Doug Stewart (game designer)

Doug Stewart is a game designer who edited the "Monstrous Manual", a compilation of monsters from the 2nd edition of the role-playing game "Dungeons & Dragons". He was also a designer for RPG rulebooks "The Classic Dungeons & Dragons Game", "Encyclopedia Magica", and "Player's Secrets of Stjordvik". He is credited as a designer on the adventure supplements "Children of the Night: Ghosts and The Naval Architect's Manual", as well as the adventure paths Castle Spulzeer and Missions of State.


Ken Nicholson

Ken Nicholson is a video game developer.
Career.
Nicholson is a video game developer and Windows graphics pioneer. He was the founder of GamePC Consortium and inventor of the technology used by Microsoft as the basis for Windows' DirectX graphics. Examples include:


King of the Mountain match

The King of the Mountain match is a professional wrestling match exclusive to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling.
Match format.
The five competitors in the match start out as "ineligible" to win. In order to become "eligible", a wrestler must score a pinfall or submission on an opponent. The opponent who submits or is pinned is forced to spend two minutes in the "penalty box" cage. More than one wrestler can be in the cage. This often results in wrestlers fighting inside the cage or forming some sort of alliance.
Once "eligible", the wrestler may win the match by retrieving the match's prize (usually a championship belt) and hanging it on the hook suspended above the ring with the aid of the ladders. An official maintains possession of the belt and circles the ring, staying out of the action as much as possible. When a wrestler wishes to hang the belt, he must retrieve it from the official. Once the belt is in play, any other wrestler who is eligible may attempt to steal the belt and hang it. Once the belt has been dropped and no wrestler is attempting to hang it, a referee returns the belt to the official.
The matchup is similar to the more common ladder match, which has the belt suspended above the ring and the winner is the one who retrieves it with the use of a ladder. The King of the Mountain match is considered backwards in nature to the ladder match, as the competitors attempt to hang the belt instead of retrieving it.
As of 2016, Jeff Jarrett has won the most King of the Mountain matches with three, winning the NWA World Heavyweight Championship twice in the process. Also, Samoa Joe is the only wrestler to retain a world championship (The TNA World Heavyweight Championship), while Suicide, Eric Young and Bram are the only other wrestlers to retain a championship in the match (Suicide retained the X Division Championship while Eric Young and Bram retained the King of the Mountain Championship).


William Cameron Menzies

William Cameron Menzies (July 29, 1896 – March 5, 1957) was an American film production designer (a job title he invented) and art director as well as a film director and producer during a career spanning five decades. He earned acclaim for his work in silent film, and later pioneered the use of color in film for dramatic effect.
Early years.
Menzies was born in New Haven, Connecticut to Scots immigrant parents, Charles A. and Helen originally from Aberfeldy, Scotland. He studied at Yale and the University of Edinburgh, and after serving in the United States Army during World War I he attended the Art Students League of New York.
Career.
Menzies joined Famous Players-Lasky, later to evolve into Paramount Pictures, working in special effects and design. He quickly established himself in Hollywood with his elaborate settings for "Robin Hood" (1922), "The Thief of Bagdad" (1924), "The Bat" (1926), "The Dove" (1927), "Sadie Thompson" (1928), and "Tempest" (1928). In 1929, Menzies formed a partnership with producer Joseph M. Schenck to create a series of early sound short films visualizing great works of music, including a 10-minute version of Dukas's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," and created the production design and special effects for Schenck's feature film "The Lottery Bride" (1930).
Menzies's work on "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1938) prompted David O. Selznick to hire him for "Gone with the Wind" (1939). Selznick's faith in Menzies was so great that he sent a memorandum to everyone at Selznick International Pictures who was involved in the production reminding them that "Menzies is the final word" on everything related to Technicolor, scenic design, set decoration, and the overall look of the production.
"Production designer" (which is sometimes used interchangeably with "art director") was coined specifically for Menzies, to refer to his being the final word on the overall look of the production; it was intended to describe his ability to translate Selznick's ideas to drawings and paintings from which he and his fellow directors worked.
Menzies was the director of the burning of Atlanta sequence in Gone with the Wind. He also re-shot the Salvador Dalí dream sequence of Alfred Hitchcock's "Spellbound" (1945).
In addition, Menzies directed dramas and fantasy films. He made two science-fiction films: "Things to Come" (1936), based on H.G. Wells' work for producer Alexander Korda which predicted war and technical advancement; and "Invaders from Mars" (1953), which mirrored many fears about aliens and outside threats to humanity in the 1950s.
Death.
Shortly after completing his work as an associate producer on "Around the World in 80 Days" (1956), Menzies died of cancer. He was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
Accolades.
At the first Academy Awards, held on May 16, 1929, Menzies won for Best Art Direction for "The Dove" and "Tempest". The following year he was nominated in the same categories for his work on "Bulldog Drummond", "Alibi", and "The Awakening", but lost to Cedric Gibbons.
At the 12th Academy Awards held on February 29, 1940, Menzies won an Academy Honorary Award "for outstanding achievement in the use of color for the enhancement of dramatic mood" in the production of "Gone With the Wind".
Legacy.
In 2005, Menzies was in the first group of art directors and production designers inducted into the Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame.
Several of Menzies home movies are part of the collection of the Academy Film Archive and were preserved by the archive in 2015.
DVD release.
In October 2009, Alpha Video released the public domain collection "The Fantastic World of William Cameron Menzies" on DVD, which included four early experimental films created by Menzies and Joseph M. Schenck, shorts that visualize great works of classical music:
According to Dave Kehr, "The Wizard's Apprentice" "clearly influenced Disney's version in "Fantasia".


Boyden Carpenter

Boyden Carpenter (1909–1995) was a Hillbilly and Bluegrass artist active in the 1930s and 1940s in the United States.
Personal.
Carpenter was born February 26, 1909 in Fries, Grayson County, Virginia and was raised in Pipers Gap, Carroll County, Virginia and Sparta and Cherry Lane in Alleghany County, North Carolina.
He died May 25, 1995 at Cherryville, Gaston County, North Carolina. Carpenter was his adopted surname—he was born to John W. and Mary E. Summit but was using his stepfather's surname by 1930.
Musical career.
In 1930, Carpenter was working in Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, North Carolina, as a musician in an orchestra. Billing himself as "The Hill Billy Kid," he began playing with several bands, including Wade Mainer's Sons of The Mountaineers, Bill Monroe's Monroe Brothers, and the Crazy Water Crystals-sponsored "Crazy Water Barn Dance" show band in Charlotte, North Carolina.
He had his greatest musical success in the mid-1930s working at WPTF radio station in Raleigh, North Carolina, touring with the "Grandfather of Bluegrass, Wade Mainer and his Sons of the Mountaineers band and Bill Monroe's Monroe Brothers, and playing with Ernest Thompson.
The William Leonard Eury Appalachian Collection at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina preserves a photograph of Carpenter with his guitar and "The 'Hill Billy' from Alleghany County" guitar case found in a book titled "Boyden Carpenter: The Old Gospel Singer". A 1930s booklet entitled "Boyden Carpenter: The Original "Hillbilly Kid"", which relates his life story and lyrics to his songs, also survives.


The Underdogs (record producers)

The Underdogs are an American R&B/pop production duo composed of Harvey Mason Jr. and Damon Thomas.
Biography.
Harvey Mason Jr. is the son of Harvey Mason Sr., a noted session drummer. Damon Thomas was a songwriting and production partner for R&B producer Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds during the late 1990s, and worked with Babyface on hits such as Dru Hill's "These Are the Times", Faith Evans' "Never Gonna Let You Go", and Pink's "Most Girls". Harvey Mason Jr. was part of the Darkchild crew working alongside Rodney Jerkins before teaming up with Thomas.
Mason and Thomas began working together in 1999, with their first major production being Tyrese's single "I Like Them Girls". Since then, the duo has worked with a number of R&B performers, among them Lionel Richie, Omarion, J. Valentine, Justin Timberlake, Victoria Beckham, Joe, Donell Jones, Olivia, Mario, JoJo, Mario Vazquez, Stacie Orrico, R. Kelly, Jessica Mauboy, Chris Brown, Jordin Sparks, Ruben Studdard, Fantasia, Katharine McPhee and more.
Among their work has been the soundtrack for the long-planned film adaptation of the Broadway musical "Dreamgirls", featuring performances by Jennifer Hudson, Beyoncé Knowles, Anika Noni Rose, Eddie Murphy, Keith Robinson, and Jamie Foxx.
The Underdogs also produced the Aretha Franklin/Mary J. Blige collaboration "Never Gonna Break My Faith" for the "Bobby" soundtrack.
Damon Thomas was married to celebrity reality star Kim Kardashian from 2000 to 2004. Before music fame, Thomas played football at Wayne State College. He then played 17 games in the NFL. He also played professionally in France for the Thonon Black Panthers.
In 2011, The Underdogs reunited to produce "Up 2 You" for Chris Brown's album "F.A.M.E." and the song "Living Proof" with Mary J. Blige for motion picture "The Help". In 2012, The Underdogs wrote and produced the first single from Chris Brown's album "Fortune", titled "Turn Up the Music". Also in 2012, The Underdogs produced the soundtrack album for the films "Pitch Perfect" and "Pitch Perfect 2". In 2014, they produced and arranged music for "Get On Up" depicting the life of James Brown. In 2015, The Underdogs produced and arranged music for the motion picture biopic "Straight Outta Compton".
Notable works.
S.M. Entertainment Artists


Ed Krynski

Edward Paul Krynski (September 12, 1927 – 15 November 2004) was a pinball game designer and innovator who worked for D. Gottlieb & Co between 1965 and 1984. During this time Krynski designed more than 200 games and innovated new pinball standards such as the laneways to the flipper, carousel targets, vari-targets, multiple drop targets, and the first solid state pinball machine with the speaker in the backbox instead of the bottom cabinet. Krynski is a member of the Pinball Hall of Fame.
The first pinball machine designed by Krynski was "Hi Straight", released in December 1959, and the last was "El Dorado City of Gold", in October 1984.
The Internet Pinball Machine Database identifies 225 machines designed by Krynski, including "300", "2001", "4 Square", "The Amazing Spider-Man", "El Dorado City of Gold", "Genie", "Spirit of 76", "Central Park", "Royal Flush", "Big Shot", and "Sing Along".
Stan Lee, the co-creator of Spider-Man and public face of Marvel Comics, claimed ownership of one of Krynski's first "The Amazing Spider-Man" pinball machines off the assembly line in 1980 and kept it in his Marvel office until he auctioned it as part of his "Stan Lee collection". Lee said that "Over the years, I have spent countless frustrating yet perversely enjoyable hours attempting to play on it, as have numerous colleagues, friends and business associates (some quite famous, though a combination of modesty, shame and my legendary bad memory prevents me from divulging their names here) during their unrelenting pilgrimages to my office. In fact, I think many of these scions of arts and industry came over JUST to beat me up at pinball. I hope its new owner will be a better player than I am."


Thomas D. Rogers

Thomas D. Rogers, Sr. (born 1945) is a former sculptor-engraver with the United States Mint and designer of several U.S. coins, including the 2000–2008 reverse side of the United States Golden dollar coins, or Sacagawea dollars. Rogers holds an A.A.S. degree with a major in commercial art. He joined the U.S. Mint in October 1991, working at the Philadelphia Mint facility, and retired in 2001. As of 2003 he was residing in Long Beach, Washington, and as of 2009 he was living and working in Oregon. His design for the Sacagawea dollar was modified slightly before it went into circulation.
Rogers designed the reverses of four of the State Quarters, including those for Maryland, Massachusetts and South Carolina. He designed the original reverse of the American Platinum Eagle, which was used on the proof version of that coin's first year (1997) and on non-proof Platinum Eagles of all dates, and designed the reverses of two subsequent years of the proof version of the same coin, those of 1998 and 2001.
Additionally, Rogers designed the obverses of the 1996 silver $1 coin commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Smithsonian Institution and the 2000 Library of Congress $10 coin, and designed both sides of several other United States commemorative coins.
Although retired from the U.S. Mint, Rogers has subsequently carried out some design work for the Mint as an independent artist under contract. In 2014, Rogers designed the reverse of the 2016 Sacagawea dollar, which honors Native American code talkers from World Wars I and II.


Yang Wei (aircraft designer)

Yang Wei (; born 1963) is a Chinese aircraft designer. He is vice president of the Chinese Aeronautical Establishment (中国航空研究院).
Education.
Yang was the youngest general designer China ever had, completing his undergraduate education by the age of 19, and graduate education by the age of 22 from the Northwestern Polytechnical University. Yang first joined the Chengdu Aircraft Design Institute in the late 1980s, and by the age of 38, he was promoted to the highest rank within the institute — director of the institute.
Career.
Since 1998, Yang has become the general designer of numerous aircraft, and he is also one of the founders of fully digitized fly-by-wire control systems in China, a feat that greatly helped him become general designer of aircraft. Under his leadership, it took less than four years to achieve a maiden flight from scratch for FC-1, a record that remains unbroken in China today, and this was achieved while Yang was also the general designer of the Chengdu J-10 double seated version. Although only being the general designer of the twin seater version of the Chengdu J-10, Yang was the chief engineer of the digital fly-by-wire control systems for both the single seater and the twin seater version of the Chengdu J-10. Due to the nature of his work, Yang's achievements were kept secret and it wasn't until January, 2007 that Chengdu J-10 began to appear in a very limited fashion on official Chinese governmental websites, such as the Xinhua News Agency.
Awards.
Recipient of Pakistan's high civilian honour Sitara-e-Imtiaz in 2017 for his services to design JF-17 Aircraft.


Gridiron Fight

 is an American football video game developed and released by Tehkan (later known as Tecmo) for arcades in 1985. It is a one or two player game based on gridiron football (American football), and was released in a cocktail cabinet form factor. The game uses trackball controls, used to determine the speed and direction at which the player runs.
Designed by Shinichiro Tomie and programmed by Michihito Ishizuka, with background graphics by his wife Rie Ishizuka (Rie Yatomi), the same team went on to develop the association football game (soccer game) "Tehkan World Cup" later the same year. It was also a precursor to the American football game "Tecmo Cup" (1988).
Gameplay.
"Tehkan Gridiron Fight" is a two-dimensional top-down scrolling American football game in which the player(s) control the virtual player on their team who is closest to the ball, with the trackball determining the speed and direction at which the player runs. A single push-button labeled "Kick" causes the virtual player in possession to release the ball with the same force and direction in which he is currently running. (This button is duplicated on either side of the trackball for left or right-handed players.) The Player 1 (red trackball) side contained two additional push-buttons for choosing between Single or Two-Player games. Before each play, players are invited to select from a variety of formations, e.g. "Sweep" or "Draw". The formation selected is displayed on a seven-segment LED on the player's control panel.
Although the graphics are two-dimensional, the height of the ball can be determined by its growing larger while its shadow appears on the ground. Also on the side of the screen is the score and a clock which counts down to zero, the point where the current game ends.
Hardware.
Two slightly different cabinet shapes were released - one with straighter edges and vertices in profile and one with more rounded edges akin to its stablemate, Tehkan World Cup.
Processors and sound — Tehkan Gridiron Fight used two Z80C 8-bit CPUs at 4.608 MHz for processing. For sound, it employed one Z80C at 4.6 MHz, two AY-3-8910s at 1.536 MHz and one M5205 at 384 kHz for FM and samples. Although this produced three-channel music plus sound effects, all sound was fed through a mono amplifier in the cabinet housing. As machines aged the amplifier was known to fail, resulting in silent gameplay.
Screen and resolution — The screen was a horizontally mounted 20" color raster CRT monitor fed at 256 x 224 pixels by 768 colors by 60 Hertz.
Trackballs — The game unit consists of two 3" optical trackballs. These are made of semi-transparent plastic, and illuminated from below such that they shine blue or red, depending on the color of the ball.
Development.
"Gridiron Fight" was developed by Tehkan. The game was designed by Shinichiro Tomie, and programmed by Michihito Ishizuka, who was also responsible for sound design, having previously programmed the sound driver for "Bomb Jack" (1984). His wife Rie Ishizuka (also known as Rie Yatomi) was responsible for the background graphics, along with other female staff members. Michihito and Rie Ishizuka had previously worked together on "Senjyo" (1983) and "Bomb Jack".
Reception.
In Japan, "Game Machine" listed "Gridiron Fight" on their April 15, 1987 issue as being the second most-successful table arcade unit of the month.
Legacy.
"Tehkan World Cup".
"Tehkan World Cup" (1985) was an association football video game (soccer game) released later the same year, featuring almost identical hardware. It employed the same twin trackballs with an action button duplicated on either side and a similar cocktail cabinet design with horizontal screen. The primary hardware difference was the absence of the seven segment LED adjacent to the action buttons. The software of the two games exhibited a similar top-down two-dimensional window-on-the-field graphical design.
Both games were developed by several of the same team members. Both were designed by Shinichiro Tomie, who was a big association football (soccer) fan. After designing "Gridiron Fight", he immediately wanted to adapt the gameplay format of "Gridiron Fight" for a soccer game. Michihito Ishizuka reprised his role as the programmer, while his wife Rie Ishizuka worked on the character design and background graphics. The team felt the trackball controls of "Gridiron Fight" was complex, so they decided to simplify the controls, making it so that the player can run with the trackball and press one button to kick. This led to "Tehkan World Cup" becoming a major arcade hit.


Zoe Jordan

Zoe Jordan is an Irish fashion designer.
In 2013, Jordan was short listed for the British Fashion Council "Vogue" Fashion Fund award.


Mayne Berke

Mayne Berke is a graduate of SUNY Purchase with a degree in Lighting Design from the Department of Design/Technology, Division of Theatre Arts & Film. He has a master's degree in Art Direction from NYU's Tisch School Of The Arts. Berke began working in the Scenic Design field in film in the 1990s. His credits include Art Director and Production Designer for such films as "The Princess Diaries".


Arrigo Boito

Arrigo Boito (; 24 February 1842 10 June 1918) (whose original name was Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito and who wrote essays under the anagrammatic pseudonym of Tobia Gorrio) was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist, librettist and composer, best known today for his libretti, especially those for Giuseppe Verdi's last two monumental operas "Otello" and "Falstaff" (not to mention Amilcare Ponchielli's operatic masterpiece "La Gioconda") and his own opera "Mefistofele". Along with Emilio Praga and his own brother Camillo Boito, he is regarded as one of the prominent representatives of the Scapigliatura artistic movement.
Biography.
Born in Padua, the son of Silvestro Boito (1802-1856), an Italian painter of miniatures and his wife, a Polish countess, Józefina Radolińska, Boito studied music at the Milan Conservatory with Alberto Mazzucato until 1861, where a friend, Albert Visetti resided as well. His older brother, Camillo Boito, was an Italian architect and engineer as well as a noted art critic, art historian and novelist.
In 1866 he fought under Giuseppe Garibaldi in the Seven Weeks' War in which the Kingdom of Italy and Prussia fought against Austria, after which Venice was ceded to Italy.
Between 1887 and 1894, he had an affair with celebrated actress Eleonora Duse. Their relationship was carried out in a highly clandestine manner, presumably because of Boito's many aristocratic friends and acquaintances. (Despite this, their voluminous correspondence over the years survives.) The two remained on good terms until his death.
Towards the end of his musical career, Boito succeeded Giovanni Bottesini as director of the Parma Conservatory after the latter's death in 1889 and held the post until 1897. He received the honorary degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Cambridge in 1893, and on his death in Milan he was interred there in the Cimitero Monumentale. He was an atheist.
A memorial concert was given in his honor at La Scala in 1948. The orchestra was conducted by Arturo Toscanini. Recorded in very primitive sound, the concert has been issued on CD.
Career in music.
Boito wrote very little music, but completed (and later destroyed) the opera "Ero e Leandro" and left incomplete a further opera, "Nerone", which he had been working at, on and off, between 1877 and 1915. Excluding its last act, for which Boito left only a few sketches, "Nerone" was finished after his death by Arturo Toscanini and Vincenzo Tommasini and premiered at La Scala in 1924. He also left a Symphony in A minor in manuscript.
Mefistofele
His only completed opera, "Mefistofele", based on Goethe's "Faust", was given its first performance on 5 March 1868, at La Scala, Milan. The premiere, which he conducted himself, was badly received, provoking riots and duels over its supposed "Wagnerism", and it was closed by the police after two performances. Verdi commented, "He aspires to originality but succeeds only at being strange." Boito withdrew the opera from further performances to rework it, and it had a more successful second premiere, in Bologna on 10 April 1875. This revised and drastically cut version also changed Faust from a baritone to a tenor. "Mefistofele" is the only work of his performed with any regularity today, and Enrico Caruso included its two tenor arias in his first recording session. The prologue to the opera, set in heaven, is a favorite concert excerpt.
Librettos
Boito's literary powers never waned. As well as writing the libretti for his own operas, he wrote them for greater operas by two other composers. As "Tobia Gorrio" (an anagram of his name), he provided the libretto for Amilcare Ponchielli's "La Gioconda".
Collaboration with Verdi
His "rapprochement" with Verdi, whom he had offended in a toast to his long-time friend, the composer (and later conductor) Franco Faccio, shortly after they (i.e., Boito and Verdi) had collaborated on Verdi's "Inno delle nazioni" ("Anthem of the Nations", London, 1862), was effected by the music publisher Giulio Ricordi whose long-term aim was to persuade Verdi to write another opera. Verdi agreed for Boito to revise the libretto for the original 1857 "Simon Boccanegra", which musicologist Roger Parker speculates was based on a desire to "test the possibility" of working with Boito before possibly embarking on a larger project which eventually became "Otello". The revised "Boccanegra" premiered to great acclaim in 1881. With that, their mutual friendship and respect blossomed.
Although Verdi's aim to write the music for an opera based on Shakespeare's "King Lear" never came to fruition (despite the existence of a libretto), Boito provided subtle and resonant libretti for Verdi's last two masterpieces, "Otello" (based on Shakespeare's play "Othello") and "Falstaff" based on two other Shakespeare plays, "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and parts of "Henry IV". After those many years of close association, when Verdi died in 1901, Boito was at his bedside.
Libretti by Boito.
The years given are those of the premieres. Boito also provided the text to Verdi's cantata "Inno delle Nazioni" which was first given on 24 May 1862 at Her Majesty's Theatre, London.
Recordings.
Recordings of two operas exist:
References.
Notes
Sources


Poornima Indrajith

Poornima Indrajith (née Mohan) (born 13 December 1978) is an Indian actress, fashion designer, television anchor and talk show host who has worked in Malayalam television serials and films.
Career.
She started her career as a model and then went on to host the music countdown show "Pepsi Top Ten" on Asianet. She acted in many successful television serials such as "Oomakkuyil", "Sthree oru Santhwanam", " peythozhiyathe,Venalmazha", "Nizhalukal" and "Kolangal" in Tamil. She has also acted in a few movies, including "Meghamalhar", "Valliettan" and "Randam Bhavam". She received the best supporting actress award for her role in "Meghamalhar".
In late 2000s she returned toto hosting with the show "Mega Swarnamazha" in Surya TV. Later she hosted the successful television shows like "Kadha Ithu Vare", "Idavelayil", "Kuttikalodano Kali" and "Made for each other season 2" on the channel Mazhavil Manorama. She has appeared in many advertisements too.
She is a talented dancer also. She has now become a fashion designer. She runs a boutique by the name "Pranaah" in Kochi. She writes a regular column named "In Style" for "Chithrabhumi", a supplement of Mathrubhumi.
Personal life.
She is born to Mohan and Shanthi, in a Kerala settled Tamil family. Her mother tongue is Tamil. Her father is a practising lawyer and her mother runs a dance school. She has a younger sister Priya Mohan, who is also an actress.
Poornima is married to Malayalam actor Indrajith Sukumaran. She has two daughters. She is the daughter-in-law of the famous Malayalam actor late Sukumaran and actress Mallika Sukumaran. Malayalam actor Prithviraj Sukumaran is her brother-in-law.


Shadowrun (2007 video game)

Shadowrun is a first-person shooter video game, developed by FASA Studio for Xbox 360 and Windows Vista. The game features a buying system which is inspired by the game "Counter-Strike". The game is also inspired by the role-playing game of the same name.
Gameplay.
Shadowrun's multiplayer consisted wholly of a first person/third person deathmatch. Players chose various races with unique abilities. Additionally, a currency system dictated in-match upgrades, with each race given a different amount of starting capital. The four playable races are Human, Elf, Dwarf, and Troll. Magic was a key component to this game as well. Players could heal, damage, teleport, and summon to gain advantages over others. Additionally, gadgets, or "tech", were obtainable through currency. Currency also allowed players to purchase new weapons.
Shadowrun featured no campaign mode. If a user was without online services, they could set up bot matches and hone their skills.
Plot.
According to the ancient Mayan calendar, magic is cyclical, leaving the world and returning every 5000 years. Magic enters the world, grows, peaks, and eventually retreats. When magic was last at its peak, a powerful Ziggurat was constructed near what would be modern day Santos, Brazil. The purpose of this construct is shrouded in the mists of history. Even the Chancela family, who secretly maintained the ziggurat for thousands of years, did not know its purpose, nor did they know the purpose of the strange artifact somehow connected to the ziggurat. In the millennia since its construction, the ziggurat was eventually buried, hidden in the side of a mountain. Then, on December 24, 2012, magic began returning to the world, leaving change and confusion in its wake.
The years after magic's return wrought change on a global scale. RNA Global, a powerful multinational corporation, sent a research team to Santos, Brazil. Their job was to explore and research the strange energies coming from a mountainside along one edge of Santos. Armed with an artifact from ancient times, the research team sought to channel and control the magical energies they were exploring. Instead, they caused a magical accident that destroyed half the city and brought down the mountainside, revealing the ziggurat to all. Deflecting blame for the incident to an Ork paramilitary organization, RNA retreated from the city while rethinking their strategy.
After a time, RNA Global returned to Santos, this time armed with a government contract that provided them control over the city. Vowing to keep the peace and clean up Santos, RNA's first actions were to enact martial law and declare a curfew for all citizens. The locals, still upset over the initial accident and trying to rebuild on their own, began resisting RNA's efforts. The resistance was helped greatly by the leadership of the Chancela family, who were dedicated to defending the ziggurat and recovering the artifact. Resistance turned to conflict, conflict turned to skirmish, and skirmish eventually plunged the city into all-out war. Eventually, forces began to organize themselves under the Chancela family, and became known as "The Lineage".
The battle between these two sides has grown to great proportions as of 2031, as the struggle for the artifact continues between RNA Global forces and The Lineage.
Development.
Three video games based on the "Shadowrun" universe were created throughout the 1990s: one for the SNES, one for the Sega Genesis, and one other for the Mega-CD (released only in Japan). In January 1999, Microsoft purchased FASA Interactive, acquiring the electronic rights to "Shadowrun" in the process. Microsoft then filed a trademark for the "Shadowrun" title in November, 2004. Initial gameplay prototyping was done using the "" engine while FASA Interactive worked on creating their own engine.
At E3 in May 2006, Microsoft officially revealed "Shadowrun" for Windows Vista and the Xbox 360. Originally, the game was set to have a single-player campaign to complement the multiplayer. FASA Studio's Bill Fulton later revealed the campaign mode was cut due to "resource constraints" and the "quality over quantity" focus of development.
Release.
On September 12, 2007, FASA Studio announced its closure. On January 7, 2008, it was announced that the dedicated servers hosted by Microsoft for PC users would be available until at least the beginning of February 2008, at which time plans for their future support would be evaluated. The official Shadowrun forums were closed on January 31, 2008, and the announcement also stated the Shadowrun.com domain name would soon be transferred to Smith & Tinker, the company which licensed the electronic entertainment rights for Shadowrun from Microsoft.
On December 15, 2009, the game was made available on the Games on Demand store for Games for Windows – Live, and was the second game to allow for Windows users to play with Xbox 360 users (the first being Final Fantasy XI in 2006). A Games for Windows – Live update released on November 15, 2010 changed the voice codec used by the platform. As a result, "Shadowrun" players on Windows and Xbox 360 can no longer hear each other in-game (though they can still hear other players on the same platform). It was later cracked to work on Windows XP, confirming speculation that it was intentionally limited to Windows Vista.
Reception.
Critical reception for "Shadowrun" was mixed, with most reviews citing a dire lack of content for a multiplayer-only game, and the high release price.
On June 22, 2007, FASA Studio head Mitch Gitelman provided an in-depth 40 minute interview, on the podcast KOXM, regarding the game and its critical reviews. He defended the pricing over the long term value of gameplay compared to other first-person shooters:
Sales.
As of July 31, 2007, the game sold roughly 162,000 copies in North America according to NPD Group with 150,000 being in sold on the Xbox 360 and the remaining 12,000 on the PC. Upon release Shadowrun debuted as the sixth highest selling game out of 40 titles for the week ending June 2, 2007, in the United Kingdom. Shadowrun fell off the UK charts the week ending June 30, 2007.


Holosseum

 is a 1992 fighting arcade game developed and published by Sega. The name is a portmanteau of holography and colosseum, due to it being a fighting game created exclusively for Sega's hi-tech hologram theater cabinet, and is the second and last game created for it after "Time Traveler". It was one of Sega's earliest attempts at creating a competitive fighting game along with "Dark Edge", after the success of Capcom's "Street Fighter II".
Gameplay.
"Holosseum" plays similarly to other 2D versus fighting games during its release, which the player's character fights against his or her opponent in best two-out-of-three matches in a single player tournament mode with the computer or against another human player. The player has a character roster of four selectable fighters to choose from, each with their own fighting style and special techniques. Unlike most characters in "Street Fighter II", these four characters lack fictional moves. In one player mode, after selecting a character, the arcade randomly selects an opponent. After the player knocks out the other three characters, the player will fight against the same character the player controls, followed by numerous extra fights against all four opponents randomly. Like Data East's "Karate Champ", the amount of space to move around in "Holosseum" is very small.


Anthony Mendleson

Anthony Mendleson (7 February 1915 – 5 September 1996) was a British costume and set designer. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design in 1972 for "Young Winston", and in 1976 for "The Incredible Sarah".
He was born on 7 February 1915 in Chiswick, London and died in London on 5 September 1996.


Lotus (video game series)

The Lotus series consists of three racing computer games based around the Lotus brand: Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, Lotus Turbo Challenge 2, and Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge. Published between 1990 and 1992 by Gremlin Graphics, the games gained very favourable reviews upon release. Original Amiga versions of the games were created by Shaun Southern and Andrew Morris of Magnetic Fields, and then ported by other individuals to several other computers and game consoles.
"Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge".
The first game in the series was released in 1990 8-bit and 16-bit computer systems, the Amiga and Atari ST versions. The game allowed the player to race a Lotus Esprit Turbo SE car through several (32 in the Amiga version) circuit race tracks of varying scenery. Two player simultaneous play (with split screen) was also provided, and a choice of audio tracks to accompany races.
Each track is lap-based and consists of turns of varying degrees, as well as hills and hollows which slow down or speed up the car passing through them. Each turn is indicated by a chain of road-side signs, and the difficulty of the turn is reflected by the number and density of these signs - a feature common to all titles in the "Lotus" series.
While racing, the players must manage their fuel supply, occasionally visiting the pit stop for refuelling. Also apart from overtaking the other cars, the racers must avoid various hazards and obstacles. These are dependent on the scenery the track is located in, and include slippery road on the winter courses, road blocks, slippery puddles and wooden logs.
The tracks are split into three race series, with different difficulty levels. In each race the player or players compete against 20 opponents. The goal is to finish each race on the highest possible position; if the player finishes a race within the first 10 places they qualify for the next race and receive points towards a final position on the high-score table. The names of the computer-controlled drivers are puns on the names of real-life racers of the time ("Ayrton Sendup", "Nijel Mainsail" and "Alain Phosphate" for example).
Unusually, the player's starting position in each race is the exact opposite of the position reached at the end of the previous one. This gives weaker players a chance to improve by starting in a higher position.
In the Amiga version entering MONSTER and SEVENTEEN as names of players 1 and 2 respectively, reveals a hidden mini-game - a simple space-themed shooter, where the objective is to survive as long as possible while shooting rocks that fly around.
Reception.
"Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge" was well received by the gaming press, which praised its feeling of speed, technical quality and two-player gameplay. The game in all its versions was rated around 80-90%. It was the only title in the series that was released for an 8-bit platform - the later ones were 16-bit only.
The ZX Spectrum version was voted number 17 in the "Your Sinclair Readers' Top 100 Games of All Time".
"Lotus Turbo Challenge 2".
The second Lotus game shifted focus to arcade-oriented gameplay. Being the first of the series released for a game console (for the Sega Mega Drive under the title Lotus Turbo Challenge), the fuel limit and difficulty levels were dropped, and the lap-based levels were replaced with course-based time trials (not unlike arcade games such as "Out Run"), with the player required to complete each course within a specified time to qualify for the next one.
In addition to the Esprit Turbo SE, "Lotus Turbo Challenge 2" also featured the Lotus Elan SE, hence 'Esprit' being dropped from the title. There was no choice of car however; the player runs with the Elan SE on odd levels, and with the Esprit on even levels.
Lotus 2's single-player mode uses all of the game screen instead of half, and opponent cars appear in a variety of colors (opponent cars in the original game were all white). The music is absent from racing altogether; the player instead hears the car's engine sound.
"Lotus 2" was developed for the Amiga and then converted for the other platforms.
Barry Leitch's intro music for "Lotus 2" is often found on playlists of retro computer music webradio stations; it contains a subliminal message in the form of a sampled voice at around the 12-second mark (played through the left channel only) which says "you will not copy this game". The sample is played very quietly during the first few bars, and can be easily accessed in any MOD tracker program. The hi-hat and voice sample at the very beginning of the main theme is taken from Yello's "Oh Yeah", a song that became famous as the theme for another sports car (a Ferrari 250 GT California) in the movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off".
"Lotus 2" uses a password system to access different races - once the player qualifies for a particular race, the password is revealed. Additionally, a rendition of Shaun Southern's early creation "Kwazy Kwaks", originally published for the Commodore VIC-20 in 1984, is accessed by using the password DUX.
There is a touch of humour on level six (the motorway level) of the Amiga version: if the player manages to successfully drive under the trailer of one of the lorries that cross the road, the in-game announcer shouts "Yeehaa!" This sound was used as a taunt on the Genesis port.
The Amiga and Atari ST versions are able to use the serial port and connect to another computer (the players could link 2 Amiga, 2 Atari ST or an Amiga and an Atari ST) running "Lotus 2", thus making it possible for three or four players to play at the same time, or two players to play in fullscreen mode. This feature does not exists in other versions, nor in the two other episodes.
"Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge".
The third game in the series combined the gameplay aspects of its predecessors, allowing players to choose between racing opponents of "Lotus Turbo Challenge" or the arcade-like time trials of "Lotus 2". The two-player option was retained and the music selection feature returns (Patrick Phelan's soundtrack to "Lotus III" spawned many modern remixes). "Lotus III" also added a third car - a concept Lotus M200 automobile - and allowed the player to choose which one to race with. The game recycled most of the graphics from "Lotus 2", but added a number of new sceneries.
"Lotus Trilogy".
In 1994, the three games were released for Amiga CD32 in one package, as "The Classic Lotus Trilogy". The Lotus Trilogy was also released for Atari 1040ST and Amiga that included all three games.
Reception.
Italian magazine "Computer+Videogiochi" scored the Amiga CD32 version 82.


Doug Chiang

Doug Chiang (, born 16 February 1962) is a Taiwanese-American film designer and artist. He currently serves as vice president and executive creative director of Lucasfilm.
Early life.
Chiang was born in Yilan County, Taiwan and grew up in Michigan, United States.
Chiang was inspired by the original "Star Wars" film and the accompanying art design book. He studied industrial design at the College for Creative Studies until 1982.
He later studied film production at UCLA and graduated in 1986. During his time in college, he was an illustrator and art director for the Daily Bruin and involved with the Association of Chinese Americans.
Career.
During the late 1980s, he worked at various production studios including Rhythm and Hues. Chiang eventually joined Industrial Light & Magic as a creative director where he worked on films such as ' (1991) and "Forrest Gump" (1994). In 1995, he was hired to lead Lucasfilm's art department; he was the design director for ' (1999) and "Episode II – Attack of the Clones" (2002). Afterwards, he was a production designer on Robert Zemeckis' "The Polar Express". Outside of film, he collaborated with author Orson Scott Card on an illustrated science-fiction book called "Robota".
He founded DC Studios in 2000 with his creation, "Robota," as a primary project. Along with Sparx Animation Studios in Ho Chi Minh City, he created several animated shorts depicting the world of "Robota" in action.
In 2004, Chiang co-founded Ice Blink Studios and worked for Zemeckis on "Beowulf". Ice Blink closed in 2007, becoming the core of the facility for ImageMovers Digital, a pioneering performance capture animation studio.
Chiang returned to the "Star Wars" franchise as the concept artist for "" as well as production designer for "Rogue One".
He still works at Industrial Light & Magic on "Star Wars" movies such as ' and '. He also worked on "The Mandalorian", which is his first "Star Wars" show.
Awards.
Chiang has won numerous awards throughout his career, including an Academy Award and a BAFTA for "Death Becomes Her", a BAFTA for "Forrest Gump", a FOCUS Award for his independent film "Mental Block", a Clio Award for his work on a Malaysian Airlines commercial and The BrandLaureate Award.


Blue City (novel)

Blue City is a thriller written in 1947 by Ross Macdonald. The novel was originally released under his real name, Kenneth Millar, by Alfred A. Knopf, while a condensed version was serialized in the August and September 1950 issues of "Esquire". In 1986 it was considerably adapted to film.
Background.
Macdonald later described his third novel, "Blue City", as "a tough thriller in the Spillane tradition", although "The Chicago Sun" noted that he was in a different league from Mickey Spillane. Publicity for the novel linked the author's name with James M. Cain, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, a comparison deprecated in the mixed reviews that the book received at the time. Macdonald himself later said in an interview that Hammett was a particularly strong influence on the novel; "I imagine I might never have written hard-boiled detective stories at all if it hadn't been for Hammett". Others have commented on the likeness between Macdonald's 'Blue City' and the 'Poisonville' of Hammett's "Red Harvest".
The portrayal of the novel's unnamed Mid-Western small town, lying in the shadow of Chicago, is centered mostly on the disadvantaged who live in it and differs from the up-market Californian scenarios of the Lew Archer novels that Macdonald was yet to write. In a 1952 letter to his publisher, he explained that he had in mind "a town where I had suffered, and several of the characters were based on people I hated." It is from this that the book's anger and political stance derive. The protagonist is narrator throughout, but will occasionally diverge from talking tough into what Macdonald's biographer describes as "civics lectures" or he overdoes literary reference. The particular target of his anger is small-town pettifoggery. The self-congratulatory tabloid editorial justifying anti-union violence or the list of books suppressed in the library from which "it was somehow comforting to know that the good people of the town … were protected against the lubricity of Rabelais, the immorality of Flaubert, the viciousness of Hemingway, and the degradation of Faulkner."
Reviewing the book, Nelson Algren praised the over-all clipped descriptive style: "Kenneth Millar never uses two words when one will do; and when he wants you to see a thing, you see it." A later commentator looked beyond thriller conventions and discovered that "Millar wanted to do in prose what jazzmen did in music". Here he was only following Macdonald himself, who had said in an earlier interview that "the imagery and rhythm and movements of jazz had a lot to do with forming my style in my early books. It's quite obvious in a book like "Blue City"." He also noted then that Jack Kerouac's "jazz-prose" was written later and more diffusely. There was no direct influence.
Plot.
Twenty-two-year-old John Weather has returned from the army, having served in the European Theater in the Second World War, only to find his estranged father had been shot two years previously. John had known his father as a prominent businessman and politician and now learns that he was a leading factor in the corruption of the town. Everyone seems more than happy to let his murder remain unsolved and, as John tries to uncover the murderer, he finds himself up against and manhandled by thugs in the pay of Roger Kerch. Kerch is a blackmailer who has taken over his father's slot machine franchise and seems to have a hold over his step-mother, Floraine, whom his father had married while John was young and living away from home.
Finally, with the help of Carla, a hostess at the Cathay Club, John gets ahead of those trying to prevent him uncovering the truth. After Kerch has killed his step-mother (who turns out to be Kerch's bigamous wife), and John is in line to inherit his father's assets, he gains the co-operation of Ralph Hanson, the police inspector in charge of the case, and Freeman Allister, the ineffectual reformist mayor. Kerch and his surviving associates are jailed, while Allister, the real murderer of John's father, is shot by his mistress.


Abidin Dino

Abidin Dino (23 March 1913 – 7 December 1993) was a Turkish artist and a well-known painter.
Early years.
Dino was born on 23 March 1913 in Istanbul into an art-loving family. He started drawing and painting at a young age influenced by his family. As a child he lived in Geneva, Switzerland and France for several years with his parents, returning to Istanbul in 1925. Dino began his secondary education at the American highschool Robert College of Istanbul, but dropped out to devote himself to painting, drawing and writing. His articles and cartoons were soon being published in newspapers and magazines, and in 1933 he and five other young innovative painters founded the “D Group”, which held several exhibitions of their work. At around the same time, he illustrated Nazım Hikmet’s books of poetry.
In 1933, the Soviet director Sergei Yutkevich, who had made a film about Ankara, invited Dino to the Lenfil Studios in Leningrad, and with Atatürk's encouragement Dino accepted. In Leningrad, he worked as a scenery designer and assistant director at several film studios, and directed a film called "Miners" in Moscow, Kiev and Odessa. Shortly after returning to Turkey, he went to Paris, France where he worked from 1937 to 1939, meeting such famous artists as Gertrude Stein, Tristan Tzara and Picasso.
Following his return to Istanbul again, he participated in the famous "Harbor Exhibition", consisting of paintings of the city's dockworkers and fishermen by well-known Turkish painters of the time. The exhibition aroused widespread public interest, and that year Dino was asked to design the Turkish pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Meanwhile, he published articles and cartoons in several of the foremost magazines of that time, studying a new approach to realism together with his elder brother poet Arif Dino.
During World War II, he did drawings inspired by the conflict, but his treatment of political subjects in wartime incurred official displeasure, and in 1941 the martial law command of Istanbul exiled him and his elder brother to southeastern Anatolia, where their grandfather had been a governor before. These years of exile until 1945 were artistically very productive for Dino. While his young wife Güzin Dino taught French at Adana High School, he worked for a local newspaper, TurkSozu, producing articles and drawings that illustrated with poetic realism of the hard lives and working conditions of agricultural laborers in the region. It was here that he wrote his plays ""Bald" and "Heirs"", and began doing sculpture. In 1951, he was allowed to leave Turkey. So he went first to Rome, Italy where he stayed nine months, but settled then in Paris in 1952.
Paris days.
Within a short time, the home of Guzin and Abidin Dino in Paris became the haunt of many famous artists and writers. The couple first moved into the studio on the top floor of Max Ernst's apartment on the quay of Saint-Michel, and later to a small flat in L'Eure.
Their foreign and Turkish friends, including Nazım Hikmet, Yaşar Kemal, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar and Melih Cevdet, found the opportunity to meet one another at the Dino’s home. The Dinos were also always ready with a helping hand for young Turkish painters and students in Paris, introducing them to world-famous masters, and assisting them to get established.
For eight years from 1954, Abidin Dino participated in the "Salon de Mai" exhibitions in Paris, while Guzin Dino produced programmes for Radio France, taught Turkish at the Oriental Languages Department of the Sorbonne, and did French translations of Turkish literature.
Unforgettable friendship.
Although Abidin Dino lived abroad, he never severed relations with Turkey and his friends there, and took a close interest in everything that occurred, particularly in the political field. He was always delighted to cooperate with other artists and writers, writing prefaces and drawing illustrations for his friends' books with unbounded generosity.
After more than a decade's absence he visited Turkey in 1969 to open an exhibition of his work. From then on he came more frequently, participating in both one-person and mixed exhibitions. In 1979 he was elected honorary president of the National Union of the Visual Arts (UNAP) in France. His film "Goal! World Cup 1966" (1966) was a spectacular tribute to his visual sensitivity and brought him the "Flaherty prize". This film about the 1966 World Cup final is a documentary that did not confine itself to football matches, but included fascinating footage of people in London and elsewhere in England.
Master of drawing.
Abidin Dino was interested in everything that was alive, skillfully capturing images with his brush, pencil and camera. He had two favorite themes: hands and flowers. In a book of small drawings, which he did for his wife Guzin published on the tenth anniversary of his death, glimpses of the love and sense of solidarity are seen, which were his inspiration. Entitled "Guzin's Abidins", this book consists of drawings and essays by Abidin Dino.
One may come across his name in numerous art galleries and museums around the world, in a poem, the lyrics of a song, or a book. Not only is he one of the pioneers of modern Turkish painting, but produced masterful works in such disparate fields as caricature, sculpture, ceramics, cinema, and literature.
Dino died on 7 December 1993 at the Villejuif Hospital in Paris. He was laid to rest in the Aşiyan Cemetery in Istanbul.


String band

A string band is an old-time music or jazz ensemble made up mainly or solely of string instruments. String bands were popular in the 1920s and 1930s, and are among the forerunners of modern country music and bluegrass. While being active countrywide, in Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs they are a huge part of its musical culture and traditions, appearing, among others, in the yearly Mummers Parade.
History of African American old-time string band music.
Although African American old-time string bands recorded history is that of the early 20th century, the beginnings of the music started much earlier. Many people once believed that the role African Americans played in the upcoming of old-time string band music was either nonexistent or to interest the middle ages or medieval times. The genre of African American folk music actually began with the use of percussion instruments, which were used to create music in form of encouragement to keep the slaves exercising on slave ships. Furthermore, that then sparked the usage of percussion instruments such as banjos and violins that the slaves played as a way of entertainment.
Instruments in an old-time string band.
Old-time string bands were mainly composed of stringed instruments. Those instruments being the fiddle, 5-string banjo, acoustic guitar, and an upright bass/cello. Depending on the type of genre the old-time music is being accompanied by, the stringed instruments may also be joined by other instruments including spoons, washboards, jugs, harmonica, harps and pianos.
String bands in old-time music.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, other stringed instruments began to be added to the fiddle-banjo duo that was essential to dance music of the early 19th century United States. These other instruments included the guitar, mandolin, and double bass (or washtub bass), which provided chordal and bass line accompaniment (or occasionally melody also). Such an assemblage, of whatever instrumentation, became known simply as a "string band."
In the 1870s African-American dance houses of Cincinnati had musicians who played violin, banjo, and bass fiddle. East of the Mississippi, the genre gave way to country music in the 1930s and bluegrass music in the 1940s. During the same period, west of the Mississippi, Western musicians retained the acoustic style of the bands while the big Western dance bands amplified their strings.
String bands in jazz.
Artists began to combine and record string-band music in collaboration with other popular styles in the 1920s. Lonnie Johnson and his brother, James “Steady Roll” Johnson were both proficient at banjo, guitar, and violin, and recorded with various string bands in a blues style. Lonnie Johnson also recorded duets with Eddie Lang during the late 1920s, and set the precedent for string band jazz, which included "Bull Frog Moan/A Handful of Riffs" from 1929. As influential as the Johnson/Lang duets were those by Lang and Joe Venuti. These works, completed in 1926, emphasized the rhythm of a chordal guitar with the melody in the swung violin line.
Red McKenzie, who also recorded with Lang, recorded with an influential string band group during the 1930s, the Spirits of Rhythm. The group consisted of tiple, guitar, homemade percussion, double bass, and often involved scat singing. The particular form of scat that was eventually associated with string band music was based on Harlem slang, and can be heard in McKenzie’s recording "My Old Man", from 1933. Another string band from the 1930s, Slim and Slam, continued this particular form of scat in their recording "The Flat Foot Floogie".


Patrick Tatopoulos

Patrick Tatopoulos is a Greek-French production designer and director who lives and works in the United States. His designs have appeared in numerous motion pictures, including "Pitch Black", "Underworld", "I, Robot", "The Chronicles of Riddick", "Independence Day", "Bram Stoker's Dracula", "Stargate", "Spawn", "Godzilla", "Stuart Little", "300", "I Am Legend", "Man of Steel", "", "Justice League", "10,000 BC" and "Live Free or Die Hard".
Early life.
Tatopoulos was born and raised in Paris, France, to a French mother and an immigrant father from Greece. His parents had a clothing store in Paris. Patrick Tatopoulos raced motorcycles, worked in 2-D advertising and drew comic book covers. He lived in Greece for ten years before coming to the United States in 1989. He is a fluent speaker of English, Greek and French.
On October 11, 2015, Tatopoulos married "Face Off" host McKenzie Westmore. The couple met while working on the first season of the show. The wedding ceremony was held at Chateau Le Dome at Saddlerock Ranch Winery in Malibu, California. Tatopoulos is currently based in Los Angeles.
Movie career.
In Greece, while working as a designer artist in the production of commercials, he was continually fascinated by creatures and special effects. He studied at the École d'Art Décoratif de Paris, the École des Arts Appliqués de Paris, and the École des Beaux-Arts. From Paris he moved to Rome and Greece where he began selling his illustrations. Eventually, his passion for the entertainment business drew him to the United States and within a short time became a designer for commercials, music video and motion pictures. Tatopoulos is a frequent collaborator of directors Roland Emmerich, Alex Proyas, and Len Wiseman.
The main character in "Godzilla", Nick Tatopoulos, is named after Patrick, who worked on that movie and several others made by the same creative team.
In May 2000, Tatopoulos was honored by The Hellenic Times at its ninth annual Scholarship Gala in New York. The goal of the organization is to identify young American scholars who best exemplify the values of their Greek heritage and provide them with educational support. A Patrick Tatopoulos Creative Arts Award Scholarship was created in 2001 and Tatopoulos has personally presented the scholarship, in his name, to a deserving student in 2001 and 2002. He owns Tatopoulos Studios, Inc. and Patrick Tatopoulos Designs, Inc.
The character of Niko Tatopoulos in "Godzilla" was named after his youngest daughter. He made his directorial debut with the 2009 film "". He worked on the live action film adaptation of the Darkstorm Studios graphic novel "I, Frankenstein", which was produced by Lakeshore Entertainment. The story follows the original monster of Victor Frankenstein who is the only force that stands between the human race and an uprising of supernatural creatures determined to overthrow the world. Filming kicked off in July 2010. The film was released in 2014. Tatopoulos created the creature figures of the upcoming Stan Winston produced Speed Demon. He will direct the action horror film Suspension, which based on a screenbook by Scott Millam.
Tatopoulos served as a judge for the first 2 seasons, appearing only several times on the third, on the Syfy original series "Face Off" which features makeup artists competing for $100,000.
Collaborators.
Tatopoulos has worked with the following directors on more than one film:


List of female role-playing game professionals

This is a list of female individuals that have worked professionally in the field of creating role-playing games, including designers, editors, and artists.


Renganaath Ravee

Renganaath Ravee is an Indian sound designer, sound editor and documentary filmmaker.
Biography.
Renganaath Ravee is an Indian sound designer/ supervising sound editor based in Mumbai who has worked in over 100 plus feature films (extending to ten languages including English, Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Ladakhi, Marathi, Nepali, Arabic and Portuguese), documentaries, short films, advertisements, and installations. He has also won the 2015 Kerala State Film Awards for Best Sound Designer for the movie Ennu Ninte Moideen and 2017 Kerala State Film Awards for Best Sound Designer for the movie Ee.Ma.Yau.The poetry installation, an amalgamation of poetry, sculpture and sound has earned him a place in the Limca Book of Records for being the first of its kind in the history of art. He has interpreted more than ten poems with sound of eminent poets across the globe.
 Renganaath started his career as a sound recordist at K. J. Yesudas Tharangini Records Studios. To pursue his passion, he moved to Bollywood in 2006 for more opportunities where he worked as a sound editor with renowned sound designers like Vivek Sachidanand, P.Balaram, Dwarak Warrier and Academy Award winner Resul Pookutty. It was in 2010, he made his debut as a sound designer in Mollywood for the film Nayakan, directed by Lijo Jose Pellissery.
 Renganaath is a visiting faculty at various noted film schools and an interim interview board member at the prestigious K. R. Narayanan National Institute of Visual Science and Arts, Kottayam. Renganaath directed his first documentary "Daveli... a Tale Song", a vanishing folk art which were popular in central Kerala.


Bright Memory

Bright Memory (), also known as Bright Memory: Episode 1, is a first-person shooter hack and slash video game developed by Chinese independent developer FYQD Personal Studio. Created by a single developer in his spare time, it was initially released through Steam's Early Access program for Microsoft Windows on 12 January 2019, eventually leaving early access on 25 March 2020. Additionally, the game was released for mobile platforms between 2019 and 2020, as well as for the Xbox Series X/S as one of its launch titles on November 10, 2020.
Instead of creating an "Episode 2", the game is currently being remade and expanded in both gameplay and story into a full-length title called Bright Memory: Infinite (), that is planned for release on Windows and Xbox Series X/S in 2021. Players who have bought the PC version of "Bright Memory" will be able to get "Bright Memory: Infinite" for free.
Gameplay.
"Bright Memory" is a first-person shooter with melee elements. Players take control of Shelia, who, in addition to using guns and a sword, also has supernatural abilities such as psychokinesis and unleashing energy blasts. All forms of attack can be combined as desired and the game will award letter grades to creative combinations similar to "Devil May Cry". Success in combat awards experience points that can be used to augment the character's skills and to unlock more abilities such as stopping time. Additionally, some areas feature puzzles that need to be solved. The early access version of the first episode features about an hour of gameplay with the developer announcing another two hours of gameplay by the end of 2019 with more episodes in the following years.
Synopsis.
Protagonist Shelia is tasked by the Science Research Organization (SRO) for which she works to prevent SAI, a military organization, from acquiring a legendary ancient power that can reawaken the dead. The game takes place in a "Land of Sky" located above the Arctic consisting of levitating land masses which are home to ancient creatures.
Development.
"Bright Memory" was developed by Zeng “FYQD” Xiancheng using Unreal Engine 4 with development work taking place in the developer's spare time. Zeng first previewed the game in a trailer in 2017 and received financial support through Epic Games's Unreal Dev Grants.
An early access version of "Episode One" was released worldwide on 12 January 2019. The game supports the Oculus Rift virtual reality goggles.
Stolen assets controversy.
In January 2019, Zeng admitted on a post on Sina Weibo that he has used some enemy models without acquiring a license and modified them for use in the game but did not specify which models or which games they were from. In reaction, Zeng has announced that he will use the money from the game's sale to hire an art designer and reach out to the original rights holders.
Reception.
"Bright Memory" "Episode 1" received mixed reception for having occasional bugs and almost unintelligible instructions (translated from Chinese). Nevertheless, "Rock, Paper, Shotgun" opined that the game has both the look and feel of a shooter game developed with a large budget, and 'wipes the floor' compared to some much higher priced games. The music and translation were criticized as was the short length since the game does not feature any endless mode.


Lyle Rains

Lyle Rains was a senior executive at the arcade game company Atari and is sometimes, with Ed Logg, listed as a co-developer of the video game "Asteroids". In fact, Rains called Logg into his office and said "Well, why don’t we have a game where you shoot the rocks and blow them up?". Rains also served as Executive Producer for a large number of Atari coin-op games. An avid gamer, he wrote a popular online FAQ for the Atari coin-op game "KLAX".
He joined old compatriot video game designers in a new company called Innovative Leisure headed by Seamus Blackley in 2012 to design games for phones.


Quotient automaton

In computer science, in particular in formal language theory, a quotient automaton can be obtained from a given nondeterministic finite automaton by joining some of its states. The quotient recognizes a superset of the given automaton; in some cases, handled by the Myhill–Nerode theorem, both languages are equal.
Formal definition.
A (nondeterministic) finite automaton is a quintuple "A" = ⟨"Σ", "S", "s"0, "δ", "S"f⟩, where:
A string "a"1..."a""n" ∈ "Σ"* is recognized by "A" if there exist states "s"1, ..., "s""n" ∈ "S" such that ⟨"s""i"-1,"a""i","s""i"⟩ ∈ "δ" for "i"=1...,"n", and "s""n" ∈ "S"f. The set of all strings recognized by "A" is called the language recognized by "A"; it is denoted as "L"("A").
For an equivalence relation ≈ on the set "S" of "A"’s states, the quotient automaton "A"/≈ = ⟨"Σ", "S"/≈, ["s"0], "δ"/≈, "S"f/≈⟩ is defined by
The process of computing "A"/≈ is also called factoring "A" by ≈.
Example.
For example, the automaton A shown in the first row of the table is formally defined by
It recognizes the finite set of strings { 1, 10, 100 }; this set can also be denoted by the regular expression "1+10+100".
The relation (≈) = { ⟨a,a⟩, ⟨a,b⟩, ⟨b,a⟩, ⟨b,b⟩, ⟨c,c⟩, ⟨c,d⟩, ⟨d,c⟩, ⟨d,d⟩ }, more briefly denoted as a≈b,c≈d, is an equivalence relation on the set {a,b,c,d} of automaton A’s states.
Building the quotient of A by that relation results in automaton C in the third table row; it is formally defined by
It recognizes the finite set of all strings composed of arbitrarily many 1s, followed by arbitrarily many 0s, i.e. { ε, 1, 10, 100, 1000, ..., 11, 110, 1100, 11000, ..., 111, ... }; this set can also be denoted by the regular expression "1*0*".
Informally, C can be thought of resulting from A by glueing state onto state b, and glueing state c onto state d.
The table shows some more quotient relations, such as B = A/a≈b, and D = C/a≈c.


Dotum

Dotum is a Korean TrueType sans-serif font with a Latin shape similar to that of Helvetica. Version 5.00 of the font is provided as part of Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2008.


Hum Award for Best Actor in a Negative Role

The Hum Award for Best Actor in a Negative Role is one of the Hum Awards of Merit presented annually by the Pakistani Hum Television Network and Entertainment Channel (HTNEC). It is given in an honor of an actor or actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a negative or villainous role while working within the Television industry. As of 2nd Hum Awards (for 2013) was held in 2014 with Noman Ejaz winning the award, who was honored for his role in "Ullu Baraye Farokht Nahi".The award has commonly been referred to as the hum for Best Actor in a Negative Role. Currently, nominees are determined by single transferable vote, within the actors and jury branch of HTNEC; while winners are selected by viewers votings. Multiple nominations for an actor in same category but for different work is eligible. Also actresses and actors are jointly nominated in this category.
Since its inception in 2014 the award has been given to two actors, Uzma Gillani became the oldest nominee of this category. As of 2015 ceremony, Samiya Mumtaz is the most recent winner of this category for her role in "Sadqay Tumhare".
Winners and nominees.
In the list below, winners are listed first in the colored row, followed by the other nominees. Following the hum's practice, the dramas below are listed by year of their Pakistan qualifying run, which is usually (but not always) the drama's year of release. As of the first ceremony, four soap actors were nominated for the award. For the first ceremony, the eligibility period spanned full calendar years. For example, the 1st Hum Awards presented on April 28, 2013, to recognized soap actors of dramas that were released between January, 2012, and December, 2012, the period of eligibility is the full previous calendar year from January 1 to December 31. However, this rule was subjected to change when at third year ceremony two ("Sadqay Tumhare" and "Digest Writer") of seven nominated drama serials were running on TV at the time when nominations were announced.
Date and the award ceremony shows that the 2010 is the period from 2010 to 2020, while the year above winners and nominees shows that the dramas year in which they were telecast, and the figure in bracket shows the ceremony number, for example; an award ceremony is held for the dramas of its previous year.


Wizard (MUD)

Wizard is commonly used in MUDs, particularly LPMuds, AberMUDs and MU*, as a term for the MUD's developers and administrators. The usage originates with Richard Bartle's original "MUD1" and "MUD2". It is frequently abbreviated "wiz", which is sometimes used as a verb; to wiz is to become a wizard. The plural of "wiz" is "wizzes".
A wizard's duties may involve various combinations of software development, content generation, gamemastering, community management, and other administrative tasks. Modifications such as apprentice wizard, elder wizard ("elder") and archwizard ("arch") indicate junior or senior staff members. Other commonly used terms with the same or related meanings are coder, developer ("dev"), administrator ("admin"), immortal ("imm", "immort"), God, and implementer ("imp"); the last two most often refer to the system's owner. The term "builder" may be used to indicate a wizard, usually junior in standing, dedicated to content development.
A common convention, especially on early MUDs, has been that players have the opportunity to become wizards after advancing to a certain level within the game. This practice sometimes presents "wizhood" as another level of game, with wizards competing to develop popular content. As this is, at best, a questionable approach to staffing and development, its popularity has faded with the MUDs of later years.
A "wizard" in a MUD is not "necessarily" a staff member; it may be used simply in its ordinary fantasy-genre meaning, referring to in-world magicians. (Being able to employ this usage is sometimes one of the reasons a MUD chooses to use setting-neutral terms like "administrator" and "developer" for staff.)


Franconian Flag

The Franconian flag ( or "Frankenflagge") is a symbol of Franconia, a region in North Bavaria and parts of Thuringia, Hesse and Baden-Württemberg in Germany.
Description.
The flag consists of two horizontal bands of equal thickness, the upper one is red, the lower one is white or heraldic silver. The Franconian Rake is usually placed in the centre. Also common is the word "Franken" ("Franconia") in white letters on a black field above the rake. Although not official, the Franconian Rake is also commonly used as the flag itself, replacing the horizontal bands with the rake. The Franconian flag is neither a state symbol nor an emblem of sovereignty because Franconia is only a geographical or cultural region, not an administrative unit. it is used mainly on festival days or similar purposes by private individuals and clubs. On Franconia Day it may also be hoisted by the authorities. In the Franconian provinces the coat of arm of the respective province (Upper, Middle or Lower Franconia) may take the place of the Franconian Rake. The flag is also sometimes seen incorrectly with the colours reversed.
History.
The flag takes its colours from the so-called Franconian Rake. This coat of arms first surfaced in the early 14th century on the gravestone of the Würzburg prince bishop, Wolfram Wolfskeel von Grumbach, as well as a seal for the village of Gerolzhofen. It was a symbol of Franconian ducal sovereignty, which the Wurzburg prince bishops nominally had. The field banners of the contingents of soldiers of the Franconian Circle within the Imperial Army of the Holy Roman Empire also bore these colours. The flag was, however, not a symbol of the whole of Franconia because it was never a separate state. When, in 1835, a new Bavarian coat of arms was introduced, the officials responsible for the task ensured that the Franconian territories were recognised. They chose the Franconian Rake as the emblem of the whole of Franconia, which has since been integrated into the armorial achievement.
Flag dispute.
With the introduction of Franconia Day there has been pressure to fly the Franconian flag on public buildings. But because it is not a state flag, this request was refused by the Bavarian state parliament, the "Landtag". However, the constitutional committee of the "Landtag" decided in 2012 that the flag could be hoisted for advertising purposes on public buildings alongside the flag of Germany, the Bavarian state flag and the flag of Europe, because the state was neither able nor permitted to make a ruling.
There were more arguments over the flags on Nuremberg Castle. In 2008 a Bavarian flag was hoisted on the castle for the first time. This was taken as an affront by many of the locals. SPD members of parliament demanded that the Free State also displayed the Franconian flag on the castle. This demand was rejected, however, by the Bavarian Interior Minister, Joachim Herrmann. In summer 2009 Lord Mayor Ulrich Maly escalated the flag dispute but allowing the Nuremberg municipal flag to be raised alongside the German and Bavarian flags. Because it is also red and white, the version without the city coat of arms resembles the Franconian flag. Including the requisite additional eight-metre-high flagpole the cost came to €25,000. In summer 2012 the flags were changed again: on the "palas", the main building of the castle, the German flag was replaced by a Bavarian flag. On the flagpole where this Bavarian flag had hitherto been hoisted (the "Heideturm" tower) a Franconian flag was now displayed. The flag of Germany now fluttered on a pole erected for it in the open.
The Franconian flag is also used as a symbol by the Franconia football team.


Iain McCaig

Iain McCaig (born March 19, 1957) is an American artist, writer, and filmmaker. He was involved in the "Star Wars" franchise and many other iconic film and book projects, including an album cover for Jethro Tull's Broadsword and the Beast.
Biography.
McCaig was born in Santa Monica, California, but spent most of his younger years in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He later moved to Great Britain and attended the Glasgow School of Art., but returned one summer to California work at Korty Films, where he contributed to Sesame Street cartoons and a trailer for the 1983 animated film "Twice Upon a Time".
Returning to the UK, he began a career as a freelance illustrator; his work there includes the cover for Jethro Tull's ("The Broadsword and the Beast") and cover and interior illustrations for Ian Livingstone's 'Fighting Fantasy' books. In 1990, he returned to California to work for Industrial Light and Magic and later for Lucasfilm. During that time, he directed his first professional film, a 1998 short called "The Face", which won multiple awards, including the Year 2000 Notable Video from the American Library Association.
In film, McCaig is best known for designing the Star Wars characters Padmé Amidala and Darth Maul and has contributed key designs to many of the films in the "Star Wars" franchise, including Episodes ', ', ', and '. At a 2016 speaking engagement at Academy of Art University, McCaig revealed that the original plan for Padmé's character was for her to almost kill Anakin Skywalker to start a galactic revolution. This part of the script was changed by the film's writer, George Lucas.
Among his other credits are "", "Hook", "Interview with the Vampire", "Bram Stoker's Dracula", "Charlotte's Web", "Peter Pan", "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", "The Spiderwick Chronicles", "John Carter of Mars", "The Avengers", "Guardians of the Galaxy", and "The Jungle Book". He was also Co-Producer and Concept Design Director on "Outlander".
In October 2008, a book of McCaig's work, "Shadowline: The Art of Iain McCaig", was released. The book is a combination of mini-art classes, an allegorical novella on McCaig's creative process, and a retrospective of 28 years of his film and personal work.
McCaig has taught drawing and storytelling publicly and privately for most of his career. He is the author of four DVDs on Visual Storytelling and Concept Design for the Gnomon Workshop. In 2014, McCaig received the Spectrum Award for Grand Master.
McCaig's daughter, Mishi is also a film artist, having contributed to "Iron Man", "Outlander" and "John Carter of Mars", as well as producing her own short film work. Iain and Mishi were both involved in the production of the Discovery Channel series "Dinosaur Revolution". His son, Inigo, is also an artist.
McCaig currently lives in Victoria, British Columbia, with his wife, Leonor.


A-2 jacket

The Type A-2 leather flight jacket is an American military flight jacket originally invented and developed for and closely associated with World War II U.S. Army Air Forces pilots, navigators and bombardiers, who often decorated their jackets with squadron patches and elaborate artwork painted on the back. Sometimes casually referred to as a bomber jacket, its original designation was "Jacket, Pilot's (summer)", and its wartime usage was limited neither to pilots nor to bomber crews.
History.
The Type A-2 flying jacket was adopted as standard issue by the U.S. Army Air Corps as the successor to the Type A-1 flying jacket on May 9, 1931, per specification number 94-3040.
The U.S. Army Air Forces Class 13 Catalog listed the garment as "Jacket, Flying, Type A-2". It describes the jacket's construction as "seal brown horsehide leather, knitted wristlets and waistband (skirt)." Broadly similar in construction to the A-1, it replaced the A-1's buttoned front and pocket flaps with a zipper and hidden snap fasteners (although the first three A-2 contracts retained the pocket buttons). The A-1's stand-up knitted collar, which buttoned closed, was supplanted in the A-2 by a shirt-style leather collar, with hidden snaps at the points and a hook-and-eye latch at the throat. Stitched-down shoulder straps were also added to the design. Sizes were listed as ranging in even numbers from 32 through 54.
The A-2 was replaced by the AN6552 (AN-J-3) per a specification 94-3040 reference document dated May 24, 1943 and declared "Limited Standard", meaning replacements were available. The April 1944 USAAF catalog for ordering supplies does not list the AN-J-3 as an option, but both the A-1 and A-2 are listed (the A-1 for $4.00 and the A-2 for $8.12). The lack of AN-J-3 replacements may explain why three U.S. A-2 contracts were granted in Dec. 1943, or after the A-2 jacket was officially replaced. (The lack of AN-J-3 replacements may also explain why flying jackets were purchased in Australia by the Department of the U.S. Army in June 1943. These "V505" jackets have been shown to be used by some members of the U.S. Fifth Air Force.)
("Note: A primary source of information on flying/pilot jackets was a single summary post-WWII "Type Designation Sheet" (TDS) until the A-2 specification 94-3040 documentation was declassified and published by an anonymous Vintage Leather Jacket forum member in 2017. The TDS was found to have a few errors, so references using the TDS as an information source contain those same errors. For example, the A-1 drawing number is AN-6501 and not 074737, the A-2 drawing number is 30-1415 and not 31-1415, the A-2 were manufactured only with a cotton and not spun silk lining, and so on.")
Design and construction.
Although the actual design would vary slightly depending on the manufacturer, and even among contracts within a single manufacturer, all A-2 jackets had several distinguishing characteristics: a snap-flap patch pocket on either side that does not have hand warmer compartments (hands in pockets were considered unfit for a military bearing), a shirt-style snap-down collar, shoulder straps (or Epaulets), knit cuffs and waistband, a back constructed from a single piece of leather to limit stress on the garment, and a cotton inner lining with a leather hang strap (not a loop) and military spec tag attached just below the back collar.
Prior to World War II the collar was sewn to a neckband or "stand" like those found in dress shirts, a time-intensive operation. Wartime contracts generally had "simple attached" collars, sewn directly to the back panel and rolled over, although Rough Wear and Perry continued using the collar stand throughout. Similarly, most pre-war (and some wartime) A-2s had inset sleeves, attached at a better attitude for body movement. This too was time-intensive and gave way to "flat attached" sleeves whose bottom seams met up with the body side seams.
A-2s were initially constructed of horsehide, which was either vegetable- or chrome-tanned. Some later A-2s were made from goatskin (as was the Navy G-1 jacket) and others from cowhide (which can be very difficult to tell from horse if tanned identically). All Spiewak and Doniger jackets are of goat, as are many Cable, Dubow, Bronco, Perry, and Rough Wear examples.
Wartime-issued A-2 jackets appear in a wide range of color tones and hues, although all are based on two distinct colors: Seal (dark brown to almost black) and russet (pale red-brown to medium brown). Most lighter russet jackets were darker seal re-dyed during the war to cover scuffing and discoloration although some contracts, like the Aero Leather 21996, were dyed seal right from the start. Original knit cuffing typically matched the leather or came close, but exceptions exist, such as Aero Leather's eye-catching rust-red cuffing on seal brown hide.
The A-2 was one of the early articles of clothing designed expressly to use a zipper. Zippers were made of steel or brass, and some were nickel plated. Known zipper suppliers were Talon, Crown, Conmar, and Kwik, with Talon providing the majority of zippers used in wartime A-2 construction. Until about 1940, Talon zippers with riveted or grommeted metal bottoms were used.
Unlike modern, loose-fitting jackets, the original A-2 looks to us today a rather trim-fitting jacket. Period photos and films reveal a jacket which could be worn fitted and sharp looking or a bit baggy and loose in the body. It was designed to fit the thinner male of the time- original A-2 jackets worn by modern men may seem a bit snug in the shoulders. This is particularly true of pre-war contract garments such as the 1933 Werber and the 1938 and 1940 Aero Leathers. Period photos and films show that the A-2 was typically worn over a shirt, or a shirt and flight suit; airmen were more likely to switch to a sheep-lined jacket or, later, an electrified flight suit for wintertime or high-altitude operations.
Manufacturers.
There were many manufacturers of A-2 jackets during the 1930s and 1940s whose product showed a wide range of quality, workmanship, and fit characteristics. All contracts used a cotton lining, though various replacements were made over the years. The first three (3) contracts had button pocket flaps, while all the rest were snapped pockets beginning with Werber order number 33-1729. Manufacturers included civilian clothing producers such as David D. Doniger & Co., makers of the popular MacGregor brand outerwear, as well as leather-goods companies like J.A. Dubow Mfg., whose chief peacetime product was baseball mitts. Rough Wear manufactured the A-2 under several different contracts, each varying slightly in color and style.
Wartime use.
The A-2 jacket was awarded to an Army Air Forces officer upon completion of basic flight training, and always before graduating to advanced training. No standard system of distribution was used, though generally airmen lined up in front of boxes containing jackets of various sizes and given the appropriate size jacket by the base quartermaster. A-2s were exclusive to commissioned officers until early in World War II, when also issued to enlisted aircrews.
The A-2 was a treasured item to the airman and was worn with as much pride as his wings. As airmen progressed through various duty stations they often added and removed squadron patches, rank marks, and occasionally elaborate artwork depicting the type of aircraft they flew or a copy of the artwork painted on their airplane. Bomber crews often added small bombs to the right front of their jackets indicating the number of missions they had flown. As a result, many jackets ended up with numerous stitch marks as patches of various sizes were removed and replaced when the owner changed units. Unlike Navy aviators, who often wore the patches of every squadron they had ever flown with, AAF personnel could only display the patch of their current assignment. The emblem of the Army Air Forces was often sewn, painted, or applied by decal on the left shoulder, while the shield of the specific Air Force (5th, 8th, etc.) was often displayed on the right.
Despite the A-2s becoming a symbol of the American pilot, in 1943 General H. H. "Hap" Arnold canceled any further leather jacket contracts in favor of newer cloth-shell jackets like the B-10 and B-15. Needless to say, Arnold's popularity with his airmen was not improved by his decision. Even after the transition to cloth, existing units could still order replacement A-2s, keeping production going well into 1944. And it was impossible to prevent airmen from continuing to obtain and wear the style – as demonstrated by the large number of photos clearly showing Korean War pilots of F-82s and F-86s still wearing the original A-2 issued to them a decade earlier, or newer jackets made to fit their current sizes.
Fighter pilots, who often had heated cockpits, could wear the A-2 into combat more easily. Some jackets had a map of the mission area sewn into the lining, which could be used (in theory) for navigation if shot down. Some jackets (famously, those from the China Burma India Theater, and of the Flying Tigers) had a "Blood chit" sewn on the lining or outer back, printed on cloth, which promised certain rewards to civilians who aided a downed airman. In certain ETO units and possibly elsewhere a prerogative of the fighter ace was a red satin lining which was added on confirmation of his fifth aerial kill.
Early wartime pictures show entire bomber crews outfitted with A-2s, although at altitude in a bomber they probably weren't too useful. The pilot and copilot had primitive cabin heat on some aircraft and would wear the A-2, while the rest of the bomber crew usually wore heavier fleece-lined Type B-3 or ANJ-4 (and later B-9 and B-11 parkas) which were warmer and better suited to long hours in the severe cold. However, period photos do show A-2s worn by crew underneath heavy outer garments, and candid on-base photos often show crewmen of all ranks in A-2s. A warm and comfortable mouton collar was an addition authorized in mountainous C-B-I commands.
Theatre-made jackets.
Throughout the War, as the A-2s popularity grew, so too did the demand for it. Only aircrewmen could obtain A-2 jackets through regular channels, although a few celebrated nonflying officers like Gens. MacArthur and Patton and Maj. Glenn Miller also procured and wore them. A small "cottage industry" soon appeared, especially in England, to make A-2-style jackets for GIs (including many airborne infantry troops) who otherwise couldn't get one. This was especially true after the Army stopped purchasing new leather jackets in mid-1943, and disappointed airmen were sent to war in the less desirable cloth jackets, or were unable to replace A-2s they had lost or damaged. As a result, some war-era jackets used by World War II airmen are clearly not true to original AAF specifications, though this makes them no less historic.
Survivors.
Original wartime issued A-2 jackets are rare but not unavailable. The value of such originals ranges widely depending on condition, known history, patches and artwork, and even size. Most originals used a sizing system considerably smaller than today's comparable sizes, with only 2- of "slack" over the tagged chest size. In other words, an original size 42 might be closer to a modern 40 or even a 38, depending on the manufacturer. Original World War II era jackets sell at auction for between $800 and $8,000, with wearable examples generally running $1,000 and up.
The National Museum of the United States Air Force has a collection of original A-2 jackets, most donated by the families of Air Force pilots. No fewer than fifty are on display at any time throughout the Museum, including many historic jackets such as Brig. Gen. James Stewart's A-2 (a Rough Wear contract 42-1401), an A-2 from the AVG "Flying Tigers," and another worn by one of the few U.S. pilots to get airborne during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Modern Air Force A-2.
With the exception of a very brief period from 1979 to early 1981 the U.S. Navy never stopped issuing its G-1 leather flying jackets to Navy, Marine, and Coast Guard flight crews. This meant that an entire generation of Air Force pilots and flight crews had missed out on an opportunity not lost to their Naval comrades. Years of effort by U.S. Air Force personnel to get the A-2 jacket reissued finally succeeded when the Air Force began issuing them again in 1988, a decision that may have been influenced by the popularity of the film "Top Gun", and the military apparel it popularized. The first Air Force A-2 contract was awarded to Avirex, but all subsequent contracts from 1988 to 1998 were awarded to Neil Cooper USA, now U.S. Wings of Ohio. The modern Air Force A-2 is authorized for wear by Air Force aircrews and missileers who have completed their mission qualifications.
The latest design differs from the original design in several ways: it is looser-fitting, made only from goatskin, and produced in only a medium seal brown color (though many older, fitted jackets are still in use). Unlike the World War II era pilots, modern Air Force pilots are not permitted to paint their A-2 jackets or disfigure them in any way. The official explanation for this is that the paint is flammable and could pose a fire hazard. The goatskin used in today's A-2 is treated with a special fire retardant chemical. The crewmember's name tag is mounted on the left breast, with the Major Command, HQ USAF, or Combatant Command shield are on the right, attached with Velcro. No patches are permitted to be sewn directly onto the jacket as they were during World War II.
In 1996 Neil Cooper USA was awarded a contract from the Defense Supply Center, Philadelphia (DSCP), to redesign the A-2 jacket to be more functional and to improve the fit. Side entry pockets were added to the patch pockets and inside wallet pockets were added. The fit was enlarged via extra pieces under the arms and on the sides. The neck clasp was also eliminated. These modifications were previously carried out by the member themselves at popular places around the world like Pop's Leather in Turkey, or in the numerous shops in Korea. Now that these modifications are part of the official issue, only "Blood Chits" and other internal linings are added by the aircrew themselves.
In 1999 Avirex was again awarded a contract to make A-2 jackets. In 2000 they began producing the "21st Century" A-2 using the updated pattern Neil Cooper USA had designed. In 2006, HQ USAF required all A-2 jackets to be "Berry Amendment" compliant. This means that all materials used in the jacket must be of American origin. Goat skins used are required to have been born and bred in the U.S., and the leather tanned in the U.S. (All jackets made by Cooper Sportswear, and the jackets made by Avirex in 1999, were made of goatskin imported from Pakistan).
Reproductions.
Just as a cottage industry appeared during the war to meet the need for A-2 jackets, so too does such an industry still exist today. Because the A-2 never went out of style, production of it never really ceased. Over the years it has varied in style and accuracy relative to the original war-era design, but it has remained visible in popular movies and TV shows of the 1950s and 1960s.
In the mid-1970s several small companies catering to purists began undertaking the job of designing and constructing somewhat authentic reproductions. Duplicating wartime patterns, often obtained through "reverse engineering" from dissected originals, but using incorrect hides that are veg tanned and aniline dyed, originals were chrome tanned and pigment dyed, all-cotton thread, and even actual the World War II-era-old stock Talon zippers, they have effectively recreated a wartime-era jacket that can be worn daily without fear of damaging a valuable original. Some manufacturers have even gone so far as to reproduce the particular details of specific World War II A-2 production contracts. The rarest and most desirable A-2, the Goldsmith 31-1897, has even been recreated based upon photographic evidence as a survivor has not been found.
Popularly priced (approximately US $500 and below) A-2 jackets today only approximate the authentic style, with oversized shoulders and sleeves intended for layering loose clothing underneath, non-spec hand and pen pockets, and softer materials like lambskin. A-2s made today by U.S. Air Force contract manufacturers tend to fit younger, fitter men with v-shaped torsos, and some former pilots have found that their old A-2s no longer fit them.
In the media.
A-2 jackets can be seen in many movies, as they came to represent the American fighting man just as much as the P-51 Mustang and Colt .45 automatic. Seeing legendary actors such as Gregory Peck and John Wayne on the big screen wearing A-2s only reinforced their popularity. By the 1950s the A-2 was moving into the role of the motorcycle jacket, which would soon evolve into its own distinct style. The jacket worn by Henry Winkler in the role of "Fonzie" in the TV show "Happy Days" was a variation of the A-2 jacket. In the 1960s and 1970s the A-2 reappeared in a new crop of big budget World War II films such as "The Great Escape" and "Patton", as well as being the wardrobe of choice for Bob Crane's character of Colonel Hogan in the popular TV series "Hogan's Heroes". This same jacket, manufactured by the studio's costume department, had previously been worn by Frank Sinatra in the film "Von Ryan's Express". The bomber jacket has made appearances in non-war films, as well. A teenage C. Thomas Howell wears a black A-2 for nearly the entire length of the classic horror film "The Hitcher".
Dwight Schultz' character H. M. Murdock on 1980s TV show The A-Team wore an A-2 Jacket with a tiger printed on the back along with the words 'DA NANG 1970'. His character wore the jacket throughout the show's 5 seasons. Also, in the anime , the character America is most always seen wearing an A-2 jacket with the number '50' on the back in white. Arnold Schwarzenegger also appeared an wearing A-2 with police badge in his new 2013 movie "The Last Stand".
In the 2000s (decade), the A-2 became a popular presidential garment: both George W. Bush and Barack Obama have worn them in photo ops at military installations.