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Short Subject

Short subject

Short subject is an American film industry term that historically has referred to any film in the format of two reels, or approximately 20 minutes running time, or less. It is now used almost interchangeably with short film (which can run somewhat longer than 20 minutes); either term is often abbreviated to short (as a noun, e.g. 'a short').

History

Early period

The term came to be applied in the 1910s, when the majority of feature films began to be made in much longer-running editions. A typical film program came to be expected to include a feature preceded by one or more short subjects. Short subjects could be live action or animated; comedy was particularly utilized as their style, and well-known comedians such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy and others are best known from short subject films. Animated cartoons likewise came principally as short subjects, as did newsreels. Less frequently, short subjects might be in the form of travelogues, human interest films or concert films. The form was so popular that virtually all major production companies had fully staffed, special units assigned to develop and produce them; and many companies, especially in the silent and very early sound era, produced short subjects exclusively (e.g. Keystone Studios, Atlas Educational Film Co.).

The rise of the double feature

The death of the two-reel short as a commercially successful product for independent studios put producers such as Mack Sennett out of business. Hal Roach moved Laurel and Hardy full-time into feature films after 1935, and halved his popular Our Gang films to one reel at the request of distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Roach, who could no longer afford to produce shorts after 1938, sold Our Gang at that time to MGM. After the 1930s, fewer shorts were made for theatrical release, most of which were one-reel long, like George O'Hanlon's Joe McDoakes shorts, and the animated shorts of studios like Leon Schlesinger/Warner Bros., Walter Lantz, and Fleischer/Famous Studios. These shorts and others were produced in-house by, or financed by, motion picture companies that either owned their own theater chains (for example, Loews Theatres); or forced theaters to take their shorts by selling them in the same unalterable package as their big-name features. This practice, called block booking, was declared illegal by the US Supreme Court, who also forced the theater chains to sell off their movie studios. By 1955, thanks to double features, the ban on block booking, and the rise of television, the commercial live-action short was virtually dead, and the cartoon short was on its way to being dead. Since the 1960s, short films have been largely reserved for independent filmmakers and special major-studio projects. The Three Stooges shorts were the only major series of two-reelers to survive the double-feature system, because they were issued by Columbia Pictures using block booking. They continued into the late-1950s, largely by reusing footage from previous series entries to reduce costs. In the 1950s, television programming, including broadcast of older short subjects sold to television stations, eclipsed the value of all but cartoons featuring well-loved characters; but by the end of the 1960s, the cost of manufacturing these had come to outweigh the return, and short subjects effectively disappeared from the movie screens.

Short subjects in the modern era

Since the 1980s, the term "short subject" has come to be used interchangeably with "short film", an international, academic term used to mean a contemporary non-commercial motion picture that is substantially shorter than the average commercial feature film. The definition of maximum length varies from 40 minutes (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rule) to about 80 minutes. The short-film form is to the full length film what the short story is to a full-fledged novel. Short films often focus on difficult topics which longer, more commercial films usually avoid. Their filmmakers benefit from larger freedoms and can take higher risks with their films, but must rely on festival and art house exhibition to achieve public display. Most short films are better known outside the United States than within, due to less rigidity of audience expectation as to programme content, arrangement, and length outside the U.S. Short films are often popular as first steps into the cinematic art among young filmmakers. This is because they are cheaper and easier to make, and also their brevity makes shorts more likely to be watched by financial backers and others who want some demonstration of a filmmaker's ability. Short film making is also growing in popularity among amateurs and enthusiasts, who are taking advantage of affordable equipment. "Prosumer" or semi-professional cameras now cost under USD$3,000), and free or low-cost software is widely available that is capable of video editing, post-production work, and DVD authoring. Such films can also be easily distributed via the Internet.

Categories

The form itself splits into several sub-categories, mainly:
- Live action short
- Animated short (hand-drawn or CGI)
- Documentary short subject
- Experimental or abstract short films

See also


- List of short live-action films
- Acropolis Films, LLC
  - A company that produces Film Shorts.

External links


- [http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tours/shortfilm/tour1.html Writing short films]
  - online exhibit from screenonline, a website of the British Film Institute.
- [http://www.onedotzero.com onedotzero:]
  - leading digital short film festival in the world.
- [http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/home/ AtomFilms]
  - a popular short film portal and one of the pioneers on the net.
- [http://www.hurluberlu.com Hurluberlu Films]
  - Free international short films sub-titled in many languages.
- [http://www.ifilm.com iFilm]
  - no.2 in short films on the net.
- [http://www.fusionarena.com/ac At Confession]
  - independent short film.
- [http://www.the9th.com the9th]
  - short quicktime movies.
- [http://www.clipland.com/shortfilm.html Clipland Short Film]
  - database of nearly 10,000 films.
- [http://www.hypnotic.com Hypnotic]
  - on and offline publisher of short films.
- [http://www.freewaves.org LA Freewaves]
  - experimental new media festival.
- [http://www.saturdayshorts.com Saturday Shorts]
  - experimental filmmakers who make a short film every Saturday night.
- [http://www.projectchicago.com Chicago International REEL Shorts Festival]
  - one of the top midwest short film festivals.
- [http://www.8008.info/shortfilm/ 8008]
  - short film projects from austria.
- [http://www.woollymammoth.com/credo Credo]
  - Independent short film.

United States

:For alternative meanings, see the disambiguation page for US, USA, United States, or American. The United States of America is a federal democratic republic situated primarily in central North America. It comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories. It is also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the States, or simply and most commonly, America. The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the government was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The date on which each of the fifty states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States). Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States has emerged as a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs.

Geography and climate

The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, the Bahamas, and numerous smaller nations. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, in the west; the Arctic Ocean, in the northernmost areas; and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, in the eastern and southeastern areas. Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguous United States, sometimes abbreviated CONUS, and as the Lower 48. Alaska, which is not included in the term contiguous United States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The archipelago of Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia is a federal district located on land donated by the state of Maryland. (Virginia also donated land, but it was returned in 1847.) The United States also has overseas territories with varying levels of independence and organization. When inland water is included in the total area, only Russia and Canada are larger than the United States; if inland water is excluded, China ranks third and the U.S. ranks fourth. The United States' total area is 3,718,711 square miles (9,631,418 km²), of which land makes up 3,537,438 square miles (9,161,923 km²) and water makes up 181,273 square miles (469,495 km²). The United States' landscape is one of the most varied among those of the world's nations: among its many features are temperate forestland and rolling hills, on the east coast; mangrove, in Florida; the Great Plains, in the center of the country; the Mississippi–Missouri river system; the Great Lakes, four of the five of which are shared with Canada; the Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains; deserts and temperate coastal zones, west of the Rocky Mountains; and temperate rain forests, in the Pacific northwest. Alaska's tundra, and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic diversity. Hawaii The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the Eastern Great Plains to the semi-arid shortgrass prairies on the high plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the southwest, from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of California have a Mediterranean climate. Rainforests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

History

American history started with the migration of people from Asia across the Bering land bridge approximately 12,000 years ago following large animals that they hunted into the Americas. These Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts. It is estimated that 2-9 million people lived in the territory now occupied by the U.S. before European contact, and the subsequent introduction of foreign diseases such as small pox that greatly diminished the native populations. Some advanced societies were the Anasazi of the southwest, who inhabited Chaco Canyon, and the Woodland Indians, who built Cahokia, located near present-day St Louis, a city with a population of 40,000 at its peak in AD 1200. Vikings first visited North America around 1000, but did not settle permanently. Following the discovery voyages of Christopher Columbus around 1492, other Europeans began to explore and settle there. During the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish settled parts of the present-day Southwest and Florida, founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and Santa Fe (in what is now New Mexico) in 1607. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia, also in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements, including New Amsterdam (the predecessor to New York City), were established in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey. In 1637, Sweden established a colony at Fort Christina (in what is now Delaware), but lost the settlement to the Dutch in 1655. This was followed by extensive British settlement of the east coast. The British colonists remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France ceded Canada and the Great Lakes region to Britain. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the colonists as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the colonists increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule. British Parliament, George Washington (1789-1797).]] In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed. From early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid-19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis in 1861, when seven southern states seceded1 from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, mandating the freedom of all slaves in states in rebellion, though full emancipation did not take place until after the end of the war in 1865, the dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Thirteenth Amendment took effect. The Civil War effectively ended the question of a state's right to secede, and is widely accepted as a major turning point after which the federal government became more powerful than state governments. Thirteenth Amendment). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase often quoted in the era of Manifest Destiny, expressing a widely held belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout history. [http://americanart.si.edu/t2go/1lw/1931.6.1.html (more)] ]] During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the continent. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy that encouraged westward expansion in the United States. As the population of the Eastern states grew and as a steady increase of immigrants entered the country, settlers moved steadily westward across North America. In the process, the U.S. displaced most American Indian nations. This displacement of American Indians continues to be a matter of contention in the U.S. with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas American Indian populations were reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and US settlers acquired those emptied lands. In other instances American Indians were removed from their traditional lands by force. Though some would say the U.S. was not a colonial power until the Spanish-American War when it acquired Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, the dominion exercised over land in North America the United States claimed is essentially colonial. The Philippines became independent in 1946. During this period, the nation also became an industrial power. This continued into the 20th century, which has been termed "the American Century" because of the nation's overriding influence on the world. The US became a center for innovation and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving include the telephone, television, computer, the Internet, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, aviation, and aeronautics. In addition to the Civil War, another major traumatic experience for the nation was the Great Depression (1929 to 1939). The nation has also taken part in several major foreign wars, including World War I and World War II (in both of which the US later joined the Allies). During the Cold War, the US was a major player in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and, along with the Soviet Union, was considered one of the world's two "superpowers". With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the world's leading economic and military power. Beginning in the 1990s, the United States became very involved in police actions and peacekeeping, including actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Liberia, and the first Persian Gulf War driving Iraq out of Kuwait. After attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the United States and other allied nations found themselves involved in what has come to be called the "War on Terrorism," which has primarily encompassed military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Government

Iraq of the United States.]]

Republic and suffrage

The United States is an example of a constitutional republic, with a government composed of and operating through a set of limited powers imposed by its design and enumerated in the United States Constitution. Specifically, the nation operates as a presidential democracy. There are three levels of government: federal, state, and local. Officials of each of these levels are either elected by eligible voters via secret ballot or appointed by other elected officials. Americans enjoy almost universal suffrage from the age of 18 regardless of race, sex, or wealth. There are some limits, however: felons are disenfranchised and in some states former felons are likewise. Furthermore, the national representation of territories and the federal district of Washington, DC in Congress is limited: residents of the District of Columbia are subject to federal laws and federal taxes but their only Congressional representative is a non-voting delegate.

Federal government

The federal government is the national government, comprising the Legislative Branch (led by Congress), the Executive Branch (led by the President), and the Judicial Branch (led by the Supreme Court). These three branches were designed to apply checks and balances on each other. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, the issuing and management of currency, the management of trade and relations between the states, and the protection of human rights. In addition to these explicitly stated powers, the federal government—with the assistance of the Supreme Court—has gradually extended these powers into such areas as welfare and education, on the basis of the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution.

The Congress

necessary and proper The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives consists of 435 members, each of whom represents a congressional district and serves for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population; in contrast, each state has two Senators, regardless of population. There are a total of 100 senators, who serve six-year terms. The powers of Congress are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution; all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. The Constitution also includes the necessary-and-proper clause, which grants Congress the power to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."

The President

necessary-and-proper clause At the top level of the executive branch is the President of the United States. The President and Vice-President are elected as 'running mates' for four-year terms by the Electoral College, for which each state, as well as the District of Columbia, is allocated a number of seats based on its representation (or ostensible representation, in the case of D. C.) in both houses of Congress (see U.S. Electoral College). The relationship between the President and the Congress reflects that between the English monarchy and parliament at the time of the framing of the United States Constitution. Congress can legislate to constrain the President's executive power, even with respect to his or her command of the armed forces; however, this power is used only very rarely—a notable example was the constraint placed on President Richard Nixon's strategy of bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The President cannot directly propose legislation, and must rely on supporters in Congress to promote his or her legislative agenda. The President's signature is required to turn congressional bills into law; in this respect, the President has the power—only occasionally used—to veto congressional legislation. Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses. The ultimate power of Congress over the President is that of impeachment or removal of the elected President through a House vote, a Senate trial, and a Senate vote. The threat of using this power has had major political ramifications in the cases of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. The President makes around 2,000 executive appointments, including members of the Cabinet and ambassadors, which must be approved by the Senate; the President can also issue executive orders and pardons, and has other Constitutional duties, among them the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress once a year. Although the President's constitutional role may appear to be constrained, in practice, the office carries enormous prestige that typically eclipses the power of Congress: the Presidency has justifiably been referred to as 'the most powerful office in the world'. The Vice President is first in the line of succession, and is the President of the Senate ex officio, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. The members of the President's Cabinet are responsible for administering the various departments of state, including the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department. These departments and department heads have considerable regulatory and political power, and it is they who are responsible for executing federal laws and regulations. George W. Bush is the 43rd President, currently serving his second term.

The Courts

George W. Bush The highest court is the Supreme Court, which consists of nine justices. The court deals with federal and constitutional matters, and can declare legislation made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions. Below the Supreme Court are the courts of appeals, and below them in turn are the district courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law. Separate from, but not entirely independent of, this federal court system are the individual court systems of each state, each dealing with its own laws and having its own judicial rules and procedures. A case may be appealed from a state court to a federal court only if there is a federal question; the supreme court of each state is the final authority on the interpretation of that state's laws and constitution.

State and local governments

supreme court of each state. Note that Alaska and Hawaii are shown at different scales, and that the Aleutian Islands and the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are omitted from this map.]] The state governments have the greatest influence over people's daily lives. Each state has its own written constitution and has different laws. There are sometimes great differences in law and procedure between the different states, concerning issues such as property, crime, health, and education. The highest elected official of each state is the Governor. Each state also has an elected legislature (bicameral in every state except Nebraska), whose members represent the different parts of the state. Of note is the New Hampshire legislature, which is the third-largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, and has one representative for every 3,000 people. Each state maintains its own judiciary, with the lowest level typically being county courts, and culminating in each state supreme court, though sometimes named differently. In some states, supreme and lower court justices are elected by the people; in others, they are appointed, as they are in the federal system. The institutions that are responsible for local government are typically town, city, or county boards, making laws that affect their particular area. These laws concern issues such as traffic, the sale of alcohol, and keeping animals. The highest elected official of a town or city is usually the mayor. In New England, towns operate directly democratically, and in some states, such as Rhode Island and Connecticut, counties have little or no power, existing only as geographic distinctions. In other areas, county governments have more power, such as to collect taxes and maintain law enforcement agencies.

Political divisions

With the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen colonies proclaimed themselves to be nation states modeled after the European states of the time. Although considered as sovereigns initially, under the Articles of Confederation of 1781 they entered into a "Perpetual Union" and created a fully sovereign federal state, delegating certain powers to the national Congress, including the right to engage in diplomatic relations and to levy war, while each retaining their individual sovereignty, freedom and independence. But the national government proved too ineffective, so the administrative structure of the government was vastly reorganized with the United States Constitution of 1789. Under this new union, the continued status of the individual states as sovereign nation states fell into dispute in 1861, as several states attempted to secede from the union; in response, then-President Abraham Lincoln claimed that such secession was illegal, and the result was the American Civil War. Since the Union victory in 1865, the independent status of the individual states has not been broached again by any state, and the status of each state within the union has been deemed by mainstream officials and academics to be settled as being subordinate to the union as a whole. In subsequent years, the number of states grew steadily due to western expansion, the purchase of lands by the national government from other nation states, and the subdivision of existing states, resulting in the current total of 50. The states are generally divided into smaller administrative regions, including counties, cities and townships. The United States–Canadian border is the longest undefended political boundary in the world. The U.S. is divided into three distinct sections:
- the "continental United States," also known as "the Lower 48" and more accurately termed the conterminous, coterminous or contiguous United States
- Alaska, which is physically connected only to Canada
- the archipelago of Hawaii, in the central Pacific Ocean. The United States also holds several other territories, districts, and possessions, notably the federal district of the District of Columbia, which is the nation's capital, and several overseas insular areas, the most significant of which are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. The Palmyra Atoll is the United States' only incorporated territory; it is unorganized and uninhabited. The United States Navy has held a base at a portion of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 1898. The United States government possesses a lease to this land, which only mutual agreement or United States abandonment of the area can terminate. The present Cuban government of Fidel Castro disputes this arrangement, claiming Cuba was not truly sovereign at the time of the signing. The United States argues this point moot because Cuba apparently ratified the lease post-revolution, and with full sovereignty, when it cashed one rent check in accordance with the disputed treaty.

Foreign relations and military

sovereign] The immense military and economic dominance of the United States has made foreign relations an especially important topic in its politics, with considerable concern about the image of the United States throughout the world. Reactions towards the United States by other nationalities are often strong, ranging from uninhibited admiration and mimicking of all things American to anti-Americanism. US foreign policy has swung about several times over the course of its history between the poles of strict isolationism and imperialism and everywhere in between. Three of the nation's four military branches are administered by the Department of Defense: the Army, the Navy (including the Marine Corps), and the Air Force. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, but is placed under the Department of the Navy in time of war. The combined United States armed forces consist of 1.4 million active duty personnel, along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard. Military conscription ended in 1973. The United States Armed forces are considered to be the most powerful military (of any sort) on Earth and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other nation. The 2005 defense budget amounted to $401.7 billion, which is an increase of 4% over 2004 and of 35% since 2001. Over 50% of that number is spent in research & development. (For comparison, in 2004 the European Union (considered as the second-largest military force) had a combined total of 1.6 million troops, and a defense budget of €160 billion, with less than 10% of that being spent on R&D.)

Largest cities

The United States has dozens of major cities, including 11 of the 55 global cities of all types — with three "alpha" global cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The figures expressed below are for populations within city limits. A different ranking is evident when considering U.S. metro area populations, although the top three would be unchanged. Note that some cities not listed (such as Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.) are still considered important on the basis of other factors and issues, including culture, economics, heritage, and politics. The twenty largest cities, based on the United States Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, are as follows:

Economy

The United States has the largest single-country economy in the world, with a per-capita gross domestic product of $40,100. In this market-oriented economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and services predominantly in the private marketplace. gross domestic product The largest industry of the U.S. is now service, which employs roughly three quarters of the U.S. work force. The United States has many natural resources, including oil and gas, metals, and such minerals as gold, soda ash, and zinc. In agriculture, the U.S. is a top producer of, among other crops, corn, soy beans, and wheat; the United States is a net exporter of food. The U.S. manufacturing sector produces goods such as, cars, airplanes, steel, and electronics, among many others. Economic activity varies greatly from one part of the country to another, with many industries being largely dependent on a certain city or region; New York City is the center of the American financial, publishing, broadcasting, and advertising industries; Silicon Valley is the country’s primary location for high-technology companies, while Los Angeles is the most important center for film production. The Midwest is known for its reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry, with Detroit, Michigan, serving as the center of the American automotive industry; the Great Plains are known as the "breadbasket" of America for their tremendous agricultural output; the intermountain region serves as a mining hub and natural gas resource; the Pacific Northwest for fish and timber, while Texas is largely associated with the oil industry; the Southeast is a major hub for both medical research and the textiles industry. Several countries continue to link their currency to the dollar or even use it as a currency (such as Ecuador), although this practice has subsided since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Many markets are also quoted in dollars, such as those of oil and gold. The dollar is also the predominant reserve currency in the world, and more than half of global reserves are in dollars. The largest trading partner of the United States is Canada (19%), followed by China (12%), Mexico (11%), and Japan (8%). More than 50% of total trade is with these four countries. In 2003, the United States was ranked as the third most visited tourist destination in the world; its 40,400,000 visitors ranked behind France's 75,000,000 and Spain's 52,500,000. Labor unions have existed since the 19th century, and grew large and powerful from the 1930s to the 1950s. See Labor history of the United States. Since 1970 they have shrunk in the private sector and now cover fewer than 8% of the workers. However union membership has grown rapidly in the public sector, especially among teachers, nurses, police, postal workers, and municipal clerks. There have been few strikes in recent years. The United States' imports exceed exports by 80%, leading to an annual trade deficit of $700,000,000,000, or 6% of gross domestic product. It is the largest debtor nation in the world, with total gross foreign debt of over $13,000,000,000,000 (2005 estimate); and it absorbs more than 50% of global savings annually. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has increased the use of neoliberal economic policies that reduce government intervention and reduce the size of the welfare state, backing away from the more interventionist Keynsian economic policies that had been in favor since the Great Depression. As a result, the United States provides fewer government-delivered social welfare services than most industrialized nations, choosing instead to keep its tax burden lower and relying more heavily on the free market and private charities. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the national level ($5.15 per-hour), including the highest, Washington State at $7.35. Twenty-six states are the same as the federal level; two--Ohio and Kansas--are below; and six do not have state laws. America's wealth is relatively highly concentrated. The average C.E.O. earns 500 times the typical amount a worker grosses, this is up from 25 times in the late 1970s. In terms of wealth the top 1% of Americans own 40% of all assets and 50.1% of the country's income goes to the top twenty percent of households. Average wages for the majority of employees have been largely stagnating since the 1970s. America's poverty line defined as a family of four earning less than $19,157 is at 12.7% of the general population. Approximately one out of every five children in the United States grows up below the official poverty line. Among racial groups; African Americans have the lowest median income while Asians had the highest. Regionally, the southern states had the lowest median incomes while the West Coast and New England had the highest. The current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan remarked that the U.S.’s growing income inequality since the 1970s is, "not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing."[http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0614/p01s03-usec.html?s=itm] However, Greenspan also noted, "...you can look at the system and say it's got a lot of problems to it, and sure it does. It always has. But you can't get around the fact that this is the most extraordinarily successful economy in history."

Transportation

Alan Greenspan ]] Because the United States is a relatively young nation, most of the development of U.S. cities has taken place since the invention of the automobile. To link its vast territory, the United States built a network of high-capacity, high-speed highways, of which the most important element is the Interstate Highway system, commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the German Autobahn. The United States also has a transcontinental rail system, which is used for moving freight across the lower forty-eight states. Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak, which serves forty-six of the lower forty-eight states. Many cities in the United States have extensive mass-transit systems. New York City operates one of the world's largest and most heavily used subway systems. The regional rail and bus networks that extend into Long Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York, and Connecticut are among the most heavily used in the world. Air travel is often preferred for destinations over 300 miles (500 kilometers) away. In terms of passengers, seventeen of the world's thirty busiest airports in 2004 were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; in terms of cargo, in the same year, twelve of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Memphis International Airport. There are several major seaports in the United States; the three busiest are the Port of Los Angeles, California; the Port of Long Beach, California; and the Port of New York and New Jersey. Others include Houston, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington; plus, outside the contiguous forty-eight states, Anchorage, Alaska, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Society

Demographics

Hawaii The mean center of the U.S. population continues to drift farther west and south. The fastest growing region is the western United States followed by the southern portion. According to Census 2000, the states that saw the greatest increases from 1990 were: Nevada (66.3%), Arizona (40%), Colorado (30.6%), Utah (29.6%), Idaho (28.5%), Georgia (26.4%), Florida (23.5%), Texas (22.8%), North Carolina (21.4%), and Washington (21.1%). [http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab03.pdf]

Ethnicity and race

:Main article: Racial demographics of the United States The United States is a very racially diverse country. According to the 2000 census, it has 31 ethnic groups with at least one million members each, and numerous others represented in smaller amounts. The majority of Americans descend from white European immigrants who arrived at the establishment of the first colonies (most after Reconstruction). This majority--69.1% in 2000--decreases each year, and is expected to become a plurality within a few decades. The most frequently stated European ancestries are German (15.2%), Irish (10.8%), English (8.7%), Italian (5.6%) and Scandinavian (3.7%). Many immigrants also hail from Slavic countries such as Poland and Russia. Other significant immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada. Russia Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are the largest minority group in the country, comprising 12.5% of the population (2000 census). People of Mexican descent made up 7.3% of the population in the 2000 census, and this proportion is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. About 12.3% (2000 census) of the American people are African Americans (Blacks). African Americans are spread throughout the country, but their presence is largest in the South. Asian Americans--including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders--are a third significant minority (3.7% of the population in 2000). Most Asian Americans are concentrated on the West Coast and Hawaii. The largest groups are immigrants or descendants of emigrants from the Philippines, China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. Indigenous peoples in the United States, such as American Indians and Inuit, make up 0.9% of the population (2000 census). About 35% live on Indian reservations.

Religion

Polls estimate that just under 80 percent of Americans are Christians of various denominations. The other 20 percent comprises other religions such as Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, other various faiths, and those without a specific religion. The United States is noteworthy among developed nations for its relatively high level of religiosity. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, about 44% of Americans attend a religious service at least once a week. However, this rate is not uniform across the country; attendance is more common in the Bible Belt—composed largely of Southern and Midwestern states—than in the Northeast and West Coast. In the Southern states, Baptists are the largest group, followed by Methodists; Roman Catholics are dominant in the Northeast and in large parts of the Midwest due to their being settled by descendants of Catholic immigrants from Europe (such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland) or other parts of North America (mainly Quebec and Puerto Rico). The rest of the country for the most part has a complex mixture of various Christian groups.

Education

West Coast's home at Monticello and the University of Virginia (library building shown above, and designed by Jefferson), the only collegiate campus on the list. Both sites are located in Charlottesville, Virginia.]] In the United States, education is a state, not federal, responsibility, and the laws and standards vary considerably. However, the federal government, through the Department of Education, is involved with funding of some programs and exerts some influence through its ability to control funding. In most states, all students must attend mandatory schooling starting with kindergarten, which children normally enter at age 5, and following through 12th grade, which is normally completed at age 18

Film industry

The film industry involves the technological and commercial aspects of filmmaking: i.e. film studios, cinematography, film production, screenwriting, pre-production, post production, film festivals, distribution, actors, film directors and film personnel.

History of the Hollywood film industry

In the early 1900s, motion picture production companies from New York and New Jersey started moving to California because of the good weather and longer days. Although electric lights existed at that time, none were powerful enough to adequately expose film; the best source of illumination for movie production was natural sunlight. Besides the moderate, dry climate, they were also drawn to the state because of its open spaces and wide variety of natural scenery. Another reason was the distance of Southern California from New Jersey, which made it more difficult for Thomas Edison to enforce his motion picture patents. At the time, Edison owned almost all the patents relevant to motion picture production and, in the East, movie producers acting independently of Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company were often sued or enjoined by Edison and his agents. Thus, movie makers working on the West Coast could work independent of Edison's control. If he sent agents to California, word would usually reach Los Angeles before the agents did and the movie makers could escape to nearby Mexico. The first movie studio in the Hollywood area, Nestor Studios, was founded in 1911 by Al Christie for David Horsley in an old building on the southeast corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street. In the same year, another fifteen Independents settled in Hollywood. Hollywood came to be so strongly associated with the film industry that the word "Hollywood" came to be used colloquially to refer to the entire industry. In 1913, Cecil B. DeMille, in association with Jesse Lasky, leased a barn with studio facilities on the southeast corner of Selma and Vine Streets from the Burns and Revier Studio and Laboratory, which had been established there. DeMille then began production of The Squaw Man (1914). It became known as the Lasky-DeMille Barn and is currently the location of the Hollywood Heritage Museum. The Charlie Chaplin Studios, on the northeast corner of La Brea and De Longpre Avenues just south of Sunset Boulevard, was built in 1917. It has had many owners after 1953, including Kling Studios, who produced the Superman TV series with George Reeves; Red Skelton, who used the sound stages for his CBS TV variety show; and CBS, who filmed the TV series Perry Mason with Raymond Burr there. It has also been owned by Herb Alpert's A&M Records and Tijuana Brass Enterprises. It is currently The Jim Henson Company, home of the Muppets. In 1969, The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Board named the studio a historical cultural monument. 1969 The famous Hollywood sign originally read "Hollywoodland." It was erected in 1923 to advertise a new housing development in the hills above Hollywood. For several years the sign was left to deteriorate. In 1949, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce stepped in and offered to remove the last four letters and repair the rest. The sign, located at the top of Mount Lee, is now a registered trademark and cannot be used without the permission of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which also manages the venerable Walk of Fame. Walk of Fame The first Academy Awards presentation ceremony took place on May 16, 1929 during a banquet held in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. Tickets were USD $10.00 and there were 250 people in attendance. Hollywood and the movie industry of the 1930s are described in P. G. Wodehouse's novel Laughing Gas (1936) and in Budd Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run? (1941), and is parodied in Terry Pratchett's novel Moving Pictures (1990), which is a takeoff of Singin' In The Rain. From about 1930, five major Hollywood movie studios from all over the Los Angeles area, Paramount, RKO, 20th Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Warner Bros., owned large, grand theaters throughout the country for the exhibition of their movies. The period between the years 1927 (the effective end of the silent era) to 1948 is considered the age of the "Hollywood studio system", or, in a more common term, the Golden Age of Hollywood. In a landmark 1948 court decision, the Supreme Court ruled that movie studios could not own theaters and play only the movies of their studio and movie stars, thus an era of Hollywood history had unofficially ended. By the mid-1950s, when television proved a profitable enterprise that was here to stay, movie studios started also being used for the production of programming in that medium, which is still the norm today.

See also


- Cinema of the United States
- History of film
- Hollywood
- Bollywood
- Independent films
- :Category:Cinema by country Category:Film production Category:Industry



Reel

:A reel may also refer to a type of dance and its accompanying music. See reel (dance). reel (dance) A reel is an object around which lengths of another material (usually long and flexible) are wound for storage. Generally a reel has a cylindrical core and walls on the sides to retain the material wound around the core. In some cases the core is hollow, although other items may be mounted on it, and grips may exist for mechanically turning the reel. The size of the core is dependent on several factors. A smaller core will obviously allow more material to be stored in a given space. However there is a limit to how tightly the stored material can be wound without damaging it and this limits how small the core can be. Also sometimes the core may be made larger to allow for stuff to be mounted on it, as in the case of an extension reel for example. With material such as photographic film that is flat and long but is relatively wide, the material generally is stored in successive single layers. In cases where the material is more uniform in cross-section (for example, a cable), the material may be safely wound around a reel that is wider than its width. In this case, several windings are needed to create a layer on the reel.

Uses


- A reel is used on a fishing rod to wind the fishing line up.
- Most rope and cable is supplied on reels

Motion Picture Terminology

It is traditional to discuss the length of theatrical motion pictures in terms of "reels." The standard length of a 35mm motion picture reel is 1000 feet. This length runs approximately 12 minutes at sound speed and slightly longer at silent movie speed (which may vary from approximately 16 to 18 frames per second). A so-called "two-reeler" would have run about 20-24 minutes since the actual short film shipped to a movie theater for exhibition may have had slightly less (but rarely more) than 1000 feet on it. The "reel" was established as a standard measurement because of considerations in printing motion picture film at a film laboratory, for shipping (especially the film case sizes) and for the size of the physical film magazine attached to the motion picture projector. Had it not been standardized (at 1000 feet of 35mm film) there would have been many difficulties in the manufacture of the related equipment. A 16mm "reel" is 400 feet. It runs, at sound speed, approximately the same amount of time (11-12 minutes) as a 1000 foot 35mm reel. A Split Reel is a motion picture film reel in two halves that, when assembled, hold a specific length of motion picture film that has been wound on a plastic core. Using a split reel allows film to be shipped or handled in a lighter and smaller form than film would on a "fixed" reel. Category:Mechanical engineering

Feature film

.]] A feature film is a term from the film industry uses to refer to a movie made for initial distribution in theaters. The term evolved from the days when the cinema-goer would watch a series of short subjects before the main film. The shorts would typically include newsreels, serials, animated cartoons and live-action comedies and documentaries. These types of short films would lead up to what came to be called the "featured presentation": the film given the most prominent billing and running multiple reels. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the American Film Institute, and the British Film Institute all define a feature as a film with a running time of forty minutes or longer, although most features today run over ninety minutes. Based on length, the first feature film was the 1906 release The Story of the Kelly Gang. The first European feature was L'Enfant prodigue (1907), although that was basically an unmodified record of a stage play; Europe's first feature adapted for the screen, Les Misérables, came in 1909. The first American feature was Oliver Twist (1912). Earlier features had been produced in America, but were released in separate one-reel parts, leaving the exhibitor the option of running them together. By 1915 over 600 features were produced annually in America. The best year of U.S. feature production was 1921, with 854 releases; the worst was 1963, with 121 releases. Between 1922 and 1970, the U.S. and Japan alternated as leaders in feature production. Since 1971, the country with the highest feature output has been India. The megaplex of the late 20th century and the digital-based production methods have transformed what "feature film" means. The advent of television led to the elimination of the short subjects in favor of trailers and TV-style advertising (though short films are still made for a non-mainstream audience). Today, "feature film" is used mostly to distinguish theatrically-shown films from those made for television or those which go direct-to-video. Category:Film production Category:Films by type

Live action

In film and video, live action refers to works that are acted out by flesh-and-blood actors, as opposed to animation. Live action is the norm in film and video, and thus the term is usually superfluous. It is an important distinction, however, in situations where one might normally expect animation, as in a Disney movie, a video game, or when the work is adapted from an animated cartoon, such as the Flintstones or Josie and the Pussycats movies, or The Tick television show. The term is also used within the animation world to refer to non-cartoon characters. For example, in a movie such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit where humans and cartoons co-exist, "live action" characters are the "real" actors such as Bob Hoskins, as opposed to the animated "actors," such as Roger Rabbit himself. In role-playing games, live-action refers to games in which the players physically act out their characters, as if in a theater production, as opposed to sitting around a table and simply describing the actions their characters take. See Live action role-playing game for more details. Category:Film techniques ja:実写

Animation

Image:Animexample.gif
This animation moves at 10 frames per second.
Image:Animexample2.gif
This animation moves at 2 frames per second. At this rate, the individual frames should be discernible.
Animation is the illusion of motion created by the consecutive display of images of static elements. In film and video production, this refers to techniques by which each frame of a film or movie is produced individually. These frames may be generated by computers, or by photographing a drawn or painted image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a model unit (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result with a special animation camera. When the frames are strung together and the resulting film is viewed, there is an illusion of continuous movement due to the phenomenon known as persistence of vision. Generating such a film tends to be very labour intensive and tedious, though the development of computer animation has greatly sped up the process. Graphics file formats like GIF, MNG, SVG and Flash allow animation to be viewed on a computer or over the Internet.

History

For a more in-depth look at the history of animation, please see the Wikipedia articles "Animated cartoon" and "History of Animation". The major use of animation has always been for entertainment. However, there is growing use of instructional animation and educational animation to support explanation and learning. The "classic" form of animation, the "animated cartoon", as developed in the early 1900s and refined by Walt Disney and others, requires up to 24 distinct drawings for one second of animation. This technique is described in detail in the article Traditional animation. Because animation is very time-consuming and often very expensive to produce, the majority of animation for TV and movies comes from professional animation studios. However, the field of independent animation has existed at least since the 1950s, with animation being produced by independent studios (and sometimes by a single person). Several independent animation producers have gone on to enter the professional animation industry. Limited animation is a way of increasing production and decreasing costs of animation by using "short cuts" in the animation process. This method was pioneered by UPA and popularized (some say exploited) by Hanna-Barbera, and adapted by other studios as cartoons moved from movie theaters to television. television

Famous names in animation

Famous names of the past

Famous names of the present day

Animation studios

Animation Studios, like Movie Studios may be production facilities, or financial entities. In some cases, especially in Anime they have things in common with artists studios where a Master or group of talented individuals oversee the work of lesser artists and crafts persons in realising their vision.

Animation studios of the past


- Bray Productions
- DePatie-Freleng Enterprises
- Filmation
- Fleischer Studios and Famous Studios
- Grantray-Lawrence Animation
- Hanna-Barbera Productions (now Cartoon Network Studios)
- Harman-Ising Productions
- Leon Schesinger Productions/Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. (a/k/a "Termite Terrace", now known as Warner Brothers Animation)
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
- Rankin-Bass
- Soyuzmultfilm
- United Productions of America (UPA)
- Van Beuren Studios
- Walter Lantz Studio
- PannóniaFilm Ltd. - http://www.mediaguide.hu/pannoniafilm/

Animation studios of the present era

Styles and techniques of animation


- Traditional animation
  - Character animation
  - Limited animation
  - Rotoscoping
- Computer animation
  - skeletal animation
  - Per-vertex animation
  - Cel-shaded animation
  - Onion skinning
  - Analog computer animation
  - Motion capture
- Stop-motion animation
  - Cutout animation
  - claymation
  - Pixilation
  - Pinscreen animation
  - Puppetoon
- Drawn on film animation
- Special effects animation

See also


- Animated series
- Anime (Japanese animation)
- List of movie genres

Further Readings


- Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, Disney animation: The Illusion Of Life, Abbeville 1981
- Walters Faber, Helen Walters, Algrant (Ed.), Animation Unlimited: Innovative Short Films Since 1940, HarperCollins Publishers 2004
- Trish Ledoux, Doug Ranney, Fred Patten (Ed.), Complete Anime Guide: Japanese Animation Film Directory and Resource Guide, Tiger Mountain Press 1997
- The Animator's Survival Kit, Richard Williams
- Animation Script to Screen, Shamus Culhane

External links


- [http://www.lollipopanimation.com Huge Cartoon Character Database]
- [http://www.3dnauta.com Anamorphosis 3D and others Animation - The roman walls of Lugo SF.]
- [http://www.awn.com/mag/issue3.2/3.2pages/3.2student.html Animating Under the Camera]
- [http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/eat/handouts/Pictures/CutSandPaintRules.pdf. Experimental Animation Techniques]
- [http://www.abc.net.au/arts/strange/workshop/style.htm Drawn Under-Camera Style Animation]
- [http://www.writer2001.com/animtech.htm Media & Techniques in Animation]
- [http://www.mattworld.2ya.com Matt World - Web-based animations from animator Matt Greenwood]
- [http://www.keyframeonline.com Keyframe - the Animation Resource]
- [http://www.nftsanimation.org The Animation Department of the National Film and Television School UK ]
- [http://www.animationnation.com Animation Nation - a forum for professional animators]
- [http://www.miyechi.com Anime Roleplaying]
- [http://www.public.iastate.edu/~rllew/chronint.html Chronology of Animation]
- [http://www.public.iastate.edu/~rllew/animelinks.html Animation links collection]
- [http://www.fh-wuerzburg.de/petzke/zagreb.html Zagreb Film]
- [http://www.safcakovec.com/ SAF], Čakovec school of animation
- [http://www.dmoz.org/Arts/Animation/ Animation Directory]
- [http://www.toonopedia.com Don Markenstein's Toonopedia]
- [http://www.bcdb.com/ Big Cartoon Database]
- [http://www.goldenagecartoons.com/ Golden Age of Cartoons]
- [http://www.saunalahti.fi/animato Hints and tips for the animation hobbyist]
- [http://www.acmeanimation.org ACME Animation]
- [http://www.awn.com Animation World Network]
- [http://www.animationarena.com/principles-of-animation.html 28 Principles of Animation]
- [http://www.animationmeat.com Animationmeat.com - Notes Model Sheets and Reference material by Professional Animators]
- [http://sjolander.homestead.com/SVENSHOGEXHIBITION2004.htm Ture Sjolander: The Artist that invented Computer Animation] Category:Film ko:애니메이션 ja:アニメーション th:แอนิเมชัน

Comedian

A comedian (sometimes comedienne for females, although this usage has been deprecated) is an entertainer who amuses an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting the fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy. A comedian who stands and addresses an audience directly is called a stand-up comedian. Since the mid-1980s, a new wave of comedy, called alternative comedy, has been gaining popularity and delighting audiences with its offbeat style. This normally involves more experiential, or observational, reporting to get a laugh.

See also


- list of comedians
- humor
- comedy
- stand-up comedy
- humorist

External links


- [http://www.nobodylikesme.com The largest online community for comedians]
- [http://www.nobodylikesme.com/nlmClubs.asp An online database of every comedy club in the U.S. and Canada] Category:Entertainment occupations Category:Comedy ja:コメディアン

Buster Keaton

Joseph Frank Keaton Jr. (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966), always known as Buster Keaton, was a popular and influential American silent-film comic actor and filmmaker. His trademark was physical comedy with a stoic, deadpan expression on his face, earning him the nickname The Great Stone Face. His innovative work as a director made great contributions to the development of the art of cinema. A 2002 world-wide poll by Sight and Sound ranked Keaton's The General as the 15th best film of all time. Three other Keaton films received votes in the survey: Our Hospitality, Sherlock, Jr., and The Navigator.

Early life in vaudeville

Keaton was born into the world of vaudeville. His father, Joseph Hallie Keaton, and Harry Houdini owned a travelling show called the Mohawk Indian Medicine Company, which performed on stage and sold patent medicine on the side. Keaton was born in the town of Piqua (PICK-way), Kansas, the small town where his mother, Myra Edith Cutler, happened to go into labor. The boarding house in which he was born was later destroyed by a tornado. Currently on this site is a memorial plaque, and nearby is a rural water company that maintains a one-room Keaton museum. Piqua is so small that the annual Buster Keaton Celebration is held in nearby Iola, Kansas. Keaton credited Harry Houdini, who was his godfather, with dubbing him "Buster" after seeing him, at the age of six months, tumble down a flight of stairs without injury. At the time, the word "buster" either meant broncobuster or a fall. It was only after Keaton was nicknamed the word became a name — one example of this early use is the comic strip character Buster Brown. At the age of three, he began performing with his parents as The Three Keatons; the storyline of the act was how to raise a small child. Myra played the saxophone to one side while Joe and Buster performed on center stage. Buster would goad Joe by disobeying him, and Joe would respond by throwing Buster against the scenery, into the orchestra pit, or even into the audience. The act evolved as Buster learned to take trick falls safely. He was rarely injured or bruised on stage. Nevertheless, this knockabout style of comedy led to accusations of child abuse. Decades later, Keaton said that he was never abused by his father and that the falls and physical comedy were a matter of proper technical execution. In fact, Buster would have so much fun, he would begin laughing as his father threw him across the stage. This drew fewer laughs from the audience, so Buster adopted his famous dead-pan expression whenever he was working. The act ran up against laws banning child performers in vaudeville. When one official saw Buster in full costume and make-up, he asked a stage-hand how old that performer was. The stage-hand shrugged and pointed to Buster's mother. "I don't know," he said, "ask his wife!" Despite tangles with the law and a disastrous tour of the English Music Halls, Buster was a rising star in the theater, so much so that even when Myra and Joe tried to introduce Buster's siblings into the act, Buster remained the central attraction. By the time Buster was 21, Joe's alcoholism threatened the reputation of the family act, so Buster and Myra left Joe in Los Angeles. Myra returned to their summer home in Michigan, while Buster travelled to New York, where his performing career moved from vaudeville to film.

Silent film era

In February 1917 Keaton met Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle at the Talmadge Studios in New York City, where Arbuckle was under contract to Joseph M. Schenck. He was hired as a co-star and gag-man. Keaton later claimed that he was soon Arbuckle's second director and his entire gag department. Keaton and Arbuckle became close friends, a bond that would never break, even after Arbuckle was embroiled in the scandal that cost him his career and his personal life. After Keaton's successful work with Arbuckle, Schenck gave him his own production unit, The Keaton Studio. He made a series of two-reel comedies, including One Week (1920), Cops (1922), The Electric House (1922), and The Playhouse (1921). Based on the success of these shorts, he graduated to full-length features. These films made Keaton one of the most famous comedians in the world. At the time, he was perhaps the third most popular comedian in America behind Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. His film-making style employs editing and framing techniques that are more closely aligned with modern sensibilities than the melodrama of other films of the day. His style of comedy and humor has been called timeless, in contrast to other silent comedians whose approaches are more rooted in their own era. His most enduring feature-length films include Our Hospitality (1923), The Navigator (1924), Sherlock, Jr. (1924), The Cameraman (1928), Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928), and The General (1927). The last film, set during the American Civil War, is considered his masterpiece, combining physical comedy with Keaton's love for trains. Unfortunately, many of his most acclaimed films performed poorly in the box office due to their sophistication—audiences had a difficult time seeing Buster as a cinematic artist of considerable ambition. In addition, the technical side of filmmaking fascinated him and he was forward thinking enough to want to produce sound films when they began to become technically practical and popular. The fact that he had a good voice and years of stage experience promised an easier adjustment than Chaplin's silent Tramp character, who Chaplin thought could not survive sound.

Marriages

In 1921, he married Natalie Talmadge, sister-in-law of his boss, Joe Schenck, and sister of actresses Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge. After the birth of their second son, the marriage began to suffer. According to Keaton's autobiography, Natalie turned him out of the bedroom and sent detectives to follow him to see who he was dating behind her back. In 1932, Natalie divorced him, taking his entire fortune, and refusing to allow contact between Keaton and his sons. Keaton was reunited with them about a decade later. In 1933, Buster married Mae Scriven, his nurse during an alcoholic binge that he remembered nothing about afterward. When they divorced in 1936, she took half of everything they owned — half of each dining set, half of each table and chair set, half of the books, and even Buster's favorite St. Bernard, Elmer. In 1940, Buster married Eleanor Norris, who was 23 years younger than he. She saved his life and helped salvage his career. All their friends advised them against it, but the marriage lasted until Buster's death. Between 1947 and 1954, Buster and Eleanor appeared regularly in the Cirque Medrano in Paris, in a highly-regarded doubles act.

Sound era and television

Keaton's filmmaking unit was acquired by MGM in 1928, a business decision that Keaton regretted ever afterwards. He was forced to enter the ranks of the studio system, working at the MGM studios in a more restrictive environment that he had previously worked in. He had difficulty adapting to the studio system and lapsed into alcoholism. His career declined within a few years, and he spent most of the 1930s in obscurity, working as a gag writer for various MGM films, particularly those of the Marx Brothers—including A Night at the Opera (1935), At the Circus (1939), and Go West (1940);and various films of Red Skelton. He also starred in short films made for Educational Pictures and Columbia Pictures (the latter were directed and written by Del Lord) during this period, which received little attention at the time. He made appearances in films, including Sunset Boulevard (1950), It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966). He had a brief cameo in Charlie Chaplin's late film Limelight (1952). For ten minutes, Keaton and Chaplin share the screen for the only time in their careers, playing two aging former vaudeville stars trying to recapture a bit of glory, decades after both Chaplin's and Keaton's fame had peaked — though Keaton remarks, "If one more person tells me this is just like old times, I swear I'll jump out the window." He had two back-to-back television series, The Buster Keaton Show (1950) and Life With Buster Keaton (1951). Despite their popularity, he cancelled the programs because he could not create enough material to produce a new show each week. He also found steady work as an actor for TV commercials, but he largely believed that he had been forgotten. His classic silent films saw a revival in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Shortly before he died, Keaton starred in a short film called The Railrodder (1965) for the National Film Board of Canada, in which he returned to the classic deadpan style that he had known during the peak of his career in the 1920s. He also played the central role in Samuel Beckett's only film project, Film (1965).

Death

Buster contracted lung cancer after years of smoking. His wife and doctors let him believe that he had contracted chronic bronchitis and he was never told that he was dying. Why exactly they did this is uncertain, but it is clear that Keaton required others to manage his daily living. Since his condition was already terminal when it was diagnosed, perhaps they were concerned that if he had been told, he would have stopped working. Performing before a camera or a live-audience was what Buster enjoyed most, apart from model trains. Buster Keaton is interred in the Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

Legacy and contribution

Buster Keaton, Chaplin and Lloyd are remembered as the great comic innovators of the silent era. Many regard Keaton as the superior filmmaker of the three, although Keaton never made such comparisons. He enjoyed Lloyd's films highly and often praised Chaplin for his genius. Keaton has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: 6619 Hollywood Boulevard (for motion pictures); and 6321 Hollywood Boulevard (for television). In 1994, he appeared on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. Many actors and filmmakers were influenced by Keaton, including Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Blake Edwards, Jackie Chan and Stephen Chow.

Filmography


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- Kino Video Studio