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Zhang Shichuan
Zhang Shichuan (; 1889–1953 or 1890–1954), also credited as S. C. Chang, was a Chinese entrepreneur, film director, and film producer, who is considered a founding father of Chinese cinema. He and Zheng Zhengqiu made the first Chinese feature film, ''The Difficult Couple'', in 1913, and cofounded the Mingxing (Star) Film Company in 1922, which became the largest film production company in China under Zhang's leadership. Zhang directed about 150 films in his career, including ''Laborer's Love'' (1922), the earliest complete Chinese film that has survived; ''Orphan Rescues Grandfather'' (1923), one of the first Chinese box-office hits; ''The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple'' (1928), the first martial arts film; and ''Sing-Song Girl Red Peony'' (1931), China's first sound film. After the destruction of Mingxing's studio by Japanese bombing during the 1937 Battle of Shanghai, Zhang Shichuan made films for the China United Film Production Company (Zhonglian) in Japanese-occupied ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zhang (surname)
Zhang () is the third most common surname in China and Taiwan (commonly spelled as "Chang" in Taiwan), and it is one of the most common surnames in the world. Zhang is the pinyin romanization of the very common Chinese surname written in simplified characters and in traditional characters. It is spoken in the first tone: ''Zhāng''. It is a surname that exists in many languages and cultures, corresponding to the surname 'Archer' in English for example. In the Wade-Giles system of romanization, it is romanized as "Chang", which is commonly used in Taiwan; "Cheung" is commonly used in Hong Kong as romanization. It is also the pinyin romanization of the less-common surnames (''Zhāng''), which is the 40th name on the ''Hundred Family Surnames'' poem. There is the even-less common (''Zhǎng''). was listed 24th in the famous Song-era ''Hundred Family Surnames'', contained in the verse 何呂施張 (He Lü Shi Zhang). Today, it is one of the most common surnames in the world a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Surrender Of Japan
The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945, bringing the war's hostilities to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) had become incapable of conducting major operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent. Together with the United Kingdom and China, the United States called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on 26 July 1945—the alternative being "prompt and utter destruction". While publicly stating their intent to fight on to the bitter end, Japan's leaders (the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, also known as the "Big Six") were privately making entreaties to the publicly neutral Soviet Union to mediate peace on terms more favorable to the Japanese. While maintaining a sufficient level of diplomatic engagement with the Japanese to give them the impression they might be wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Invasion Of Manchuria
The Empire of Japan's Kwantung Army invaded Manchuria on 18 September 1931, immediately following the Mukden Incident. At the war's end in February 1932, the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo. Their occupation lasted until the success of the Soviet Union and Mongolia with the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation in mid-August 1945, towards the end of the Second World War. The South Manchuria Railway Zone and the Korean Peninsula had been under the control of the Japanese Empire since the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. Japan's ongoing industrialization and militarization ensured their growing dependence on oil and metal imports from the US. The US sanctions which prevented trade with the United States (which had occupied the Philippines around the same time) resulted in Japan furthering its expansion in the territory of China and Southeast Asia. The invasion of Manchuria, or the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 7 July 1937, are sometimes cited as an alternat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound-on-film
Sound-on-film is a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying a picture is recorded on photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog sound track or digital sound track, and may record the signal either optically or magnetically. Earlier technologies were sound-on-disc, meaning the film's soundtrack would be on a separate phonograph record. History Sound on film can be dated back to the early 1880s, when Charles E. Fritts filed a patent claiming the idea. In 1923 a patent was filed by E. E. Ries, for a variable density soundtrack recording, which was submitted to the SMPE (now SMPTE), which used the mercury vapor lamp as a modulating device to create a variable-density soundtrack. Later, Case Laboratories and Lee De Forest attempted to commercialize this process, when they developed an Aeolite glow lamp, which was deployed at Movietone Newsreel at the Roxy Theatre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound-on-disc
Sound-on-disc is a class of sound film processes using a phonograph or other disc to record or play back sound in sync with a motion picture. Early sound-on-disc systems used a mechanical interlock with the movie projector, while more recent systems use timecode. Examples of sound-on-disc processes France * The Chronophone (Léon Gaumont) "Filmparlants" and phonoscènes 1902–1910 (experimental), 1910–1917 (industrial)Thomas Louis Jacques Schmitt, « The genealogy of clip culture » in Henry Keazor, Thorsten Wübbena (dir.) ''Rewind, Play, Fast Forward'', transcript, United States * Vitaphone introduced by Warner Bros. in 1926 * Phono-Kinema, short-lived system, invented by Orlando Kellum in 1921 (used by D. W. Griffith for ''Dream Street'') * Digital Theater Systems United Kingdom * British Phototone, short-lived UK system using 12-inch discs, introduced in 1928-29 ('' Clue of the New Pin'') Other * Systems with the film projector linked to a phonograph or cylinder phono ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hong Shen
Hong Shen (; 31 December 1894 – 29 August 1955) was a Chinese playwright, film director and screenwriter, film and drama theorist, and educator. He is considered by drama historians as one of the three founders of Chinese spoken drama, together with Tian Han and Ouyang Yuqian. He wrote the first Chinese film script, ''Mrs. Shentu''. Early life and education Hong Shen was born in Wujin, Jiangsu Province, Qing Empire on 31 December 1894. After attending secondary schools in Shanghai and Tianjin, he entered the newly founded Tsinghua School (now Tsinghua University) in 1912, and graduated in 1916. He then left for the United States to study ceramic engineering at Ohio State University on a Boxer Indemnity Scholarship. While there, he wrote and produced two plays in English. A cast of Chinese students from OSU and Oberlin College performed one of them, ''The Wedded Husband'', in April 1919 to an audience of 1300 in the university chapel. It was probably the first play written by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Didacticism
Didacticism is a philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature, art, and design. In art, design, architecture, and landscape, didacticism is an emerging conceptual approach that is driven by the urgent need to explain. When applied to ecological questions, didacticism in art, design, architecture and landscape attempts to persuade the viewer of environmental priorities; thus, constituting an entirely new form of explanatory discourse that presents, what can be called "eco-lessons". This concept can be defined as "ecological didacticism". Overview The term has its origin in the Ancient Greek word διδακτικός (''didaktikos''), "pertaining to instruction", and signified learning in a fascinating and intriguing manner. Didactic art was meant both to entertain and to instruct. Didactic plays, for instance, were intended to convey a moral theme or other rich truth to the audience. During the Middle Age, the Roman Catholic chants like the ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zhou Jianyun
Zhou may refer to: Chinese history * King Zhou of Shang () (1105 BC–1046 BC), the last king of the Shang dynasty * Predynastic Zhou (), 11th-century BC precursor to the Zhou dynasty * Zhou dynasty () (1046 BC–256 BC), a dynasty of China ** Western Zhou () (1046 BC–771 BC) ** Eastern Zhou () (770 BC–256 BC) * Western Zhou (state) () (440 BC–256 BC) * Eastern Zhou (state) () (367 BC–249 BC) * Northern Zhou () (557–581), one of the Northern dynasties during the Northern and Southern dynasties period * Wu Zhou () (690–705), an imperial dynasty established by Wu Zetian * Later Zhou () (951–960), the last of the Five dynasties during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period * Zhou (Zhang Shicheng's kingdom) () (1354–1367), a state founded by Zhang Shicheng during the Red Turban Rebellion * Zhou (Qing period state) () (1678–1681), a state founded by Wu Sangui during the Qing dynasty Other uses *Zhou (surname) (), Chinese surname *Zhou (country subdivision) (), a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Film Stock
Film stock is an analog medium that is used for recording motion pictures or animation. It is recorded on by a movie camera, developed, edited, and projected onto a screen using a movie projector. It is a strip or sheet of transparent plastic film base coated on one side with a gelatin emulsion containing microscopically small light-sensitive silver halide crystals. The sizes and other characteristics of the crystals determine the sensitivity, contrast and resolution of the film.Karlheinz Keller et al. "Photography" in Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, 2005, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim. The emulsion will gradually darken if left exposed to light, but the process is too slow and incomplete to be of any practical use. Instead, a very short exposure to the image formed by a camera lens is used to produce only a very slight chemical change, proportional to the amount of light absorbed by each crystal. This creates an invisible latent image in the emulsion, which can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asia Film Company
The Asia Film Company was the first film production company in China. History The Asia Film Company was established in Shanghai in 1909 by American businessman Benjamin Brosky, and was the first company to produce dramatic films in China. They were all short films, which were the fashion at the time. The studio made four films in 1909 in Shanghai and Hong Kong, the only surviving one being ''Stealing a Roast Duck'', shot in Hong Kong. Brosky left Shanghai in 1912 and sold his assets to two other Americans, Yashell and Suffert. They continued the work of the company, collaborating with the Xinmin theatre company, led by Zheng Zhengqiu and Zhang Shichuan. The company was dissolved in 1914, when the First World War caused a shortage of film stock. Brosky went on to co-found, with Li Minwei, Hong Kong's first film studio, Huamei (Chinese-American), in 1913, which made a single film, ''Zhuangzi Tests His Wife''. Films The company's productions mainly consisted of actualities and comed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comprador
A comprador or compradore () is a "person who acts as an agent for foreign organizations engaged in investment, trade, or economic or political exploitation". A comprador is a Indigenous peoples, native manager for a European business house in East Asia, East and South East Asia, and, by extension, social groups that play broadly similar roles in other parts of the world. Etymology The term ''comprador'', a Portuguese language, Portuguese word that means ''buyer'', derives from the Latin ''comparare'', which means ''to procure''. The original usage of the word in East Asia meant a native servant in European households in Guangzhou in southern China or the neighboring Portugal, Portuguese colony at Macao that went to market to barter their employers' wares. The term then evolved to mean the native contract suppliers who worked for foreign companies in East Asia or the native managers of firms in East Asia. Compradors held important positions in southern China buying and selling tea, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silkworms
The domestic silk moth (''Bombyx mori''), is an insect from the moth family Bombycidae. It is the closest relative of ''Bombyx mandarina'', the wild silk moth. The silkworm is the larva or caterpillar of a silk moth. It is an economically important insect, being a primary producer of silk. A silkworm's preferred food are white mulberry leaves, though they may eat other mulberry species and even the osage orange. Domestic silk moths are entirely dependent on humans for reproduction, as a result of millennia of selective breeding. Wild silk moths (other species of ''Bombyx'') are not as commercially viable in the production of silk. Sericulture, the practice of breeding silkworms for the production of raw silk, has been under way for at least 5,000 years in China, whence it spread to India, Korea, Nepal, Japan, and the West. The domestic silk moth was domesticated from the wild silk moth ''Bombyx mandarina'', which has a range from northern India to northern China, Korea, Japan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
