where the startup is launched, the startup ecosystem consists of the individuals, institutions and organizations business incubators and business accelerators and top-performing entrepreneurial firms and startups. A region with all of elements is considered to be a strong entrepreneurship ecosystem. Investors are generally most attracted to new companies distinguished by their strong co-founding team. Attractive startups generally have lower bootstrapping costs, higher risk, successful startups are typically more scalable than an established business, in the sense that the startup has the potential to grow rapidly with a limited investment of capital, labor or land. Startups have several options for funding, venture capital firms and angel investors may help startup companies begin operations, exchanging seed money for an equity stake in the firm. Venture capitalists and angel investors provide financing to a range of startups, with the expectation that a small number of the startups will become viable. Factoring is another option, though it is not unique to startups, startups usually need to form partnerships with other firms to enable their business model to operate. To become attractive to businesses, startups need to align their internal features, such as management style. In their 2013 study, Kask and Linton develop two ideal profiles, or also known as configurations or archetypes, for startups that are commercializing inventions, the inheritor profile calls for management style that is not too entrepreneurial and the startup should have an incremental invention. This profile is set out to be successful in a market that has a dominant design. In contrast to this profile is the originator which has a management style that is highly entrepreneurial and this profile is set out to be more successful in a market that does not have a dominant design. New startups should align themselves to one of the profiles when commercializing an invention to be able to find, by finding a business partner a startup will have greater chances to become successful. Startup founders often have a casual or offbeat attitude in their dress, office space and marketing. Startup founders in the 2010s may wear hoodies, sneakers and other clothes to business meetings
13.
Sixth Street (Austin, Texas)
–
Sixth Street is a historic street and entertainment district in Austin, Texas located within the citys urban core in downtown Austin. Sixth Street was formerly named Pecan Street under Austins older naming convention, developed as one of Austins trade and commercial districts in the late 1800s, the predominant building style are two- or three-story masonry Victorian commercial architecture. Most structures in the area had already built by the 1880s, though a few notable exceptions include the Driskill Hotel, the Scarbrough Building. The area around nearby 4th Street and 6th Street has been an entertainment district since the 1970s. Many bars, clubs, music venues, and shopping destinations are located on East 6th Street between Congress Avenue and Interstate 35, and many live music at one time or another during the week. East Sixth Street plays host to a variety of events each year, ranging from music and film festivals to biker rallies. The area of Sixth Street west of Lavaca is known as the West 6th Street District, recently, a movement has been growing to develop this area as an entertainment district of its own, geared toward the live-music crowd. Austin was planned on a 15-block grid plan developed by Edwin Waller that was bisected by Congress Avenue running north-south, the Bastrop Highway linking the town to earlier settlements in East Texas was charted in 1839 and chose the route into Austin along Pecan Street. The stagecoach followed this route when it arrived in Austin in 1840, the Bullock, built in 1839 by Richard Bullock, was a complex of log building which served as the quasiformal and informal meeting place in Austin for several years. That particular intersection quickly became the point of town life. The town grew like a cross up and down Congress and Pecan, Pecan had an obvious advantage for development. While the Civil War interrupted Sixth Streets growth in the 1860s, the arrival of the railroad in 1871 was very much to Sixth Streets benefit, as some of Austins most prestigious business enterprises were located here to be near the railroad depot. Lots along the street were in demand and fine two-. During the late 1880s, however, Congress Avenue began to pre-empt Sixth Street as the most fashionable shopping destination in the city. The new Capitol building was being built at the head of Congress, Sixth Street, though, continued to function as a site for offices, warehouses, and showrooms of businesses using the railroad, as well as to businesses catering to farmers or other travelers. In 1886, the famous four-story Driskill Hotel was completed at 122 E. 6th Street, called the finest hotel south of St. Louis, the hotel was built in a Romanesque Revival style by Jesse Driskill, a cattleman who spent his fortune constructing it. George Littlefield chose the northeast corner of intersection in 1911 for a 9-story brick. A biracial character was evident along Sixth Street during this period of development, although it became more pronounced in the 1890s, by the early 20th century, racial and ethnic diversity had become one of Sixth Streets most striking characteristics
14.
Jon Favreau
–
Jonathan Kolia Jon Favreau is an American actor, filmmaker, and comedian. As an actor, he is known for roles in such as Rudy, Swingers, Very Bad Things, The Break-Up. He has also directed the films Elf, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Cowboys & Aliens, and The Jungle Book, and served as a producer on The Avengers, Iron Man 3. Favreau appeared as Pete Becker, Monica Gellers boyfriend during season three of the television sitcom Friends and he produces films under his banner, Fairview Entertainment. The company has been credited as co-producers in most of Favreaus directorial ventures, Favreau was born in Flushing, Queens, New York, the son of Madeleine, an elementary school teacher who died of leukemia in 1979, and Charles Favreau, a special education teacher. His mother was Jewish, and his father is a Catholic of Italian and French-Canadian ancestry, Favreau attended Hebrew school and had a Bar Mitzvah. Favreau graduated from The Bronx High School of Science in 1984 and attended Queens College from 1984 to 1987 and his friend from college, Mitchell Pollack, said that Favreau went by the nickname Johnny Hack because of his talent in the game Hacky Sack. He briefly worked for Bear Stearns on Wall Street before returning to Queens College for a semester in early 1988 and he dropped out of college for good, and in the summer of 1988, moved to Chicago to pursue a career in comedy. He performed at several Chicago improvisational theaters, including the ImprovOlympic, while in Chicago, Favreau landed his first film role alongside Sean Astin as football tutor D-Bob in the sleeper hit Rudy. Favreau met Vince Vaughn – who played a role in this film – during shooting. The next year, he appeared in the college film PCU alongside Jeremy Piven, in 1997, he appeared on the popular television sitcom Friends, portraying Pete Becker – Monica Gellers millionaire boyfriend who competes in the Ultimate Fighting Championship – for several episodes. Favreau made appearances in the series, Tracey Takes On. in both 1996 and 1997. He rejoined Piven in 1998 as part of Very Bad Things, in 1999, he starred in the television film Rocky Marciano, based on the life of the only undefeated world heavyweight champion, Rocky Marciano. He later appeared in Love & Sex, co-starring Famke Janssen and he was a guest-director for an episode of the college dramedy Undeclared in 2001, and Favreau got some screen time as lawyer Foggy Nelson in the 2003 movie Daredevil. He also starred in The Big Empty, directed by Steve Anderson and his character was John Person, an out of work actor given a strange mission to deliver a blue suitcase to a man named Cowboy in the desert. In 2001, he made his directorial debut with another self-penned screenplay. Made once again teamed him up with his Swingers co-star Vince Vaughn, in the fall of 2003, he scored his first financial success as a director of the hit comedy Elf starring Will Ferrell, James Caan, and Peter Dinklage. Also in 2003, Favreau had a part in Somethings Gotta Give, Favreau played Leo, Harry Sanborns personal assistant
15.
Mark Duplass
–
Mark David Duplass is an American film director, film producer, actor, musician, and screenwriter. He is the brother of director, writer, and actor Jay Duplass, together, the brothers started the film production company Duplass Brothers Productions, and have directed films such as The Puffy Chair, Jeff, Who Lives at Home, and The Do-Deca-Pentathlon. Mark and Jay co-created the HBO television series Togetherness in 2015 and he is married to his The League co-star Katie Aselton. Duplass was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Cynthia and he was raised as a Roman Catholic, and attended Jesuit High School, University of Texas at Austin, and City University of New York-City College. Duplass is of part Cajun ancestry, Duplass is married to his The League co-star, Katie Aselton. They have two daughters, Molly and Ora Duplass and he was also the lead singer of the rock band Volcano, Im Still Excited. Duplass has written, directed, and produced feature films with his brother Jay Duplass. In 2005, he wrote and produced The Puffy Chair with his brother and their films Jeff, Who Lives at Home and The Do-Deca-Pentathlon were released in 2012. He stars in the FX comedy television series The League, with his wife, in 2015, the HBO series Togetherness debuted, which was created by and stars Duplass. That same year, Duplass co-starred with Evan Peters and Olivia Wilde in David Gelbs thriller film The Lazarus Effect. Best Screenplay for The Puffy Chair at the BendFilm Festival Mark Duplass at the Internet Movie Database Mark Duplass at Rotten Tomatoes Interview with Jay and Mark Duplass on Baghead at IFC. com
16.
Ava DuVernay
–
Ava Marie DuVernay is an American director, screenwriter, film marketer, and film distributor. At the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, DuVernay won the Best Director Prize for her feature film Middle of Nowhere. For her work in Selma, DuVernay was the first black director to be nominated for a Golden Globe Award. With Selma, she was also the first black director to have her film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2017, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for her film 13th. DuVernays next film, A Wrinkle in Time, reportedly has a budget exceeding $100 million, DuVernay was born in Long Beach, California. She grew up in Lynwood, California and graduated in 1990 from Saint Joseph High School in Lakewood, at the University of California, Los Angeles, she was a double major in English and African-American studies. During her summer vacations, she would travel to the home of her father. DuVernay said that these summers influenced the making of Selma, as her father saw the Selma to Montgomery marches as a small child. Her first interest was in journalism, a choice influenced by an internship with CBS News and she became disillusioned with journalism however, and decided to move into public relations, eventually opening her own public relations firm, The DuVernay Agency. DuVernay made her directorial debut in 2008 with the documentary This Is the Life. DuVernay began with documentaries because they can be done on a smaller budget than a feature film, in 2011, DuVernays first narrative feature film, I Will Follow, a drama starring Salli Richardson-Whitfield, was released theatrically. DuVernays aunt Denise Sexton was the inspiration for the film, the film cost DuVernay $50,000 and was made in 14 days. Roger Ebert called it one of the best films Ive seen about coming to terms with the death of a loved one, I Will Follow was an official selection of AFI Fest, Pan-African Film Festival, Urbanworld and Chicago International Film Festival. In the summer of 2011, DuVernay began production on her feature film. The film was acquired by AFFRM and Participant Media at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, dramatic Competition and garnered the Best Director Award for DuVernay, the first African-American woman to ever win the prize. DuVernay also won the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award for her work on the film, ESPN commissioned DuVernay to produce and direct Venus Vs. a documentary on Venus Williams fight for equal prize money for their film series Nine for IX, which aired on July 2,2013. In 2015, DuVernay was in consideration to direct and possibly co-write Marvel Studios Black Panther film and she ultimately decided not to join the project
17.
Ryan Gosling
–
Ryan Thomas Gosling is a Canadian actor and musician. He began his career as a star on the Disney Channels Mickey Mouse Club and went on to appear in other family entertainment programs including Are You Afraid of the Dark. Gosling came to the attention of an audience in 2004 with a leading role in the commercially successful romantic drama The Notebook. After a three-year acting hiatus, Gosling starred in the marital drama Blue Valentine, Goslings directorial debut Lost River was released in 2014 to poor reviews. Greater success came to Gosling when he starred in two critically acclaimed films—the financial comedy-drama The Big Short and the musical La La Land, for the latter, he won a Golden Globe Award and received a second Oscar nomination. Goslings band, Dead Mans Bones, released their debut album. He is a co-owner of Tagine, a Moroccan restaurant in Beverly Hills and he is a supporter of PETA, Invisible Children and the Enough Project and has traveled to Chad, Uganda and eastern Congo to raise awareness about conflicts in the regions. Ryan Thomas Gosling was born in London, Ontario, the son of Thomas Ray Gosling, a salesman for a paper mill, and Donna. His father is of English, Scottish, and French Canadian descent, Ryans great-great-grandfather, George Edward Gosling, was born in Paddington, London, Goslings parents were Mormons, and Gosling has said that the religion influenced every aspect of their lives. However, he said he never really could identify with, because of his fathers work, they moved around a lot and Gosling lived in both Cornwall, Ontario, and Burlington, Ontario. His parents divorced when he was 13, and he and his older sister Mandi lived with their mother, Gosling was educated at Gladstone Public School, Cornwall Collegiate and Vocational School and Lester B. Pearson High School. As a child, he watched Dick Tracy and was inspired to become an actor and he hated being a child, was bullied in elementary school and had no friends until he was 14 or 15. In grade one, having heavily influenced by the action film First Blood, he took steak knives to school. This incident led to a suspension and he was unable to read and was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, prescribed Ritalin, and placed in a class for special-needs students. Consequently, his mother quit her job and homeschooled him for a year, Gosling has said that homeschooling gave him a sense of autonomy that Ive never really lost. Gosling performed in front of audiences from an age, encouraged by his sister being a performer. He and his sister sang together at weddings, he performed with Elvis Perry, his uncles Elvis Presley tribute act, performing boosted his self-confidence as it was the only thing he received praise for. He developed an idiosyncratic accent because, as a child, he thought having a Canadian accent did not sound tough and he began to model his accent on that of Marlon Brando
18.
Nicolas Cage
–
Nicolas Kim Coppola, known professionally as Nicolas Cage, is an American actor and producer. He has performed in leading roles in a variety of films, ranging from romantic comedies and he earned his second Academy Award nomination for his performance as Charlie and Donald Kaufman in Adaptation. In 2002, he directed the film Sonny, for which he was nominated for Grand Special Prize at Deauville Film Festival, Cage owns the production company Saturn Films and has produced films such as Shadow of the Vampire and The Life of David Gale. He has also appeared in National Treasure, Lord of War, Bad Lieutenant, Port of Call New Orleans, Films such as Ghost Rider and Knowing were box office successes. Cage has been criticized in recent years for his choice of roles. However, he starred in The Croods and Joe, both of which were warmly received by critics. Cage was born in Long Beach, California, to August Coppola, a professor of literature, and Joy Vogelsang and he was raised in a Catholic family. His father was of Italian descent and his mothers ancestry was German and his paternal grandparents were composer Carmine Coppola and actress Italia Pennino, and his paternal great-grandparents were immigrants from Bernalda, Basilicata. Cages two brothers are New York radio personality Marc The Cope Coppola and director Christopher Coppola and he attended Beverly Hills High School, which is known for its many alumni who became entertainers. He aspired to act from an age and also attended UCLA School of Theater, Film. His first non-cinematic acting experience was in a production of Golden Boy. He cites James Dean as the key inspiration for his career, saying, I saw him in Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden. Nothing affected me—no rock song, no classical music—the way Dean affected me in Eden, I was like, Thats what I want to do. To avoid the appearance of nepotism as the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, he changed his name early in his career to Nicolas Cage, inspired in part by the Marvel Comics superhero Luke Cage. Since his film debut with a role in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, opposite Judge Reinhold and Sean Penn, Cage has appeared in a wide range of films. He auditioned for the role of Dallas Winston in his uncles film The Outsiders, hintons novel, but lost to Matt Dillon. He was also in Coppolas films Rumble Fish and Peggy Sue Got Married, Cage has been nominated twice for an Academy Award, winning once for his performance as a suicidal alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas. His other nomination was for his portrayal of real-life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, despite these successes, most of his lower-profile films have performed poorly at the box office compared to his mainstream action/adventure roles
19.
Alejandro Jodorowsky
–
Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky is a Chilean-French film and theatre director, screenwriter, playwright, actor, author, poet, producer, composer, musician, comics writer, and spiritual guru. Born to Jewish-Ukrainian and Polish parents in Chile, Jodorowsky experienced an unhappy and alienated childhood, dropping out of college, he became involved in theater and in particular mime, working as a clown before founding his own theater troupe, the Teatro Mimico, in 1947. Moving to Paris in the early 1950s, Jodorowsky studied mime under Étienne Decroux before turning to cinema, from 1960 he divided his time between Paris and Mexico City, in the former becoming a founding member of the anarchistic avant-garde Panic Movement of performance artists. In 1966 he created his first comic strip, Anibal 5, while in 1967 he directed his first feature film, the surrealist Fando y Lis, the result was The Holy Mountain, a surrealist exploration of western esotericism. His son Cristóbal has followed his teachings on psychoshamanism, this work is captured in the feature documentary Quantum Men, directed by Carlos Serrano Azcona. Jodorowsky was born in 1929 in the town of Tocopilla, Chile, to parents who were Jewish immigrants from Yekaterinoslav, Elisavetgrad. His father, Jaime Jodorowsky Groismann, was a merchant, who was abusive to his wife Sara Felicidad Prullansky Arcavi. Angered, he beat and raped her, getting her pregnant. Because of this conception, Sara both hated her husband and disliked her son, telling him that I cannot love you. It was this treatment at the hands of Americans that led to his condemnation of American imperialism and neo-colonialism in Latin America in several of his films. Nonetheless he liked his local area, and was unhappy when he was forced to leave it aged nine years old. His family subsequently moved to the city of Santiago, Chile, becoming interested in the political ideology of anarchism, he began attending college, studying psychology and philosophy, but stayed for only two years. After dropping out, and having an interest in theatre and particularly mime, he took up employment as a clown in a circus and began a career as a theatre director. Meanwhile, in 1947 he founded his own troupe, the Teatro Mimico, which by 1952 had fifty members. Nonetheless, Jodorowsky felt that there was little for him left in Chile and it was while in Paris that Jodorowsky began studying mime with Étienne Decroux and joined the troupe of one of Decrouxs students, Marcel Marceau. It was with Marceaus troupe that he went on a world tour, after this, he returned to theatre directing, working on the music hall comeback of Maurice Chevalier in Paris. In 1957, Jodorowsky turned his hand to filmmaking, creating Les têtes interverties and it consisted almost entirely of mime, and told the surreal story of a head-swapping merchant who helps a young man find courtship success. The director Jean Cocteau admired the film, and wrote an introduction for it and it was considered lost until a print of the film was discovered in 2006
20.
Tilda Swinton
–
Katherine Matilda Tilda Swinton is a British actress, performance artist, model, and fashion muse, known for her roles in independent and Hollywood films. She is the recipient of two BAFTA Awards, one BIFA Award, an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and has received three nominations for a Golden Globe Award. She began her career in films directed by Derek Jarman, starting with Caravaggio, followed by The Last of England, War Requiem, Swinton won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for her performance as Isabella of France in Edward II. She next starred in Sally Potters Orlando, and was nominated for the European Film Award for Best Actress, Swinton was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her performance in The Deep End. She followed this with appearances in Vanilla Sky, Adaptation, Young Adam and she then starred in the crime drama Julia, I Am Love, and the psychological thriller We Need to Talk About Kevin. Swinton later starred in the romantic fantasy drama, Only Lovers Left Alive. She is also known for her performances as the White Witch in the Chronicles of Narnia series, Swinton won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as lawyer Karen Crowder in Michael Clayton. In 2005, Swinton was given the Richard Harris Award by the British Independent Film Awards in recognition of her contributions to the British film industry, in 2013 she was given a special tribute by the Museum of Modern Art. Swinton was born in London, the daughter of Judith Balfour and her father is a retired major general in the British Army, and was Lord Lieutenant of Berwickshire from 1989 to 2000. Her paternal great-grandfather was a Scottish politician and herald, George Swinton, the Swinton family is an ancient Anglo-Scots family that can trace its lineage to the Middle Ages. The family is one of three families that can trace their unbroken land ownership and lineage to before the Norman Conquest. Swinton attended three independent schools, Queens Gate School in London, the West Heath Girls School and also Fettes College for a brief period, West Heath was an expensive boarding school where she was a classmate and friend of Princess Diana. Children need their parents and the parents can provide. Swinton went to volunteer in Kenya during a break from college with a charity called Project Trust. In 1983, Swinton graduated from New Hall at the University of Cambridge with a degree in Social and Political Sciences, while at Cambridge, she joined the Communist Party, she later joined the Scottish Socialist Party. It was in college that Swinton began performing on stage, Swinton joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1984, appearing in Measure for Measure. She also worked with the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, starring in Mann ist Mann by Manfred Karge in 1987, on television, she appeared as Julia in the 1986 mini-series Zastrozzi, A Romance based on the Gothic novel by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her first film was Caravaggio in 1986, directed by Derek Jarman, Swinton also played the title role in Orlando, Sally Potters film version of the novel by Virginia Woolf
21.
Amy Schumer
–
Amy Beth Schumer is an American stand-up comedian, writer, actress, and producer. She is the creator, co-producer, co-writer and star of the comedy series Inside Amy Schumer. Schumer has been nominated for five Primetime Emmy Awards for her work on the series, Schumer was born on June 1,1981 in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York, to Sandra and Gordon Schumer, who owned a baby furniture company. She has a sister, Kim Caramele, who is a comedy writer and a producer, and a brother, Jason Stein. Her father is cousin to U. S. Schumers father was born Jewish and her mother, who is from a Protestant background, Schumer was raised Jewish and says she experienced antisemitism as a child. Through the success of her fathers company in Manhattan, Schumer began life in a wealthy family. At age 9, her family went bankrupt, and either then or when she was 12, her father was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, some time afterward, her parents divorced. Moving to Long Island, she attended South Side High School in Rockville Centre, New York and she also attended the Hebrew school of the Central Synagogue of Nassau County, a Reform synagogue in Rockville Centre on whose board her mother served. Schumer moved to Baltimore, Maryland, after school where she attended Towson University. She returned to New York City after college, where she studied at the William Esper Studio for two years and worked as a bartender and a waitress and she started doing stand-up comedy on June 1,2004, when she first performed at Gotham Comedy Club. In 2007, she recorded a Live at Gotham episode for Comedy Central before appearing on Last Comic Standing, she later recalled that she thought of the episode as her big break. Rebounding from an audition for an earlier season, she advanced to the finals of the fifth season of the NBC reality television talent show Last Comic Standing. Schumer said in April 2011, Last Comic was totally fun, I had a great time because there was no pressure on me, I had been doing stand-up around two years. I wasnt supposed to do well, so every time I advanced it was a happy surprise. I kept it honest on the show and it served me well, Schumer co-starred in the Comedy Central reality show Reality Bites Back in 2008. In 2009, she appeared in a campaign for Butterfinger. Schumer was a recurring guest on Fox News late-night program Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld between 2007 and 2012 and her first Comedy Central Presents special aired on April 2,2010
22.
Sally Field
–
Sally Margaret Field is an American film and television actress and director. Field began her career in television, starring on the sitcoms Gidget and she ventured into film with Smokey and the Bandit and later Norma Rae, for which she received the Academy Award for Best Actress. She later received Golden Globe Award nominations for her performances in Absence of Malice and Kiss Me Goodbye, Field received further nominations for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for Murphys Romance and Steel Magnolias. In the 2000s, she returned to television with a role on the NBC medical drama ER. She also appeared as Aunt May in The Amazing Spider-Man and reprised the role in the 2014 sequel. As a director, Field is known for the television film The Christmas Tree, in 2014, she was presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Sally Field was born in Pasadena, California, to Margaret, mr. Field was an army officer. Following her parents 1950 divorce, her mother married actor and stuntman Jock Mahoney, through her maternal grandmothers genealogical line, Field is a descendant of a Mayflower passenger and colonial governor William Bradford, her 10 times great-grandfather. As a teen, Field attended Portola Middle School and Birmingham High School in Van Nuys and her classmates included financier Michael Milken, actress Cindy Williams, and talent agent Michael Ovitz. Field got her start on television as the surfer girl in the sitcom Gidget. The show was not a success and was canceled after a single season, however, summer reruns garnered respectable ratings. Wanting to find a new starring vehicle for Field, ABC next produced The Flying Nun with Field cast as Sister Bertrille for three seasons, from 1967 to 1970. In an interview included on the Season One DVD release, Field said that she thoroughly enjoyed Gidget, Field was then typecast, finding respectable roles difficult to come by. In 1971, Field starred in the ABC TV movie Maybe Ill Come Home in the Spring, playing a teen runaway who returns home with a bearded. She made several guest television appearances through the mid 1970s, including a role on the western Alias Smith and Jones and she also appeared in the episode Whisper on the TV thriller Night Gallery. In 1973, Field was cast in a role opposite John Davidson in the short-lived series The Girl with Something Extra from 1973 to 1974. Following the series cancellation, Field studied at the Actors Studio with the acting teacher Lee Strasberg, Strasberg became a mentor to the actress, helping her to move past her television image of the girl next door. It was during time period that Field divorced her first husband in 1975
23.
Joss Whedon
–
Joss Whedon is an American screenwriter, film and television director, film and television producer, comic book author, and composer. H. I. E. L. D. Whedon co-wrote the Pixar film Toy Story, wrote and directed the Firefly film continuation Serenity, co-wrote and his mother, Ann Lee Stearns, originally from Kentucky, was a teacher at Riverdale Country School as Lee Whedon, and an aspiring novelist. His parents had both acted, and appeared in a play together at the Harvard Radcliffe Dramatic Club, Whedon is the younger sibling of Samuel and Matthew Whedon and older sibling of writers Jed and Zack Whedon. At a young age, he showed great interest in British television with shows like Masterpiece, in May 2003, Whedon received an honorary doctorate from Wesleyan University. Whedon attended Riverdale Country School in New York City where his mother taught history. He then spent three years at Winchester College in England, where, taking note of omnipresent bullying, he concluded, Whedon graduated from Wesleyan University in 1987, where he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters in 2013. There, he studied under renowned academic Richard Slotkin. After leaving Wesleyan, Whedon came up with the first incarnation of Buffy Summers, Rhonda, from 1989 to 1990, Whedon worked as a staff writer on the sitcoms Roseanne and Parenthood. As a script doctor, Whedon was a writer on films like The Getaway, Speed, Waterworld, Twister. X-Men reportedly contained only two dialogue exchanges of Whedons contribution, but the cut of Speed left in most of his dialogue. E. The former of which earned him a shared Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, Whedon has expressed strong dissatisfaction with the released versions of the films Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Titan A. E. and Alien, Resurrection. The idea came directly from his aversion to seeing the Hollywood formula of the blonde girl who goes into a dark alley. Whedon said he wanted to subvert the idea and create someone who was a hero and this conception came from the very first mission statement of the show, which was the joy of female power, having it, using it, sharing it. The writing process came together from conversations about the issues facing Buffy Summers. Whedon usually directed episodes from his own scripts that held the most cathartic moments in Buffys story, the series received numerous awards and nominations, including an Emmy Award nomination for the 1999 episode Hush. The final episode Chosen was nominated for a Best Dramatic Presentation, All written and directed by Whedon, they are considered some the most effective and popular episodes of the series. Scholar A. Asbjørn Jøn recognized that the series has shifted the way vampires have since been depicted in popular culture representations, in June 2012, Slate magazine identified it as the most written about popular culture text of all time. Ore than twice as many papers, essays, and books have been devoted to the drama than any of our other choices—so many that we stopped counting when we hit 200
24.
RZA
–
Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, better known by his stage name RZA, is an American rapper, record producer, musician, actor, filmmaker and author. A prominent figure in hip hop, RZA is the de facto leader of the Wu-Tang Clan and he has produced almost all of Wu-Tang Clans albums as well as many Wu-Tang solo and affiliate projects. He is a cousin of the late group-mate Ol Dirty Bastard and he has also released solo albums under the alter-ego Bobby Digital, along with executive producing credits for side projects. In addition to the Wu-Tang Clan and his releases, RZA was also a founding member of the horrorcore group Gravediggaz where he used the name The RZArector. Furthermore, he has acted in movies, including Coffee and Cigarettes, American Gangster, Gospel Hill, Life Is Hot in Cracktown, Ghost Dog, Funny People, Derailed, Due Date. He also appeared in the Showtime TV series Californication and his directorial debut is for the film he co-wrote and in which he plays the title role, The Man with the Iron Fists, also starring Russell Crowe. The magazine The Source placed him on its list of the 20 greatest producers in the magazines twenty-year history and he also made the Elite 8 in the search for The Greatest Hip-Hop Producer of All Time by Vibe. NME placed him on their list of the 50 Greatest Producers Ever, RZA was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn. He lived in North Carolina with his uncle from age three to seven, who encouraged him to read and study, RZA was introduced to hip hop music at the age of nine, and by eleven, was competing in rap battles. He relocated to Steubenville, Ohio in 1990, to live with his mother and he spent weekends in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where his father ran a convenience store in the citys Hill District. RZA got involved with petty crime and drug-dealing, and was charged with attempted murder while in Steubenville and he was acquitted of the charge, giving him what he stated was a second chance. He is named after Robert Kennedy and John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his mother greatly admired the Kennedys, the RZA has called his given name an honorable name, given the legacy of both brothers Robert and John. Robert Diggs formed a rap group with his cousins Russell Jones and they enjoyed local success but never signed a record deal. Diggs later debuted on Tommy Boy Records in 1991 as a solo artist under the name Prince Rakeem, after a shoot-out in Ohio in 1992, he faced eight years in jail. When they said not guilty, my face stuck in a smile for three days, he recalled, I was just walking around town, thinking about my daughter and my wife. Right then I said goodbye to anything that would put me in that situation again, I was up on trial on an attempted murder charge. I was a fool, with all that knowledge in my head. Diggs formed a new group with his cousins and five other childhood friends and this group would be named Wu-Tang Clan, releasing their debut album Enter the Wu-Tang,36 Chambers in 1993
25.
Matthew McConaughey
–
Matthew David McConaughey is an American actor. He first gained notice for his role in the coming-of-age comedy Dazed and Confused. Matthew McConaughey, the youngest of three boys, was born on November 4,1969 in Uvalde, Texas and his mother, Mary Kathleen Kay or KMac, is a former kindergarten teacher and a published author. She was originally from Trenton, New Jersey and his father, James Donald McConaughey, was from Louisiana and ran an oil pipe supply business. He played for the Kentucky Wildcats and the Houston Cougars college football teams, in 1953, Jim McConaughey was drafted in the 27th round by the NFL football team the Green Bay Packers. He was released before the season began and never played a league game in the NFL. Matthews mother and late father married each other three times and his ancestry includes Scottish, English, Irish, Swedish and German. He is a relative of Confederate brigadier general Dandridge McRae, McConaughey moved to Longview, Texas in 1980, where he attended Longview High School. He lived for a year in Warnervale, New South Wales, Australia and he attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he joined Delta Tau Delta fraternity. He began in the fall of 1989 and graduated in the spring of 1993 with a degree in Radio-Television-Film. His original plan had changed as he wanted to attend Southern Methodist University until a brother told him that private school tuition would have been a burden on the family finances. He also had planned to attend law school graduation from college. McConaughey began working in commercials, including one for the Austin, Texas daily newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman. The line, How else am I gonna keep up with my Horns, – a reference to his beloved Texas Longhorns sports teams – gave the local community a look at the young actor, before he was cast in Richard Linklaters film Dazed and Confused. In 1992, he was cast as Joe in Trisha Yearwoods video for her hit song Walkaway Joe, in the late 1990s, McConaughey was cast in leading roles in more movies, including Contact, Amistad, The Newton Boys, EDtv and U-571. By the early 2000s, he was frequently cast in comedies, including The Wedding Planner and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. McConaughey starred in the 2005 feature film Sahara, along with Steve Zahn, prior to the release of the film, he promoted it by sailing down the Amazon River and trekking to Mali. That same year, McConaughey was named People magazines Sexiest Man Alive for 2005, in 2006, he co-starred with Sarah Jessica Parker in the romantic comedy Failure to Launch and as Marshall head football coach Jack Lengyal in We Are Marshall
26.
Danny Boyle
–
His debut film Shallow Grave won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film. Boyles 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won eight and he also won the Golden Globe and BAFTA Award for Best Director. Boyle was presented with the Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking Award at the 2008 Austin Film Festival, in 2012, Boyle was the Artistic Director for Isles of Wonder, the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games. He was subsequently offered a knighthood as part of the New Year Honours, in 2014, it was announced that Boyle would become a patron of HOME in Manchester. Danny Boyle was born on 20 October 1956 in Radcliffe, Lancashire, although he now describes himself as a spiritual atheist, he was brought up in a working class Catholic family. Boyle was a boy for eight years and his mother had the priesthood in mind for him. Whether he was saving me from the priesthood or the priesthood from me, but quite soon after, I started doing drama. And theres a connection, I think. All these directors — Martin Scorsese, John Woo, M. Night Shyamalan — they were all meant to be priests, Theres something very theatrical about it. It’s basically the same job — poncing around, telling people what to think and he later studied at Thornleigh Salesian College in Bolton, and studied English and Drama at Bangor University. While at university, Boyle dated the actress Frances Barber, Boyle is the patron of North West-based young peoples substance misuse charity, Early Break, which was founded and based in his home town of Radcliffe. Boyle is also a trustee of the UK-based African arts charity Dramatic Need, upon leaving school he began his career at the Joint Stock Theatre Company, before moving onto the Royal Court Theatre in 1982 where he directed The Genius by Howard Brenton and Saved by Edward Bond. He also directed five productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, in 2011 he directed Frankenstein for the National Theatre. This production was broadcast to cinemas as a part of National Theatre Live on 17 March 2011, Boyle was Artistic Director for the 2012 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony in London. The ceremony, entitled Isles of Wonder, charted aspects of British culture, including the Industrial Revolution and British contributions to literature, music, film, reception to the ceremony was generally positive, both nationally in the United Kingdom and internationally. In December 2012 it was reported that Boyle turned down a knighthood in the New Year Honours list. He told BBC Radio 4 Im very proud to be an equal citizen, in 2014, it was announced that Boyle would become a patron of HOME in Manchester. These were Masonic Mysteries and Cherubim and Seraphim and he was also responsible for the BBC2 series Mr. Wroes Virgins
27.
Seth MacFarlane
–
Seth Woodbury MacFarlane is an American television producer, filmmaker, actor, and singer, working primarily in animation and comedy, as well as live-action and other genres. MacFarlane is the creator of the TV series Family Guy, co-creator of the TV series American Dad. and he also wrote, directed, and starred in the films Ted, its sequel Ted 2, and A Million Ways to Die in the West. MacFarlane is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, recruited to Hollywood, he was an animator and writer for Hanna-Barbera for several television series, including Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, Dexters Laboratory, I Am Weasel, and Larry & Steve. As an actor, he has made guest appearances on series, such as Gilmore Girls, The War at Home, in 2008, he created his own YouTube series titled Seth MacFarlanes Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. He won several awards for his work on Family Guy, including two Primetime Emmy Awards and an Annie Award, in 2009, he won the Webby Award for Film & Video Person of the Year. He occasionally speaks at universities and colleges throughout the United States, MacFarlanes first feature-length comedy film, Ted, features his voice acting and performance-capture as the titular anthropomorphic teddy bear and became the highest-grossing original R-rated comedy. As a singer MacFarlane has performed at venues, including Carnegie Hall. MacFarlane has released three albums, in the same vein of his musical idol Frank Sinatra, beginning with Music Is Better Than Words in 2011. He wrote the lyrics for the Academy Award-nominated song Everybody Needs a Best Friend for Ted, MacFarlane served as executive producer of Cosmos, A Spacetime Odyssey, an update of the 1980s Carl Sagan–hosted Cosmos series, hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson. MacFarlane was instrumental in providing funding for the series, as well as securing support for it from other entertainment executives. MacFarlane was born and raised in Kent, Connecticut and his parents, Ronald Milton MacFarlane and Ann Perry, were born in Newburyport, Massachusetts. His sister is voice actress Rachael Ann MacFarlane and he is of English, Scottish, and Irish descent, with roots in New England going back to the 1600s, including descent from Mayflower passenger William Brewster. MacFarlanes parents met in 1970, when both lived and worked in Boston, Massachusetts, and married later that year. The couple moved to Kent in 1972, where Ann began working in the Admissions Office at South Kent School and she later worked in the College Guidance and Admissions Offices at the Kent School, a selective college preparatory school, where Ronald was a teacher. During his childhood, MacFarlane developed an interest in illustration and began drawing cartoon characters Fred Flintstone and Woody Woodpecker, as early as two years old. By the age of five, MacFarlane knew that he would want to pursue a career in animation, in one anecdote from the time, MacFarlane said in an October 2011 interview that as a child he was always weirdly fascinated by the Communion ceremony. He created a strip with a character kneeling at the altar taking Communion, the paper printed it and he got an angry letter from the local priest, it led to sort of a little mini-controversy in the town. MacFarlane received his high school diploma in 1991 from the Kent School, while there, he continued experimenting with animation, and his parents gave him an 8 mm camera
28.
Catherine Hardwicke
–
Catherine Hardwicke is an American film director, production designer and screenwriter. The opening weekend of Twilight was the biggest opening ever for a female director, Hardwicke was born in Cameron, Texas, on October. 21,1955, the daughter of Jamee Elberta and John Benjamin Hardwicke and she has a brother Jack, and a sister Irene Hardwicke Olivieri, who became an artist. She grew up in McAllen, Texas, on the U. S. –Mexico border, where her family owned and operated a farm along the Rio Grande and she said the border area was wild, in high school, her principal was stabbed three times. A friends father was shot in the back, and another friend was murdered, and yet life could be wonderful at the same time. It was a Huck Finn life, too, she said, growing up in McAllen, Hardwicke describes it as wild. As a child she did not attend many movies and explains, lets be honest, It was a cultural wasteland. At the time, you could not go to a significant museum unless you drove three hours to Corpus Christi or four to San Antonio. However, there were ways to have fun such as sneaking over to the bars. Speaking on her early life Hardwicke says, It was a wonderful childhood, i’m dying to make a movie about it. She graduated from McAllen High School and went to the University of Texas at Austin, among her post-graduation projects was designing the solar townhouse complex built around a man-made lake on the 20-acre site, complete with waterfalls and swimming pools. The property was owned by her father, after graduating from her hometown High School, McAllen High School, Hardwicke went on to attend the University of Texas at Austin. Studying Architecture, Hardwicke felt that she had far too much creativity for that field, stating, I would dress up like my building and people were like, wow, dude, architecture really doesn’t encourage that type of creativity. Feeling limited, Hardwicke moved to Los Angeles, where she studied at UCLA film school to explore her creative talents, Hardwicke made her first short film for her brother Jack who was getting married to Nicolette Cullen. During this period in the 1980s, Hardwicke made an award-winning short and she became a production designer, working with film directors such as Cameron Crowe, Richard Linklater, and David O. Russell. She was influenced by them, gaining experience in their techniques and she talked to some about her desire to be a filmmaker, and received advice and tips. While working with big name directors she was able to study their techniques. Hardwicke has mentioned, I always told them I really want to make my own movies and her career as a production designer was crucial and beneficial to the molding of her career as a director
29.
Richard Linklater
–
Richard Stuart Linklater is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and actor. Linklater is mostly known for his realistic and natural humanist films which mainly revolve around suburban culture, in 2002 he began filming Boyhood, a passion project which took over twelve years to finish. The film was premiered in 2014 to critical acclaim, Linklater won the Golden Globe, Critics Choice Movie Awards and BAFTAs for Best Director and Best Picture. He also received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director, along with nominations for Original Screenplay, in 2015, Time magazine named Linklater one of the 100 most influential people in the world on the annual Time 100 list. Many of his films are noted for their loosely structured narrative, films and Boyhood – feature the same actors filmed over an extended period of years. He is also known for loyalty to his actors, having worked with Ethan Hawke, Linklater was born in Houston, Texas, the son of Diane Margaret, who taught at Sam Houston State University, and Charles W. Linklater, III. He attended Huntsville High School in Huntsville, Texas, during grades 9-11, as a teen, Linklater also won a Scholastic Art and Writing Award. Linklater studied at Sam Houston State University, until dropping out to work on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. He frequently read novels on the rig and, upon returning to land, at this point, Linklater realized he wanted to be a filmmaker. He used his savings to buy a Super-8 camera, a projector, and editing equipment and he was influenced by Martin Scorsese Robert Bresson, Yasujirō Ozu, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Josef Von Sternberg, and Carl Theodor Dreyer. He enrolled in Austin Community College in the fall of 1984 to study film, since his early 20s, Linklater has been a vegetarian. In 2015, he explained the dietary lifestyle in a Boyhood-style documentary for PETA, Linklater founded the Austin Film Society in 1985 together with his frequent collaborator Lee Daniel. One of the mentors for the Film Society was former New York City critic for the Soho Weekly News George Morris who had relocated to Austin, Morris had previously written articles on Leo McCarey, Vincente Minnelli, George Sidney, and Douglas Sirk. For several years, Linklater made many films that were exercises. He finally completed his first feature, the rarely seen Its Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books, the film is significant in the sense that it establishes most of Linklaters preoccupations. The film has his trademark style of camera movements and lack of narrative. These idiosyncrasies would be explored in detail in future projects. To this end Linklater created Detour Filmproduction, and subsequently made Slacker for only $23,000 and it went on to gross more than $1.25 million
30.
David Gordon Green
–
David Gordon Green is an American filmmaker. He has directed dramas such as George Washington, All the Real Girls, in 2008, he transitioned into comedy, directing the films Pineapple Express and Your Highness, as well as episodes of the HBO comedy Eastbound & Down. In 2013, he returned to his more dramatic roots with the independent film Prince Avalanche. Since then, he has worked between the two genres, directing the films Joe, Manglehorn and Our Brand Is Crisis, and episodes of the television comedy-drama Red Oaks, which he also executive produces. Green, one of four children, was born in Little Rock, Arkansas and his mother, Jean Ann, was a Lamaze instructor, and his father, Hubert Gordon Green, Jr. was a medical school dean. Green attended Richardson High School and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Greens films, which are usually coming-of-age tales set in small rural towns, have been categorized as belonging to the Southern Gothic tradition. Greens dialog often has an obtuse, semi-poetic quality and he followed that in 2003 with All the Real Girls and Undertow in 2004. In 2007, he directed Snow Angels, his first film of another authors screenplay, the film debuted at Sundance in January 2007 and stars Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale. It was released by Warner Independent Pictures and he will produce the Slasher flick Splatter Sisters, which stars Evan Rachel Wood and Marilyn Manson. Green will direct the US remake of the Italian cult classic film Suspiria and he is the creator of the animated series Good Vibes. He directed the comedy The Sitter, released in December 2011, Green also directed and co-wrote, Prince Avalanche in 2013. Green will direct Halloween, a reboot of the film series. Greens favorite films are, in order, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot,2001, A Space Odyssey, The Gravy Train, The Bad News Bears, Deliverance, Nashville and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. It has been suggested, even by the director himself, that Greens films take a lot of influence from the works of fellow Texan Terrence Malick, Malick himself served as an executive producer of Greens 2004 film Undertow. Green has suggested that no other director had used voice-over narration so well, david Gordon Green at the Internet Movie Database
31.
Harmony Korine
–
Harmony Korine is an American film director and screenwriter. He is best known for writing Kids and for writing and directing Spring Breakers, Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy and his film Trash Humpers premiered at Toronto International Film Festival and won the main prize, the DOX Award, at CPH, DOX in November 2009. His most recent film, Spring Breakers, was released in 2013, Korine was born in Bolinas, California and raised in Nashville, Tennessee into a Jewish family. His parents are Eve and Sol Korine, as a child, Korine watched movies with his father, who rented Buster Keaton films and took him to see Even Dwarfs Started Small in the theater. Korine reminisces, I knew there was a poetry in cinema that I had never seen before that was so powerful, as a child, Korine changed his name from Harmony and went by Harmful, as he thought it made him sound tougher when he got in fights. Korine spent his childhood in Nashville, attending Hillsboro High School before moving to New York City to live with his grandmother, Korine also spent some time living with his parents in a commune, which helped to inspire the commune setting of Mister Lonely. As a teenager, Korine frequented revival theaters, watching films by John Cassavetes, Werner Herzog, Jean-Luc Godard, Rainer Werner Fassbinder. In an interview with Bruce LaBruce, Korine briefly mentioned that he studied Business Administration in college, other sources state that he studied Dramatic Writing at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University for one semester before dropping out to pursue a career as a professional skateboarder. Korine met Chloë Sevigny in Washington Square Park in New York City during her year of high school in 1993. The two became friends, which resulted in her being cast in the low-budget independent film Kids. They had a relationship ended in the late 1990s. He is married to actress Rachel Korine, with whom he has one child, Korine was skating with friends in Washington Square Park when he noticed photographer Larry Clark. Impressed, the photographer asked him to compose a script about skaters, Korine told Clark, Ive been waiting all my life to write this story. Kids garnered mixed reviews, but due to its NC-17 rating, however, it has since become a significant cult film. Among others, the film features Chloë Sevigny and Rosario Dawson in their first movie roles, the film, while controversial, jumpstarted Korines career. This put him into contact with film producer Cary Woods who budgeted about $1 million to produce Gummo, in 1997, Korine wrote and directed Gummo, a film based on life in Xenia, Ohio, a town devastated by a tornado in the early 1970s. Forgoing conventional narrative, Gummo embodies sketches written by Korine, hence the nonlinear, much of the cast was found during preproduction where it was filmed in Tennessee, and of all those who appeared in the film, only five were experienced actors. The film is notable for having unsettling, often bizarre scenes, as well as its dreamlike soundtrack and it features an eclectic soundtrack including death metal, Madonna and Roy Orbison
32.
Henry Rollins
–
Henry Rollins is an American musician, actor, writer, television and radio host, and comedian. He hosts a radio show on KCRW, and is a regular columnist for LA Weekly. After performing in the short-lived Washington, D. C. band State of Alert in 1980, Rollins fronted the California hardcore punk band Black Flag from August 1981 until mid-1986. Since Black Flag disbanded, Rollins has hosted radio shows, such as Harmony in My Head on Indie 103, and television shows such as The Henry Rollins Show, MTVs 120 Minutes. He had recurring roles in the second season of Sons of Anarchy, in the final seasons of the animated series The Legend of Korra as Zaheer. Rollins has campaigned for political causes in the United States, including promoting LGBT rights, World Hunger Relief, the West Memphis Three. As of 2013, Rollins is the host of the educational television series 10 Things You Dont Know About, joining the show for its second. Rollins was born in Washington, D. C. the only child of Iris, when he was three years old, his parents divorced and he was raised by his mother in Glover Park, an affluent neighborhood of Washington. As a child and teenager, Rollins was sexually assaulted and he suffered from depression and low self-esteem. In the fourth grade, he was diagnosed with hyperactivity and took Ritalin for several years so that he could focus during school and he attended The Bullis School, an all-male preparatory school in Potomac, Maryland. According to Rollins, the Bullis School helped him to develop a sense of discipline and it was at Bullis that he began writing. In 1987, Rollins said he had not seen his father since he was 18, after high school, Rollins attended American University in Washington D. C. for one semester, but dropped out in December 1979. He began working minimum-wage jobs, including a job as a courier for kidney samples at the National Institutes of Health. Rollins developed an interest in punk rock after he and his friend Ian MacKaye procured a copy of The Ramoness eponymous debut album, from 1979 to 1980, Rollins was working as a roadie for Washington bands, including Teen Idles. When the bands singer Nathan Strejcek failed to appear for practice sessions, Rollins convinced the Teen Idles to let him sing. Word of Rollinss ability spread around the rock scene in Washington. In 1980, the Washington punk band the Extorts lost their frontman Lyle Preslar to Minor Threat, Rollins joined the rest of the band to form State of Alert, and became its frontman and vocalist. He put words to the five songs and wrote several more
33.
Robert Rodriguez
–
Robert Anthony Rodriguez is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and musician. He shoots and produces many of his films in Mexico and his home state, Rodriguez directed the 1992 action film El Mariachi, which was a commercial success after grossing $2 million against a budget of $7,000. The film spawned two sequels known collectively as the Mexico Trilogy, Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico and he directed From Dusk till Dawn in 1996 and developed its television adaptation series. Rodriguez co-directed the 2005 neo-noir crime thriller anthology Sin City and the 2014 sequel, Sin City, Rodriguez also directed the Spy Kids films, The Faculty, as well as The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, Planet Terror, and Machete. He is a friend and frequent collaborator of filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, who founded the production company A Band Apart, in December 2013, Rodriguez launched his own cable television channel, El Rey. Rodríguez was born in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Mexican-American parents Rebecca, a nurse, and Cecilio G. Rodríguez and he began his interest in film at age eleven, when his father bought one of the first VCRs, which came with a camera. While attending St. Anthony High School Seminary in San Antonio, in high school, he met Carlos Gallardo, they both shot films on video throughout high school and college. Rodriguez went to the College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin, not having grades high enough to be accepted into the schools film program, he created a daily comic strip entitled Los Hooligans. Many of the characters were based on his siblings – in particular, one of his sisters, the comic ran for three years in the student newspaper The Daily Texan, while Rodríguez continued to make short films. Rodríguez shot action and horror films on video and edited on two VCRs. In late 1990, his entry in a film contest earned him a spot in the universitys film program. There he made the award-winning 16 mm short Bedhead, the film chronicles the amusing misadventures of a young girl whose older brother sports an incredibly tangled mess of hair which she detests. Even at this stage, Rodríguezs trademark style began to emerge, quick cuts, intense zooms. Bedhead was recognized for excellence in the Black Maria Film Festival and it was selected by Film/Video Curator Sally Berger, for the Black Maria 20th-anniversary retrospective at MoMA in 2006. The short film Bedhead attracted enough attention to him to seriously attempt a career as a filmmaker. Rodriquez won the Audience Award for this film at the Sundance Film Festival in 1993 and its promotion still advertised it as the movie made for $7,000. Rodríguez described his experiences making the film in his book Rebel Without a Crew, Desperado, was a sequel to El Mariachi that starred Antonio Banderas and introduced Salma Hayek to American audiences. Rodriguez has also worked with Kevin Williamson, on the horror film The Faculty, in 2001, Rodríguez enjoyed his first Hollywood hit with Spy Kids, which went on to become a movie franchise
34.
Furious 7
–
Furious 7 is a 2015 American action film directed by James Wan and written by Chris Morgan. It is the installment in The Fast and the Furious franchise. The film stars Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris Bridges, Jordana Brewster, Djimon Hounsou, Kurt Russell and Jason Statham. With the previous three installments set between 2 Fast 2 Furious and The Fast and the Furious, Tokyo Drift, Furious 7 is the first installment in the franchise to take place after Tokyo Drift. The film also marks the film appearance of Walker, who died in a single-vehicle crash on November 30,2013. Following Walkers death, filming was delayed for script rewrites, and his brothers, Caleb, plans for a seventh installment were first announced in February 2012 when Johnson stated that production on the film would begin after the completion of Fast & Furious 6. In April 2013, Wan, predominantly known for films, was announced to direct the film in place of Justin Lin. Casting began in the month with the re-signing of Diesel and Walker. Principal photography began in Atlanta, Georgia, in September 2013, resumed in April 2014 and ended in July 2014, with filming locations including Los Angeles, Colorado, Abu Dhabi. Furious 7 premiered in Los Angeles on April 1,2015, and was first released in Australia on April 2,2015, the film was also released in 3D, IMAX 3D, and 4DX internationally. Upon release, the became a critical and commercial success, with praise being aimed at the films action sequences. The film grossed $397.6 million worldwide in its first five days of release, a sequel, The Fate of the Furious, is scheduled to be released on April 14,2017. Brian begins to accustom himself to life as a father, while Dom tries to help Letty Ortiz regain her memory, after revealing his identity, Shaw engages Hobbs in a fight, and escapes when he detonates a bomb that severely injures Hobbs. Dom later learns from his sister Mia that she is pregnant again, however, a bomb, disguised in a package sent from Tokyo, explodes and destroys the Toretto house just seconds after Han, a member of Doms team, is killed by Shaw in Tokyo. Dom later visits Hobbs in a hospital, where he learns that Shaw is a special forces assassin seeking to avenge his brother. Dom then travels to Tokyo to claim Hans body, and meets and races Sean Boswell, back at Hans funeral in Los Angeles, Dom notices a car observing them, and after a chase, confronts its driver, who is revealed to be Shaw. Both prepare to fight, but Shaw flees when a covert ops team arrives, the team then heads to Abu Dhabi, where a billionaire has acquired the flash drive containing the Gods Eye, and manages to steal it from the owner. With the Gods Eye near telecommunications repeaters, the tracks down Shaw
35.
Neighbors (2014 film)
–
Neighbors is a 2014 American comedy film directed by Nicholas Stoller and written by Andrew Cohen and Brendan OBrien. The film stars Seth Rogen, Zac Efron, Rose Byrne, Dave Franco, the plot follows a couple who come into conflict with a fraternity that has recently moved in next door. The film premiered at South by Southwest on March 8,2014 and was released on May 9 in the United States and it was a commercial success, grossing over $270 million worldwide, and is currently Rogens highest grossing live-action movie. A sequel, titled Neighbors 2, Sorority Rising, was released on May 20,2016, Stoller returned to direct, with Rogen, Efron, Byrne, Mintz-Plasse, Barinholtz, Gallo, Kudrow, Buress and Franco all reprising their roles. Mac and Kelly Radner are a couple with an infant daughter. The restrictions of parenthood make it difficult for them to maintain their old lifestyle, one day, the couple finds out that Delta Psi Beta, a fraternity known for their outrageous parties, has moved into an adjacent house. The fraternitys leaders, Teddy Sanders and Pete Regazolli, aspire to join Delta Psis Hall of Fame by throwing a massive end-of-the-year party, one night, the couple ask Teddy to keep the noise down. Teddy agrees on the condition that Mac and Kelly promise to call him instead of calling the police. To earn Mac and Kellys favor, Teddy invites them to join the party, at the party, Kelly meets Teddys girlfriend Brooke Shy and Teddy shows Mac his bedroom, which includes a stash of fireworks and a breaker box that controls their power. The following night, Mac tries his best to call Teddy but is unable to get in touch with him to ask him to keep it down so that their baby can sleep. Kelly convinces Mac to call the police and report the party as an anonymous person, Teddy feels betrayed that his new friends went back on their promise. The following day, Delta Psi constantly hazes Mac and Kelly, after failing to force the fraternity to move by damaging their house, Kelly manipulates Pete and Brooke into having sex and Mac gets Teddy to catch them. To acquire evidence of Delta Psis hazing, Kelly and Mac hire a pledge nicknamed Assjuice to stand up to Teddy to record him threatening retaliation, when Teddy instead shows him kindness, he reveals that Mac and Kelly hired him and also damaged their house. Teddy begins playing violent pranks on the couple, Mac and Kelly send Teddy a counterfeit letter from Gladstone enabling them to have parties again, and Teddy begins planning their end-of-the-year bash. Once the party is in full swing, the Radners call Watkins to complain about the noise, Teddy discovers the random strangers sent by Mac, Kelly and Jimmy. After finding a flyer about the party and determining the letter is counterfeit, Jimmy throws himself from the balcony to distract Teddy, allowing Mac and Kelly to sneak into Teddys bedroom and restart the party using the breaker box. Teddy takes the blame for the party and convinces Pete to take the others, Gladstone shuts the house down and Mac and Kelly return home, adjusting to their new lives. Jimmy and Paula also get back together, four months later, Mac is at an outdoor shopping mall when he runs into Teddy, who is working as a shirtless greeter at Abercrombie & Fitch
36.
Chef (film)
–
He reconnects with his ex-wife and invites their young son to join him in driving the truck back to LA while selling Cubanos in various cities along the way. Favreau wrote the script after directing several films, wanting to go back to basics. Food truck owner and chef Roy Choi served as a co-producer and oversaw all of the menus, principal photography took place in July 2013 in Los Angeles, Miami, Austin and New Orleans. Chef premiered at South by Southwest on March 7,2014 and was released theatrically on May 9,2014 by Open Road Films. It grossed over $45 million at the box office and was received by critics, who praised Favreaus direction and writing, as well as the films story. Miami-born Carl Casper is the chef of Gauloise in Brentwood. While popular with his staff and hostess Molly, the restaurant owner Riva wants Carl to stick to tired classics rather than innovative dishes. Carl has a relationship with his tech-savvy preteen son Percy. On Twitter, Carl insults Ramsey for the review, not realizing that his reply is public, Carl comes up with an inspirational new menu that his staff loves and invites Ramsey to a rematch. After a confrontation with Riva as the owner wants the old menu again, Carl walks out. At home, he prepares the menu he wanted to serve to Ramsey, Carls assistant becomes the interim chef and even the regular dishes become a disaster. Ramsey again starts to tweet negatively about Carl, leading Carl to go to the restaurant, videos featuring Carls meltdown go viral, and his professional credibility evaporates. Molly and Inez encourage him to run a food truck and he accepts Inezs invitation to Miami, where he spends some quality time with Percy and rediscovers his love for Cuban cuisine. Inezs ex-husband Marvin offers him a food truck, and Carl reluctantly accepts. He also finds out that Marvin and Inez spent some time together after his divorce from Inez and he and Percy bond while restoring the truck and buying groceries and Carl buys him a chefs knife. Martin, his friend from Gauloise, turns down his restaurant promotion to work with Carl, the three drive the food truck across the country back to Los Angeles, serving top-quality Cuban sandwiches and yuca fries. Back in Los Angeles, Carl realizes the importance of his relationship with his son and accepts Percys enthusiastic offer to help out on weekends and holidays. Ramsey visits the truck to explain that he wrote the bad review as he knew Carls creativity did not suit a restaurant which had been serving the same menu for years and he leaves with an offer to bankroll a new restaurant
37.
21 Jump Street (film)
–
21 Jump Street is a 2012 American action comedy film directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, written by Michael Bacall starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. An adaptation of the 1987 television series of the name by Stephen J. It was released theatrically on March 16,2012, by Columbia Pictures, a sequel, titled 22 Jump Street, was released on June 13,2014. Two further films, MIB23 and a female-led spin-off, are currently in development, seven years later, the duo meets again at the Police Academy and become friends and partners on bicycle patrol. They catch a break when they arrest Domingo, the leader of a motorcycle gang. The duo is reassigned to a scheme from the 1980s. Captain Dickson assigns them to contain the spread of a drug called HFS at Sagan High School. Schmidt gets a lead on HFS from classmate Molly, and he and Jenko meet the main dealer. The two take HFS in front of him to maintain their cover, after experiencing the drugs effects, the duo discovers that Schmidts intelligence now makes him popular, while Jenkos lax attitude is frowned upon. Eric takes a liking to Schmidt, who develops a romantic interest in Molly, Jenko becomes friends with the students in his AP Chemistry class and finds himself becoming more interested in geeky hobbies and academic pursuits. Schmidt and Jenko throw a party at Schmidts parents house, where they are living during the course of their assignment, during the party, a fight breaks out between Schmidt, Jenko, and some party crashers. Schmidt wins the fight, solidifying his status and gaining Erics trust. Jenkos friends hack Erics phone to enable them to listen in on his conversations, the rift between the duo grows as their new school life intrudes upon their official police work. Schmidt and Jenko track Eric to a transaction with the distributors of HFS – the motorcycle gang from the park –. They return to school, argue, and eventually begin fighting and they are expelled from school and are removed from the Jump Street program. Eric, stressed and terrified, recruits Schmidt and Jenko as security for a deal taking place at the school prom, while dressing for the prom, Schmidt and Jenko rekindle their friendship. At the prom, they discover that the supplier is the physical education teacher, Mr. Walters, having caught Eric smoking marijuana, he was able to persuade him into being his dealer. The motorcycle gang arrives for the deal but Molly interrupts them, as a result, the gang leader recognizes Schmidt and Jenko, and orders his men to kill them
38.
The Cabin in the Woods
–
The Cabin in the Woods is a 2012 American horror comedy film directed by Drew Goddard in his directorial debut, produced by Joss Whedon, and written by Whedon and Goddard. The film stars Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, filming took place in Vancouver, British Columbia from March to May 2009 on an estimated budget of $30 million. The film was slated for release on February 5,2010 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and United Artists. In 2011, Lionsgate picked up the distribution rights, the film premiered on March 9,2012 at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas and was released in the United States on April 13,2012, grossing over $66 million worldwide. In a high tech facility, senior technicians Gary Sitterson. A similar operation undertaken by their counterparts in Stockholm has just ended in failure and they take bets from the different Facility departments as to what kind of monster they want to attack the teenagers and discuss the failures of similar rituals in other nations. In the cabins cellar, the group finds many bizarre objects, including the diary of Patience Buckner, Dana recites incantations from the journal, inadvertently summoning the zombified Buckner family despite Martys warnings. By releasing pheromones, Hadley successfully induces Curt and Jules to have sex, attacked by the marauding Buckner zombies, Jules is decapitated while Curt escapes to alert the group. Marty, a frequent marijuana smoker, discovers concealed surveillance equipment before being dragged off by one of the Buckners and seemingly killed. Later, the Facility workers learn that the ritual in Japan has also ended in failure, ending Japans streak of success and it becomes apparent that the ritual involves blood sacrifice. Curt, Holden, and Dana attempt to escape in their RV, Curt jumps a ravine on his motorcycle in an attempt to flee and alert the authorities, only to crash into a camouflaged force shield, killing him. Dana escapes and swims ashore and is beset in turn, as she is attacked, Sitterson, Hadley, and their staff celebrate her impending death and the successful completion of their ritual, viewing the events from their underground facility. The celebration is interrupted by a call from downstairs pointing out that Marty has survived. His heavy marijuana use has rendered him immune to Sitterson. Marty rescues Dana and shows her to an elevator he discovered under a grave. They take the elevator into the facility, where a menagerie of monsters, utilized by Sitterson. Dana correlates them with the objects in the cellar and realizes that those items gave victims the opportunity to choose the circumstances that will lead to their deaths during the ritual. Fleeing further, Dana and Marty discover a temple where they are confronted by The Director and she explains that, every year, worldwide rituals are held to appease the Ancient Ones, malevolent beings living beneath the surface of the earth, one of them under their own Facility
39.
Bridesmaids (2011 film)
–
Bridesmaids is a 2011 American comedy film directed by Paul Feig, written by Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, and produced by Judd Apatow, Barry Mendel and Clayton Townsend. The plot centers on Annie, who suffers a series of misfortunes after being asked to serve as maid of honor for her best friend, Lillian, actresses Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig wrote the screenplay following Wiigs casting in Apatows 2007 comedy film Knocked Up. Budgeted at $32.5 million, filming took place in Los Angeles, upon its opening release in the United States and Canada on May 13,2011, Bridesmaids was both critically and commercially successful. The film grossed $26 million in its weekend, eventually grossing over $288 million worldwide. It received a 90% overall approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes and served as a touchstone for discussion about women in comedy, the film was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. On January 24,2012, the film was nominated for both the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Melissa McCarthy and Best Original Screenplay for Wiig and this made it the first Apatow-produced film to be nominated for an Academy Award. Annie Walker is a woman in her late 30s. Her businesss failure was so painful that she has given up baking entirely and she has a no-strings-attached sexual relationship with the self-absorbed Ted but hopes for something more from him. Her best friend, Lillian, is virtually her only source of happiness, Lillian becomes engaged and asks Annie to be her Maid of Honor. At the engagement party, Annie meets Lillians bridesmaids, cynical cousin Rita, idealistic friend Becca, the grooms raunchy sister Megan, and Helen, the rich and beautiful wife of the grooms boss. Helen and Annie, who are jealous of each others friendship with Lillian, take an instant dislike to each other, Annie takes Lillian and the bridesmaids to a Brazilian steak restaurant for lunch before going to a chic bridal shop. Helen uses her influence to gain entry to the shop because Annie didnt make a reservation, while trying on gowns, the whole party— with the exception of Helen, who chose not to eat before the fitting —becomes sick from food poisoning. Later, Annies suggestion of a party at Lillians parents lake house is overruled in favor of a trip to Las Vegas planned by Helen. Worried about her finances and too proud to accept a paid for by Helen. The trip is cut short by an outburst from Annie, who had accepted a sedative from Helen because of her fear of flying, the plane makes an emergency landing in Casper, Wyoming, and the party takes a bus back home. Annie apologizes, but Lillian decides she wants Helen to take over planning the shower and the wedding. Annie continues to hope for a relationship with Ted, but Nathan Rhodes, Nathan encourages her to open a new bakery, but Annie refuses. Following a night together, Nathan buys baking supplies for Annie to start baking again, Annie is later fired for being rude to a customer and kicked out of her apartment by her roommates, forcing her to move in with her mother
40.
Insidious (film)
–
Insidious is a 2010 American-Canadian supernatural horror film directed by James Wan, written by Leigh Whannell, and starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne and Barbara Hershey. It is the first installment in the Insidious film series, the story centers on a couple whose son inexplicably enters a comatose state and becomes a vessel for ghosts in an astral dimension who want to inhabit his body, in order to live once again. The film was released in theaters on April 1,2011, the film is followed by a sequel, Chapter 2 and two prequels, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. The film became the basis for a maze for 2013s annual Halloween Horror Nights, a married couple Josh and Renai, their sons Dalton and Foster, and infant daughter Kali have recently moved into a new home. One night, Dalton is drawn to the attic when he hears creaking noises and sees the open by itself. He falls from a ladder while investigating and sees a figure in the shadows, hearing his terrified screams, Renai and Josh rush to his aid and declare the attic off limits to the children. The next day, Dalton falls into an inexplicable coma, after three months of treatment without result, Renai and Josh are allowed to take Dalton home. After Renai finds a hand print on Daltons bed, she questions Josh about the house. That night, Renai is attacked by the figure from Kalis room, in the new house, Renai sees the ghost of a dancing boy who leads her to Daltons room. Lorraine calls demonologists Elise Reiner, Specs, and Tucker, upon entering, Elise senses a presence in the house and upon entering Daltons room, she sees something on the ceiling, to which Specs draws the demonic, red-faced figure Lorraine saw. Elise explains that Dalton is not in a coma, he was born with the ability to travel mentally to the astral plane and he has traveled too far and become lost in a purgatory realm called The Further, a place inhabited by the tortured souls of the dead. Without his mental presence, Daltons body appears comatose and spirits can use it to enter the physical world, Josh is skeptical until he realizes that all of Daltons drawings are of the demonic entity drawn by Specs. Elise performs a seance to communicate with Dalton, but they contact the demon who threatens them before using Daltons body to them until it is stopped by Elise. She reveals that her acquaintance with Lorraine is decades old, because she performed the same service on Josh when he was eight years old. Josh also possesses the ability to project, and Dalton inherited this trait from him. Elise tells Josh that the way to rescue Dalton is to go into the Further. Elise puts Josh in a trance and he is able to project himself to their previous house and he goes to the attic and finds a red door, but is attacked by the mysterious figure that attacked Renai. After defeating him, Josh enters the Demons lair, where Josh finds Dalton chained to the floor, after a tearful reunion, Josh frees him, but they are caught by the demon
41.
Girls (TV series)
–
Girls is an American television series that premiered on HBO on April 15,2012. Created by and starring Lena Dunham, Girls is a following the lives of four young women living in New York City. The shows premise and major aspects of the character were drawn from Dunhams own life. Girls sixth and final season premiered on February 12,2017, left to her own devices in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Hannah navigates her twenties, one mistake at a time. Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet, Adam Driver, Lena Dunham as Hannah Helene Horvath, an aspiring writer living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, known for her narcissism and immaturity, who struggles to support herself and find a direction in her life. In season two, she struggles with her OCD diagnosis, allison Williams as Marnie Marie Michaels, Hannahs best friend and, at the start of season 1, roommate. Along with Jessa, Charlie and Elijah, Marnie was a classmate of Hannahs at Oberlin College and she worked as an art gallery assistant, but is later fired in Season 2 and is left to pursue her dream, a career in music. Jemima Kirke as Jessa Johansson, One of Hannahs closest friends, Jessa is a citizen of British origin, and is noted for her bohemian, unpredictable. At the start of the series, she has returned to New York from a stint abroad. Jessa navigates many life struggles and poor choices, including a short-lived marriage, Zosia Mamet as Shoshanna Shapiro, Jessas bubble-headed and innocent American cousin whos a Media, Culture, and Communications major at New York University. She is a fan of the TV series Sex and the City and is embarrassed to still be a virgin at the start of the series, as the series progresses, Shoshanna graduates and struggles to find a career path that suits her. Adam Driver as Adam Sackler, an aloof, passionate man, Adam works as a part-time carpenter. At the start of the series, he is in a relationship with Hannah. Adam is an alcoholic who has been sober for years, Alex Karpovsky as Raymond Ray Ploshansky, Originally Charlies friend, but later a friend of the others, and the groups straight man. Eventually, he has sexual and romantic relationships with both Shoshanna and Marnie, at the start of season 3, he is made manager of a spin-off of Grumpys, called Rays. Andrew Rannells as Elijah Krantz, Hannahs ex-boyfriend from college, who reveals that he is gay, despite some initial hostility between the pair, they eventually become friends and later roommates on and off. The two grow closer as roommates. Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Desi Harperin, Adams co-star in Major Barbara, despite having a girlfriend, Clementine, he and Marnie engage in a sexual relationship that he keeps secret, to Marnies chagrin
42.
Silicon Valley (TV series)
–
Silicon Valley is an American comedy television series created by Mike Judge, John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky. The series focuses on six young men who found a company in Silicon Valley. The series premiered on April 6,2014, on HBO, the first season consisted of eight episodes. HBO renewed the series for a season, which premiered on April 12,2015. On April 13,2015, HBO renewed Silicon Valley for a third season, on April 21,2016, HBO announced it had renewed the series for a fourth season to premiere on April 23,2017. Richard Hendricks is a shy, reclusive programmer who works at an internet company called Hooli. He is also developing an app called Pied Piper in a live-in startup business incubator run by entrepreneur Erlich Bachman. After a rocky post-TED elevator pitch of Pied Piper to venture capitalist Peter Gregory, within hours, however, Hooli executive Donald Jared Dunn and Gregorys assistant Monica discover that the app contains a revolutionary data compression algorithm. This leads Belson to increase his offer to $10 million, with encouragement from Monica and the support of Bachman, Hendricks chooses Gregorys offer. He hires the residents of the incubator, except for his friend Nelson Big Head Bighetti, to become the Pied Piper team, along with Dunn, Hooli works to reverse engineer Pied Pipers algorithm based on the version he demonstrated, developing a copycat product called Nucleus. Gregory and Belson later each learn that Hendricks has been slated to present Pied Piper at TechCrunch Disrupt, Belson is confounded by the news, and responds by scheduling the announcement of Nucleus at the event. Hendricks explains to Monica that he meant to withdraw from the competition, the countdown to the event means that Pied Piper has to be ready to show in less than eight weeks rather than Gregorys initial plan of five months. The team rushes to produce a cloud storage platform based on their compression technology. At the TechCrunch event, Bachman takes the lead in a dramatic presentation of Pied Piper. However the presentation is cut short when one of the judges assaults Bachman for having sex with both his current and ex-wives. Pied Piper automatically advances to the round as recompense for the assault on Bachman. Belson presents Nucleus, which is integrated with all of Hoolis services and has compression performance equal to Pied Piper, watching from the audience, the Pied Piper team generally admits defeat. The discussion sparks a sudden revelation in Hendricks, who spends the entire night coding, the next morning, Hendricks takes the lead in making Pied Pipers final presentation
43.
Penny Dreadful (TV series)
–
Penny Dreadful is a British-American horror drama television series created for Showtime and Sky by John Logan, who also acts as executive producer alongside Sam Mendes. The show was pitched to several US and UK channels. It premiered at the South by Southwest film festival on March 9 and began airing on television on April 28,2014, the series premiered on Showtime on May 11,2014, the first in an eight-episode season. After the third-season finale on June 19,2016, series creator John Logan announced that Penny Dreadful had ended as the story had reached its conclusion. The title refers to the penny dreadfuls, a type of 19th-century British fiction publication with lurid, reeve Carney as Dorian Gray, a charismatic man who is ageless and immortal. Timothy Dalton as Sir Malcolm Murray, an explorer of the African continent. Eva Green as Vanessa Ives, an enigmatic, quietly driven heroine who proves herself a force to be reckoned with as she battles powerful, relentless forces from the underworld. Rory Kinnear as the Creature, a creation Frankenstein abruptly abandoned, billie Piper as Brona Croft/Lily Frankenstein, an Irish immigrant seeking to escape her brutal, violent past. Danny Sapani as Sembene, a mysterious ally of Sir Malcolm. Harry Treadaway as Dr. Victor Frankenstein, an arrogant, reclusive young doctor whose ambition, josh Hartnett as Ethan Chandler, a charming, brash and daring American man of action with uncanny marksmanship, who detests violence, and is more complicated than he likes to admit. Helen McCrory as Evelyn Poole, a professional spiritualist known by the alias Madame Kali who is secretly the leader of a coven of witches called Nightcomers. Simon Russell Beale as Ferdinand Lyle, an eccentric Egyptologist, patti LuPone as Dr. Florence Seward, an alienist or early psychotherapist treating Vanessas depression Wes Studi as Kaetenay, an Apache with a connection to Ethan, who becomes an ally to Sir Malcolm. Introduced in season 1 Olivia Llewellyn as Mina Harker, Sir Malcolms daughter, alex Price as Proteus, a new creation of Dr. Frankensteins, named after the literary character of the same name, who was killed by the Creature. Lorcan Cranitch as Inspector Goldsworthy, by the London police, robert Nairne as the Vampire, an evil creature who leads a cabal of undead and the abducted Mina Harker. Olly Alexander as Fenton, a vampire minion, graham Butler as Peter Murray, Sir Malcolms son, who died accompanying his father on one of his expeditions. Noni Stapleton as Gladys Murray, Sir Malcolms estranged wife and mother of Mina, alun Armstrong as Vincent Brand, the leader of a troupe of actors in residence at the Grand Guignol. Hannah Tointon as Maud Gunneson, an actress at the Grand Guignol, gavin Fowler as Simon, Mauds partner who mistreats the Creature. David Warner as Abraham Van Helsing, a haematologist and colleague of Frankenstein, stephen Lord as Warren Roper, a Pinkerton agent hired to bring Ethan back to the United States
