title: The Book Thief

text: Narrated by Death, the story follows Liesel Meminger, a young girl living with foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann, in Nazi Germany during World War II. Liesel settles down into her new home and during her time there, she is exposed to the horrors of the war and politics. As the political situation in Germany deteriorates, her foster parents conceal a Jewish man named Max Vandenburg. Hans, who has developed a close relationship with Liesel, teaches her to read during this time. Recognizing the power of writing and sharing the written word, Liesel not only begins to steal books that the politicians are seeking to destroy, but also writes her own story, and shares the power of language with Max. By collecting laundry for her foster mother, she also begins a relationship with the mayor's wife, Ilsa Hermann, who allows her to read books in her library and steal them later.


title: The Book Thief

text: Hans brings suspicion on his household that he might be a sympathizer with political adversaries of Germany in the war. Max leaves the Hubermanns' home soon after out of fear that the suspicion could endanger him or the family. With death forever circling, bombs fall on Liesel's street, killing her friends, family, and neighbors. Liesel, working on her manuscript in the basement at the time of the raid, is the sole survivor.


title: The Book Thief

text: Many years later, or in the words of Death, "just yesterday", Liesel dies as an old woman in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia, with a family and many friends, though she has never forgotten Hans, Rosa, her friend Rudy, and her brother. When Death collects Liesel's soul, he gives her the manuscript she lost in the bombing. She asks him if he read it and Death says, "Yes." She asks him if he understood it, but Death is unable to understand the duality of humanity. Death's last words are for both Liesel and the reader: "I am haunted by humans."


title: The Book Thief

text: Death, the collector of souls, arrayed in any or all the world's colors when it comes, narrates the story of a young girl coming of age during the horrific times of Nazi Germany and the Second World War. To the reader, Death insists that it "most definitely "can" be cheerful", even affable, but also relates that it most certainly cannot be nice. And sometimes Death is "compelled" to take action in sympathy with the human story.


title: The Book Thief

text: The protagonist of the story is an adopted girl on the verge of adolescence, with blonde hair. Her eyes, however, are brown. She is fostered by the Hubermanns after her biological father "abandons" their family due to being a Communist, her brother dies, and her mother is forced to send her to a foster home to avoid Nazi persecution. Liesel is the "book thief" referred to in the title because Liesel is fascinated by the power of words. Liesel stole books from a gravedigger, a bonfire, and the mayor's wife, Ilsa Hermann.


title: The Book Thief

text: Liesel's foster father and husband of Rosa, Hans is a former German soldier during the First World War, accordion player, and painter. He develops a close and loving relationship with Liesel and becomes the main source of strength and support for her. He, like Liesel, doesn't have much experience with reading. Together, the two help each other with reading and write all the words they learn on a wall in the basement. He helps Max because Max's father saved Hans in the First World War.


title: The Book Thief

text: Rosa is Liesel's sharp-tongued foster mother. She has a "wardrobe" build and a displeased face, brown-grey tightly-cinched hair often tied up in a bun and "chlorinated" eyes. Despite her temper, she is a loving wife to Hans and mother to Liesel. To supplement the household income, she does washing and ironing for five of the wealthier households in Molching. When she was introduced to Max the reader sees her soft side.


title: The Book Thief

text: Liesel's neighbor, Rudy, has bony legs, blue eyes, lemon-colored hair, and a penchant for getting in the middle of situations when he shouldn't. Despite having the appearance of an archetypal German, he does not directly support the Nazis. As a member of a relatively poor household with six children, Rudy is habitually hungry. He is known throughout the neighborhood because of the "Jesse Owens incident", in which he colored himself black with charcoal one night and ran one hundred meters at the local sports field. He is academically and athletically gifted, which attracts the attention of Nazi Party officials, leading to attempted recruitment. His lack of support for the Nazi party becomes problematic as the story progresses. Rudy becomes Liesel's best friend and later falls in love with her.


title: The Book Thief

text: A Jewish fist-fighter who takes refuge from the Nazi regime in the Hubermann's basement. He is the son of a First World War German soldier who fought alongside Hans Hubermann, and the two developed a close friendship during the war. He has brown, feather-like hair and swampy brown eyes. During the Nazi reign of terror, Hans agrees to shelter Max and hide him from the Nazi party. During his stay at the Hubermanns' house, Max befriends Liesel, because of their shared affinity for words. He writes two books for her and presents her with a sketchbook that contains his life story, which helps Liesel to develop as a writer and reader, which, in turn, saves her life from the bombs falling on her.


title: The Book Thief

text: The wife of the mayor of Molching who employs Rosa Hubermann. She did fall into a state of depression after the death of her only son in the Great War. Ilsa allows Liesel to visit, read, and steal books in her personal library. She also gives Liesel a little black book, which leads Liesel to write her own story, "The Book Thief".


title: The Book Thief

text: Liesel's little brother, who unfortunately died suddenly on the train with his mother and sister, was transported to their foster parents. His death is what allowed the first book to be stolen, a gravedigger's manual dropped by a young boy learning to work in the cemetery. He died by coughing blood, corroded brown in color.


title: The Book Thief

text: Liesel's mother is only mentioned in the story a few times. Liesel's father was taken away by the Nazis before the novel starting because he was a Communist, and the reason her mother – Paula Meminger – was taking both her children to foster care was to save them from Nazi persecution. For a while, Liesel writes letters to her mother thinking there is a chance she is still alive. Like Liesel's father, Liesel's mother dies, but Liesel eventually does realize her mother gave her away to protect her.


title: The Book Thief

text: Hans Jr is the son of Hans and Rosa Huberman. He is very supportive of the Nazi party and fights with his father about it frequently. He is eventually sent to participate in the Battle of Stalingrad.


title: The Book Thief

text: The book is introduced by the character/narrator Death, which underlines that mortality is very present in the lives of each character. Throughout the novel, the deaths of prominent characters reaffirm the presence of mortality. Because the novel takes place during the Second World War, death and genocide are nearly omnipresent in the novel.


title: The Book Thief

text: Death is presented in a manner that is less distant and threatening. Because Death narrates and explains the reasons behind each character's destruction and explains how he feels that he must take the life of each character, Death is given a sense of care rather than fear. At one point, Death states "even death has a heart," which reaffirms that there is a care present in the concept of death and dying.


title: The Book Thief

text: Throughout the novel, language, reading, and writing are presented as symbolic elements of expression and freedom. They provide identity and personal liberation to those characters who have, or who gain, the power of literacy: "the true power of words". And they provide a framework for Liesel's coming of age. At the beginning of the story shortly after her brother's funeral, Liesel finds a book in the snow, one she is unable to read. Under tutelage by her foster father Hans, she slowly learns to read and write. By the end of the novel, her character arc is largely defined by her progress in reading and writing. The development of Liesel's literacy mirrors her physical growth and maturing over the course of the story.


title: The Book Thief

text: Literacy skills and vernacular speech also serve as social markers. Wealthy citizens in the story are often portrayed as literate, as owning books and even their own libraries, while the poor are illiterate and do not own books. Rosa Huberman's abrasive and oft-times scatological speech towards her family and others is emblematic of the despairing lives of the poorer classes.


title: The Book Thief

text: The Nazi burning of books in the story represents evil incarnate. Symbolically, Liesel's repeated rescues of books from Nazi bonfires represent her reclaiming of freedom and her resistance to being controlled by the all-pervasive state.


title: The Book Thief

text: In the midst of war and loss, love is a central theme which acts as a catalyst for change and sacrifice throughout the book. Liesel overcomes her traumas by learning to love and be loved by her foster family and her friends. At the beginning of the novel, Liesel is traumatized not only by the death of her brother and her separation from her only family but also by the larger issues of war-torn Germany and the destruction wrought by the Nazi party. As Liesel's foster father Hans develops a relationship with her, this relationship helps create healing and growth. This pattern is reflected in the relational dynamic between the Hubermann family and Max. In a society ruled by governmental policies that presume to stand in judgment of who is truly human, the Hubermanns' relationship with Max defies the Nazi regime. Further, the love that Max and Liesel develop through their friendship creates a strong contrast to the fascist hate in the backdrop of the story.


title: The Book Thief

text: The theme of love also intertwines with the themes of identity and language/reading because all of these themes have the purpose of providing freedom and power in the midst of chaos and control. Liesel's final words in her own written story are "I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right." She has the power to show her love on paper.


title: The Book Thief

text: A film adaptation was released on 8 November 2013. It was directed by Brian Percival. Michael Petroni wrote the script. It stars Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson as Hans and Rosa Hubermann, Ben Schnetzer as Max Vandenburg, Nico Liersch as Rudy Steiner, and Sophie Nélisse as Liesel Meminger. John Williams wrote the music soundtrack. Much of the movie was filmed in Görlitz, Germany.


title: The Book Thief

text: A musical theater version premiered at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, on 17 September 2022. The libretto was written by Jodi Picoult and Timothy Allen McDonald, with music and lyrics by Elyssa Samsel and Kate Anderson. Directed by Lotte Wakeham.<ref name="Youngs_9/22/2022"></ref><ref name="Fisher_9/25/2022"></ref>


title: The House (2022 film)

text: The House is a 2022 British animation stop-motion animated anthology film written by Enda Walsh and telling different stories forming a trilogy spanning different worlds and characters but set inside the same house. Each story deals with themes of madness, wealth, and the pursuit of true happiness.


title: The House (2022 film)

text: Originally announced as a television miniseries, it became an anthology film. Produced for Netflix by Nexus Studios in London, it tells three stories respectively directed by the duo of Emma de Swaef and Marc James Roels, Niki Lindroth von Bahr, and Paloma Baeza in their directorial debuts; the directors are credited with the story of their respective segments, with Johannes Nyholm as co-writer for the second.


title: The House (2022 film)

text: A young girl named Mabel lives with her father Raymond, mother Penny, and newborn sister Isobel in relative poverty. After a visit from wealthy, condescending relatives, Raymond wanders drunk into the forest at night and encounters the mysterious architect Mr. Van Schoonbeek. The following morning, Van Schoonbeek’s employee Mr. Thomas visits the family and convinces Raymond and Penny to accept Van Schoonbeek's offer to move into a new luxurious house built for them at no charge.


title: The House (2022 film)

text: After the family moves in, Mabel notices several peculiar things about the house and the workers constantly refitting it, but her parents are mesmerized by the house and its luxuries. Raymond becomes increasingly obsessed with the house's fireplace, which he constantly fails to light up, while Penny spends more and more time sewing drapes. Mabel becomes further put off when her parents don attire designed by Van Schoonbeek which resembles the furniture they adore (a chair and curtains).


title: The House (2022 film)

text: Exploring the house one night, Mabel and Isobel find themselves lost in the maze it has become, eventually stumbling upon Thomas. Drunk and ashamed, Thomas confesses that he is an actor following a script provided by Van Schoonbeek. Meanwhile, Raymond is finally able to light a fire by burning the family's old possessions, including his father’s chair and Mabel's dollhouse. When the sisters finally reunite with their parents, they find Raymond and Penny turned into furniture—Raymond into a chair and Penny into curtains. As the fire expands, the parents urge their daughters to escape. Using the curtains to climb out a window while their parents burn alive, Mabel and Isobel escape before watching the smoking house from a distance as the sun rises.


title: The House (2022 film)

text: The story is set in a world populated by anthropomorphic rats, and the house is now settled in a developed city street and about to go up for sale. The developer renovating the house recently laid off his entire construction crew to reduce costs and must do all the work himself. Discovering the house has been infested by fur beetles and larvae, he uses copious amounts of boric acid to get rid of them, to no avail.


title: The House (2022 film)

text: On the day of the viewing, the guests are unimpressed by the house, but a strangely proportioned couple remains, expressing a strong interest in buying the house. Unwilling to risk the sale, the developer lets them stay the night. Over the next few days, the odd couple remain firmly settled in the house, the bugs return in force, and the bank keeps demanding repayment of the developer's business loan. The developer decides to stop indulging the couple, only for many members of their family to show up wanting to enter the house.


title: The House (2022 film)

text: At his wit's end, the developer tries to use the boric acid on the couple, but he inhales a mouthful and faints. He survives but is reduced to a catatonic state. The couple picks the developer up from the hospital and brings him home, where their family welcomes him back, many of them now sporting additional limbs. The final scene shows the family ravaging the inside of the house—climbing up the walls and chewing through everything. The developer, having regressed to animal-like intelligence, briefly emerges from the remains of the oven to eat garbage before retreating underground.


title: The House (2022 film)

text: In a world that suffered an apocalyptic flood and is populated by anthropomorphic cats, the house is surrounded by water which keeps rising. Rosa, the landlord who cherishes the memories of her days growing up in the house, dreams of restoring it to its former glory. However, she struggles financially; and her only tenants, fisherman Elias and hippie Jen, do not pay rent despite her insistence; she consistently ignores their attempts to address the rising water.


title: The House (2022 film)

text: When Jen's "spirit partner" Cosmos (a craftsman) arrives to visit, Rosa enlists him to work on the house; but is infuriated to find out he has instead been tearing up the house's floorboards to build a boat for Elias. As Cosmos continues to refit the house against Rosa's wishes, Rosa argues with Elias; hurt that he wishes to leave, while he accuses her of being afraid to do the same. He later departs on the makeshift boat.


title: The House (2022 film)

text: As the water and mist continue to seep into the house and Jen prepares to leave the house with Cosmos, she puts Rosa into a dream-like trance, in which Rosa sees the house destroyed and her friends abandoning her. Emerging from the vision, she sees Jen and Cosmos sailing away, calling for her to join them; but the boat is too far away. Remembering a large lever Cosmos had built, she pushes it, transforming the house into a seaworthy vessel. Encouraged by Jen, Cosmos, and a returning Elias, Rosa takes control of the house ship, escaping as the floods destroy the surrounding foundations, and the four sail out into the ocean.


title: The House (2022 film)

text: "The House" was first announced in January 2020, with the anthology being produced at the London unit of Nexus Studios for Netflix. Nexus had three director teams lined up to tell a tale of three distinct family generations at the same house: The duo of Emma de Swaef and Marc James Roels, Niki Lindroth von Bahr, and Paloma Baeza; the directors are credited for the story of their respective segments, with Johannes Nyholm as co-writer for the second. At the 2021 Annecy Film Festival in June, the key voice cast was announced for each story. In November 2021, the first images of the anthology were revealed along with the release date of 14 January 2022. The first trailer was released in December 2021.


title: The House (2022 film)

text: The project had originated at a meeting at producer Charlotte Bavasso's London home, where the four directors "brainstormed a bit and came up with this idea about a house in which different things are happening in different times. We agreed that we would each have our own separate chapter, but still with connections to each other," according to von Bahr. Later, "We chatted a lot over Zoom and helped each other with script development and character design, everything. All of us were quite new to such an upscale project, so I think this was a perfect arrangement. You had your own film, but you didn't feel alone." Bavasso, said Baeza, "brought us together and we talked about stories and characters that we were interested in, and we tried to find overlaps, which is a completely unique experience. You never get to work with filmmakers or creatives in that collaborative way where you are each doing a separate film, but also sharing lots of ideas." The directors wrote detailed story outlines, and then Irish playwright Enda Walsh wrote all three segments' dialog in collaboration with them.


title: The House (2022 film)

text: Roels said his and Swaef's opening segment came from the desire to tell "the story of the house before there was a house, the origin story, so to speak. I had been reading a graphic novel by Richard McGuire called "Here", in which you see a corner of the world and how it changes through millennia. You see it as farmland, and when it was inhabited by Native Americans, and before that when there were dinosaurs. And then suddenly you're in the 1950s and someone's vacuuming the floor. And it kind of sparked off an idea, like what was there before the house?"


title: The House (2022 film)

text: Each of the three segments required more than 20 weeks to produce. Except for the Busby Berkeley style dance number in the second segment and the mist and some water effects in the third segment, almost all the animation was done "in camera" without greenscreen or digital compositing. Jarvis Cocker wrote and performed the song that plays over the closing credits.


title: The House (2022 film)

text: Dmitry Samarov of the "Chicago Reader" said the movie "sustains its momentum by varying the styles of storytelling and rarely stooping to either crassness or cutesiness. ... Each story is directed by different people with obviously separate ideas and inspirations; this heterogeneity moves the film along without ever letting it overstay its welcome. Yet the unifying elements of setting and the charmingly old-fashioned stop-motion animation keep it from flying off in a million directions."


title: The House (2022 film)

text: Lucy Mangan in "The Guardian" gave the movie 3 out of 5 stars. She said the first segment is "by far the most successful of the trio," and that the second was "too underbaked to deliver any real horrors or work as a fable about violation, or capitalism or any of the other themes it seems at various moments to be nodding vaguely at." She said the third was "a very, very slight affair," and that overall, "If the content of the stories had matched the painstaking form, the anthology could have been rather a groundbreaking success." But Noel Murray of "The A.V. Club" said of that second segment that, "All of "The House" is worth watching—especially for animation buffs—but for those who can handle a hefty helping of grotesquerie, von Bahr's segment is the one can't-miss."


title: The House (2022 film)

text: Nick Allen at RogerEbert.com said, "With its rising directors each employing a surreal style, it creates a rich balance of ethereal, existential storytelling with stop-motion animation that's so detailed and alive you can practically feel it on your fingertips", and that it "proves to be a consistent anthology, in that it's always just about the same level of surreal, playful, sadistic, and entertaining".


title: The House (2022 film)

text: Despite being a feature film, it won Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation for 74th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.


title: Metadata

text: Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including:


title: Metadata

text: Metadata is not strictly bounded to one of these categories, as it can describe a piece of data in many other ways.


title: Metadata

text: Metadata has various purposes. It can help users find relevant information and discover resources. It can also help organize electronic resources, provide digital identification, and archive and preserve resources. Metadata allows users to access resources by "allowing resources to be found by relevant criteria, identifying resources, bringing similar resources together, distinguishing dissimilar resources, and giving location information". Metadata of telecommunication activities including Internet traffic is very widely collected by various national governmental organizations. This data is used for the purposes of traffic analysis and can be used for mass surveillance.


title: Metadata

text: Metadata was traditionally used in the card catalogs of libraries until the 1980s when libraries converted their catalog data to digital databases. In the 2000s, as data and information were increasingly stored digitally, this digital data was described using metadata standards.


title: Metadata

text: The first description of "meta data" for computer systems is purportedly noted by MIT's Center for International Studies experts David Griffel and Stuart McIntosh in 1967: "In summary then, we have statements in an object language about subject descriptions of data and token codes for the data. We also have statements in a meta language describing the data relationships and transformations, and ought/is relations between norm and data."


title: Metadata

text: Unique metadata standards exist for different disciplines (e.g., museum collections, digital audio files, websites, etc.). Describing the contents and context of data or data files increases its usefulness. For example, a web page may include metadata specifying what software language the page is written in (e.g., HTML), what tools were used to create it, what subjects the page is about, and where to find more information about the subject. This metadata can automatically improve the reader's experience and make it easier for users to find the web page online. A CD may include metadata providing information about the musicians, singers, and songwriters whose work appears on the disc.


title: Metadata

text: In many countries, government organizations routinely store metadata about emails, telephone calls, web pages, video traffic, IP connections, and cell phone locations.


title: Metadata

text: Metadata means "data about data". Metadata is defined as the data providing information about one or more aspects of the data; it is used to summarize basic information about data that can make tracking and working with specific data easier. Some examples include:


title: Metadata

text: For example, a digital image may include metadata that describes the size of the image, its color depth, resolution, when it was created, the shutter speed, and other data. A text document's metadata may contain information about how long the document is, who the author is, when the document was written, and a short summary of the document. Metadata within web pages can also contain descriptions of page content, as well as key words linked to the content. These links are often called "Metatags", which were used as the primary factor in determining order for a web search until the late 1990s. The reliance of metatags in web searches was decreased in the late 1990s because of "keyword stuffing", whereby metatags were being largely misused to trick search engines into thinking some websites had more relevance in the search than they really did.


title: Metadata

text: Metadata can be stored and managed in a database, often called a metadata registry or metadata repository. However, without context and a point of reference, it might be impossible to identify metadata just by looking at it. For example: by itself, a database containing several numbers, all 13 digits long could be the results of calculations or a list of numbers to plug into an without any other context, the numbers themselves can be perceived as the data. But if given the context that this database is a log of a book collection, those 13-digit numbers may now be identified as information that refers to the book, but is not itself the information within the book. The term "metadata" was coined in 1968 by Philip Bagley, in his book "Extension of Programming Language Concepts" where it is clear that he uses the term in the ISO 11179 "traditional" sense, which is "structural metadata" i.e. "data about the containers of data"; rather than the alternative sense "content about individual instances of data content" or metacontent, the type of data usually found in library catalogs. Since then the fields of information management, information science, information technology, librarianship, and GIS have widely adopted the term. In these fields, the word "metadata" is defined as "data about data". While this is the generally accepted definition, various disciplines have adopted their own more specific explanation and uses of the term.


title: Metadata

text: "Slate" reported in 2013 that the United States government's interpretation of "metadata" could be broad, and might include message content such as the subject lines of emails.


title: Metadata

text: While the metadata application is manifold, covering a large variety of fields, there are specialized and well-accepted models to specify types of metadata. Bretherton & Singley (1994) distinguish between two distinct classes: structural/control metadata and guide metadata. "Structural metadata" describes the structure of database objects such as tables, columns, keys and indexes. "Guide metadata" helps humans find specific items and is usually expressed as a set of keywords in a natural language. According to Ralph Kimball, metadata can be divided into three categories: "technical metadata" (or internal metadata), "business metadata" (or external metadata), and "process metadata".


title: Metadata

text: NISO distinguishes three types of metadata: descriptive, structural, and administrative. "Descriptive metadata" is typically used for discovery and identification, as information to search and locate an object, such as title, authors, subjects, keywords, and publisher. "Structural metadata" describes how the components of an object are organized. An example of structural metadata would be how pages are ordered to form chapters of a book. Finally, "administrative metadata" gives information to help manage the source. Administrative metadata refers to the technical information, such as file type, or when and how the file was created. Two sub-types of administrative metadata are rights management metadata and preservation metadata. "Rights management metadata" explains intellectual property rights, while "preservation metadata" contains information to preserve and save a resource.


title: Metadata

text: Statistical data repositories have their own requirements for metadata in order to describe not only the source and quality of the data but also what statistical processes were used to create the data, which is of particular importance to the statistical community in order to both validate and improve the process of statistical data production.


title: Metadata

text: An additional type of metadata beginning to be more developed is "accessibility metadata". Accessibility metadata is not a new concept to libraries; however, advances in universal design have raised its profile. Projects like Cloud4All and GPII identified the lack of common terminologies and models to describe the needs and preferences of users and information that fits those needs as a major gap in providing universal access solutions. Those types of information are accessibility metadata. Schema.org has incorporated several accessibility properties based on IMS Global Access for All Information Model Data Element Specification. The Wiki page WebSchemas/Accessibility lists several properties and their values. While the efforts to describe and standardize the varied accessibility needs of information seekers are beginning to become more robust, their adoption into established metadata schemas has not been as developed. For example, while Dublin Core (DC)'s "audience" and MARC 21's "reading level" could be used to identify resources suitable for users with dyslexia and DC's "format" could be used to identify resources available in braille, audio, or large print formats, there is more work to be done.


title: Metadata

text: Metadata (metacontent) or, more correctly, the vocabularies used to assemble metadata (metacontent) statements, is typically structured according to a standardized concept using a well-defined metadata scheme, including metadata standards and metadata models. Tools such as controlled vocabularies, taxonomies, thesauri, data dictionaries, and metadata registries can be used to apply further standardization to the metadata. Structural metadata commonality is also of paramount importance in data model development and in database design.


title: Metadata

text: Metadata (metacontent) syntax refers to the rules created to structure the fields or elements of metadata (metacontent). A single metadata scheme may be expressed in a number of different markup or programming languages, each of which requires a different syntax. For example, Dublin Core may be expressed in plain text, HTML, XML, and RDF.


title: Metadata

text: A common example of (guide) metacontent is the bibliographic classification, the subject, the Dewey Decimal class number. There is always an implied statement in any "classification" of some object. To classify an object as, for example, Dewey class number 514 (Topology) (i.e. books having the number 514 on their spine) the implied statement is: "<nowiki><book><subject heading><514></nowiki>". This is a subject-predicate-object triple, or more importantly, a class-attribute-value triple. The first 2 elements of the triple (class, attribute) are pieces of some structural metadata having a defined semantic. The third element is a value, preferably from some controlled vocabulary, some reference (master) data. The combination of the metadata and master data elements results in a statement which is a metacontent statement i.e. "metacontent = metadata + master data". All of these elements can be thought of as "vocabulary". Both metadata and master data are vocabularies that can be assembled into metacontent statements. There are many sources of these vocabularies, both meta and master data: UML, EDIFACT, XSD, Dewey/UDC/LoC, SKOS, ISO-25964, Pantone, Linnaean Binomial Nomenclature, etc. Using controlled vocabularies for the components of metacontent statements, whether for indexing or finding, is endorsed by ISO 25964: "If both the indexer and the searcher are guided to choose the same term for the same concept, then relevant documents will be retrieved." This is particularly relevant when considering search engines of the internet, such as Google. The process indexes pages and then matches text strings using its complex algorithm; there is no intelligence or "inferencing" occurring, just the illusion thereof.


title: Metadata

text: Metadata schemata can be hierarchical in nature where relationships exist between metadata elements and elements are nested so that parent-child relationships exist between the elements.


title: Metadata

text: An example of a hierarchical metadata schema is the IEEE LOM schema, in which metadata elements may belong to a parent metadata element.


title: Metadata

text: Metadata schemata can also be one-dimensional, or linear, where each element is completely discrete from other elements and classified according to one dimension only.


title: Metadata

text: Metadata schemata are often 2 dimensional, or planar, where each element is completely discrete from other elements but classified according to 2 orthogonal dimensions.


title: Metadata

text: The degree to which the data or metadata is structured is referred to as "granularity". "Granularity" refers to how much detail is provided. Metadata with a high granularity allows for deeper, more detailed, and more structured information and enables a greater level of technical manipulation. A lower level of granularity means that metadata can be created for considerably lower costs but will not provide as detailed information. The major impact of granularity is not only on creation and capture, but moreover on maintenance costs. As soon as the metadata structures become outdated, so too is the access to the referred data. Hence granularity must take into account the effort to create the metadata as well as the effort to maintain it.


title: Metadata

text: In all cases where the metadata schemata exceed the planar depiction, some type of hypermapping is required to enable display and view of metadata according to chosen aspect and to serve special views. Hypermapping frequently applies to layering of geographical and geological information overlays.


title: Metadata

text: International standards apply to metadata. Much work is being accomplished in the national and international standards communities, especially ANSI (American National Standards Institute) and ISO (International Organization for Standardization) to reach a consensus on standardizing metadata and registries. The core metadata registry standard is ISO/IEC 11179 Metadata Registries (MDR), the framework for the standard is described in ISO/IEC 11179-1:2004. A new edition of Part 1 is in its final stage for publication in 2015 or early 2016. It has been revised to align with the current edition of Part 3, ISO/IEC 11179-3:2013 which extends the MDR to support the registration of Concept Systems.


title: Metadata

text: (see ISO/IEC 11179). This standard specifies a schema for recording both the meaning and technical structure of the data for unambiguous usage by humans and computers. ISO/IEC 11179 standard refers to metadata as information objects about data, or "data about data". In ISO/IEC 11179 Part-3, the information objects are data about Data Elements, Value Domains, and other reusable semantic and representational information objects that describe the meaning and technical details of a data item. This standard also prescribes the details for a metadata registry, and for registering and administering the information objects within a Metadata Registry. ISO/IEC 11179 Part 3 also has provisions for describing compound structures that are derivations of other data elements, for example through calculations, collections of one or more data elements, or other forms of derived data. While this standard describes itself originally as a "data element" registry, its purpose is to support describing and registering metadata content independently of any particular application, lending the descriptions to being discovered and reused by humans or computers in developing new applications, databases, or for analysis of data collected in accordance with the registered metadata content. This standard has become the general basis for other kinds of metadata registries, reusing and extending the registration and administration portion of the standard.


title: Metadata

text: The Geospatial community has a tradition of specialized geospatial metadata standards, particularly building on traditions of map- and image-libraries and catalogs. Formal metadata is usually essential for geospatial data, as common text-processing approaches are not applicable.


title: Metadata

text: The Dublin Core metadata terms are a set of vocabulary terms that can be used to describe resources for the purposes of discovery. The original set of 15 classic metadata terms, known as the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set are endorsed in the following standards documents:


title: Metadata

text: The W3C Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT) is an RDF vocabulary that supplements Dublin Core with classes for Dataset, Data Service, Catalog, and Catalog Record. DCAT also uses elements from FOAF, PROV-O, and OWL-Time. DCAT provides an RDF model to support the typical structure of a catalog that contains records, each describing a dataset or service.


title: Metadata

text: Although not a standard, Microformat (also mentioned in the section metadata on the internet below) is a web-based approach to semantic markup which seeks to re-use existing HTML/XHTML tags to convey metadata. Microformat follows XHTML and HTML standards but is not a standard in itself. One advocate of microformats, Tantek Çelik, characterized a problem with alternative approaches:


title: Metadata

text: Metadata may be written into a digital photo file that will identify who owns it, copyright and contact information, what brand or model of camera created the file, along with exposure information (shutter speed, f-stop, etc.) and descriptive information, such as keywords about the photo, making the file or image searchable on a computer and/or the Internet. Some metadata is created by the camera such as, color space, color channels, exposure time, and aperture (EXIF), while some is input by the photographer and/or software after downloading to a computer. Most digital cameras write metadata about the model number, shutter speed, etc., and some enable you to edit it; this functionality has been available on most Nikon DSLRs since the Nikon D3, on most new Canon cameras since the Canon EOS 7D, and on most Pentax DSLRs since the Pentax K-3. Metadata can be used to make organizing in post-production easier with the use of key-wording. Filters can be used to analyze a specific set of photographs and create selections on criteria like rating or capture time. On devices with geolocation capabilities like GPS (smartphones in particular), the location the photo was taken from may also be included.


title: Metadata

text: Photographic Metadata Standards are governed by organizations that develop the following standards. They include, but are not limited to:


title: Metadata

text: Information on the times, origins and destinations of phone calls, electronic messages, instant messages, and other modes of telecommunication, as opposed to message content, is another form of metadata. Bulk collection of this call detail record metadata by intelligence agencies has proven controversial after disclosures by Edward Snowden of the fact that certain Intelligence agencies such as the NSA had been (and perhaps still are) keeping online metadata on millions of internet users for up to a year, regardless of whether or not they [ever] were persons of interest to the agency.


title: Metadata

text: Metadata is particularly useful in video, where information about its contents (such as transcripts of conversations and text descriptions of its scenes) is not directly understandable by a computer, but where an efficient search of the content is desirable. This is particularly useful in video applications such as Automatic Number Plate Recognition and Vehicle Recognition Identification software, wherein license plate data is saved and used to create reports and alerts. There are 2 sources in which video metadata is derived: (1) operational gathered metadata, that is information about the content produced, such as the type of equipment, software, date, and location; (2) human-authored metadata, to improve search engine visibility, discoverability, audience engagement, and providing advertising opportunities to video publishers. Today most professional video editing software has access to metadata. Avid's MetaSync and Adobe's Bridge are 2 prime examples of this.


title: Metadata

text: Geospatial metadata relates to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) files, maps, images, and other data that is location-based. Metadata is used in GIS to document the characteristics and attributes of geographic data, such as database files and data that is developed within a GIS. It includes details like who developed the data, when it was collected, how it was processed, and what formats it's available in, and then delivers the context for the data to be used effectively.


title: Metadata

text: Metadata can be created either by automated information processing or by manual work. Elementary metadata captured by computers can include information about when an object was created, who created it, when it was last updated, file size, and file extension. In this context an "object" refers to any of the following:


title: Metadata

text: A metadata engine collects, stores and analyzes information about data and metadata (data about data) in use within a domain.


title: Metadata

text: Data virtualization emerged in the 2000s as the new software technology to complete the virtualization "stack" in the enterprise. Metadata is used in data virtualization servers which are enterprise infrastructure components, alongside database and application servers. Metadata in these servers is saved as persistent repository and describe business objects in various enterprise systems and applications. Structural metadata commonality is also important to support data virtualization.


title: Metadata

text: Standardization and harmonization work has brought advantages to industry efforts to build metadata systems in the statistical community. Several metadata guidelines and standards such as the European Statistics Code of Practice and ISO 17369:2013 (Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange or SDMX) provide key principles for how businesses, government bodies, and other entities should manage statistical data and metadata. Entities such as Eurostat, European System of Central Banks, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have implemented these and other such standards and guidelines with the goal of improving "efficiency when managing statistical business processes".


title: Metadata

text: Metadata has been used in various ways as a means of cataloging items in libraries in both digital and analog formats. Such data helps classify, aggregate, identify, and locate a particular book, DVD, magazine, or any object a library might hold in its collection. Until the 1980s, many library catalogs used 3x5 inch cards in file drawers to display a book's title, author, subject matter, and an abbreviated alpha-numeric string (call number) which indicated the physical location of the book within the library's shelves. The Dewey Decimal System employed by libraries for the classification of library materials by subject is an early example of metadata usage. The early paper catalog had information regarding whichever item was described on said card: title, author, subject, and a number as to where to find said item. Beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, many libraries replaced these paper file cards with computer databases. These computer databases make it much easier and faster for users to do keyword searches. Another form of older metadata collection is the use by the US Census Bureau of what is known as the "Long Form". The Long Form asks questions that are used to create demographic data to find patterns of distribution. Libraries employ metadata in library catalogues, most commonly as part of an Integrated Library Management System. Metadata is obtained by cataloging resources such as books, periodicals, DVDs, web pages or digital images. This data is stored in the integrated library management system, ILMS, using the MARC metadata standard. The purpose is to direct patrons to the physical or electronic location of items or areas they seek as well as to provide a description of the item/s in question.


title: Metadata

text: More recent and specialized instances of library metadata include the establishment of digital libraries including e-print repositories and digital image libraries. While often based on library principles, the focus on non-librarian use, especially in providing metadata, means they do not follow traditional or common cataloging approaches. Given the custom nature of included materials, metadata fields are often specially created e.g. taxonomic classification fields, location fields, keywords, or copyright statement. Standard file information such as file size and format are usually automatically included. Library operation has for decades been a key topic in efforts toward international standardization. Standards for metadata in digital libraries include Dublin Core, METS, MODS, DDI, DOI, URN, schema, EML, and OAI-PMH. Leading libraries in the world give hints on their metadata standards strategies. The use and creation of metadata in library and information science also include scientific publications:


title: Metadata

text: Metadata for scientific publications is often created by journal publishers and citation databases such as PubMed and Web of Science. The data contained within manuscripts or accompanying them as supplementary material is less often subject to metadata creation, though they may be submitted to e.g. biomedical databases after publication. The original authors and database curators then become responsible for metadata creation, with the assistance of automated processes. Comprehensive metadata for all experimental data is the foundation of the FAIR Guiding Principles, or the standards for ensuring research data are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.


title: Metadata

text: Such metadata can then be utilized, complemented, and made accessible in useful ways. OpenAlex is a free online index of over 200 million scientific documents that integrates and provides metadata such as sources, citations, author information, scientific fields, and research topics. Its API and open source website can be used for metascience, scientometrics, and novel tools that query this semantic web of papers. Another project under development, Scholia, uses the metadata of scientific publications for various visualizations and aggregation features such as providing a simple user interface summarizing literature about a specific feature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus using Wikidata's "main subject" property.<ref name="10.1186/s12915-020-00940-y"></ref>


title: Metadata

text: In research labor, transparent metadata about authors' contributions to works have been proposed – e.g. the role played in the production of the paper, the level of contribution and the responsibilities.


title: Metadata

text: Moreover, various metadata about scientific outputs can be created or complemented – for instance, scite.ai attempts to track and link citations of papers as 'Supporting', 'Mentioning' or 'Contrasting' the study. Other examples include developments of alternative metrics<ref name="10.1126/science.aao0185"></ref> – which, beyond providing help for assessment and findability, also aggregate many of the public discussions about a scientific paper on social media such as Reddit, citations on Wikipedia, and reports about the study in the news media – and a call for showing whether or not the original findings are confirmed or could get reproduced.


title: Metadata

text: Metadata in a museum context is the information that trained cultural documentation specialists, such as archivists, librarians, museum registrars and curators, create to index, structure, describe, identify, or otherwise specify works of art, architecture, cultural objects and their images. Descriptive metadata is most commonly used in museum contexts for object identification and resource recovery purposes.


title: Metadata

text: Many museums and cultural heritage centers recognize that given the diversity of artworks and cultural objects, no single model or standard suffices to describe and catalog cultural works. For example, a sculpted Indigenous artifact could be classified as an artwork, an archaeological artifact, or an Indigenous heritage item. The early stages of standardization in archiving, description and cataloging within the museum community began in the late 1990s with the development of standards such as Categories for the Description of Works of Art (CDWA), Spectrum, CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM), Cataloging Cultural Objects (CCO) and the CDWA Lite XML schema. These standards use HTML and XML markup languages for machine processing, publication and implementation. The Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR), originally developed for characterizing books, have also been applied to cultural objects, works of art and architecture. Standards, such as the CCO, are integrated within a Museum's Collections Management System (CMS), a database through which museums are able to manage their collections, acquisitions, loans and conservation. Scholars and professionals in the field note that the "quickly evolving landscape of standards and technologies" creates challenges for cultural documentarians, specifically non-technically trained professionals. Most collecting institutions and museums use a relational database to categorize cultural works and their images. Relational databases and metadata work to document and describe the complex relationships amongst cultural objects and multi-faceted works of art, as well as between objects and places, people, and artistic movements. Relational database structures are also beneficial within collecting institutions and museums because they allow for archivists to make a clear distinction between cultural objects and their images; an unclear distinction could lead to confusing and inaccurate searches.


title: Metadata

text: An object's materiality, function, and purpose, as well as the size (e.g., measurements, such as height, width, weight), storage requirements (e.g., climate-controlled environment), and focus of the museum and collection, influence the descriptive depth of the data attributed to the object by cultural documentarians. The established institutional cataloging practices, goals, and expertise of cultural documentarians and database structure also influence the information ascribed to cultural objects and the ways in which cultural objects are categorized. Additionally, museums often employ standardized commercial collection management software that prescribes and limits the ways in which archivists can describe artworks and cultural objects. As well, collecting institutions and museums use Controlled Vocabularies to describe cultural objects and artworks in their collections. Getty Vocabularies and the Library of Congress Controlled Vocabularies are reputable within the museum community and are recommended by CCO standards. Museums are encouraged to use controlled vocabularies that are contextual and relevant to their collections and enhance the functionality of their digital information systems. Controlled Vocabularies are beneficial within databases because they provide a high level of consistency, improving resource retrieval. Metadata structures, including controlled vocabularies, reflect the ontologies of the systems from which they were created. Often the processes through which cultural objects are described and categorized through metadata in museums do not reflect the perspectives of the maker communities.


title: Metadata

text: Metadata has been instrumental in the creation of digital information systems and archives within museums and has made it easier for museums to publish digital content online. This has enabled audiences who might not have had access to cultural objects due to geographic or economic barriers to have access to them. In the 2000s, as more museums have adopted archival standards and created intricate databases, discussions about Linked Data between museum databases have come up in the museum, archival, and library science communities. Collection Management Systems (CMS) and Digital Asset Management tools can be local or shared systems. Digital Humanities scholars note many benefits of interoperability between museum databases and collections, while also acknowledging the difficulties of achieving such interoperability.


title: Metadata

text: Problems involving metadata in litigation in the United States are becoming widespread. Courts have looked at various questions involving metadata, including the discoverability of metadata by parties. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have specific rules for discovery of electronically-stored information, and subsequent case law applying those rules has elucidated on the litigant's duty to produce metadata when litigating in federal court. In October 2009, the Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that metadata records are public record. Document metadata have proven particularly important in legal environments in which litigation has requested metadata, that can include sensitive information detrimental to a certain party in court. Using metadata removal tools to "clean" or redact documents can mitigate the risks of unwittingly sending sensitive data. This process partially (see data remanence) protects law firms from potentially damaging leaking of sensitive data through electronic discovery.


title: Metadata

text: Opinion polls have shown that 45% of Americans are "not at all confident" in the ability of social media sites to ensure their personal data is secure and 40% say that social media sites should not be able to store any information on individuals. 76% of Americans say that they are not confident that the information advertising agencies collect on them is secure and 50% say that online advertising agencies should not be allowed to record any of their information at all.


title: Metadata

text: In Australia, the need to strengthen national security has resulted in the introduction of a new metadata storage law. This new law means that both security and policing agencies will be allowed to access up to 2 years of an individual's metadata, with the aim of making it easier to stop any terrorist attacks and serious crimes from happening.


title: Metadata

text: Legislative metadata has been the subject of some discussion in law.gov forums such as workshops held by the Legal Information Institute at the Cornell Law School on 22 and 23 March 2010. The documentation for these forums is titled, "Suggested metadata practices for legislation and regulations".


title: Metadata

text: A handful of key points have been outlined by these discussions, section headings of which are listed as follows:


title: Metadata

text: Australian medical research pioneered the definition of metadata for applications in health care. That approach offers the first recognized attempt to adhere to international standards in medical sciences instead of defining a proprietary standard under the World Health Organization (WHO) umbrella. The medical community yet did not approve of the need to follow metadata standards despite research that supported these standards.


title: Metadata

text: Research studies in the fields of biomedicine and molecular biology frequently yield large quantities of data, including results of genome or meta-genome sequencing, proteomics data, and even notes or plans created during the course of research itself. Each data type involves its own variety of metadata and the processes necessary to produce these metadata. General metadata standards, such as ISA-Tab, allow researchers to create and exchange experimental metadata in consistent formats. Specific experimental approaches frequently have their own metadata standards and systems: metadata standards for mass spectrometry include mzML and SPLASH, while XML-based standards such as PDBML and SRA XML serve as standards for macromolecular structure and sequencing data, respectively.


title: Metadata

text: The products of biomedical research are generally realized as peer-reviewed manuscripts and these publications are yet another source of data .


title: Metadata

text: A data warehouse (DW) is a repository of an organization's electronically stored data. Data warehouses are designed to manage and store the data. Data warehouses differ from business intelligence (BI) systems because BI systems are designed to use data to create reports and analyze the information, to provide strategic guidance to management. Metadata is an important tool in how data is stored in data warehouses. The purpose of a data warehouse is to house standardized, structured, consistent, integrated, correct, "cleaned" and timely data, extracted from various operational systems in an organization. The extracted data are integrated in the data warehouse environment to provide an enterprise-wide perspective. Data are structured in a way to serve the reporting and analytic requirements. The design of structural metadata commonality using a data modeling method such as entity-relationship model diagramming is important in any data warehouse development effort. They detail metadata on each piece of data in the data warehouse. An essential component of a data warehouse/business intelligence system is the metadata and tools to manage and retrieve the metadata. Ralph Kimball describes metadata as the DNA of the data warehouse as metadata defines the elements of the data warehouse and how they work together.


title: Metadata

text: Kimball et al. refers to 3 main categories of metadata: Technical metadata, business metadata and process metadata. Technical metadata is primarily definitional, while business metadata and process metadata is primarily descriptive. The categories sometimes overlap.


title: Metadata

text: The HTML format used to define web pages allows for the inclusion of a variety of types of metadata, from basic descriptive text, dates and keywords to further advanced metadata schemes such as the Dublin Core, e-GMS, and AGLS standards. Pages and files can also be geotagged with coordinates, categorized or tagged, including collaboratively such as with folksonomies.


title: Metadata

text: When media has identifiers set or when such can be generated, information such as file tags and descriptions can be pulled or scraped from the Internet – for example about movies. Various online databases are aggregated and provide metadata for various data. The collaboratively built Wikidata has identifiers not just for media but also abstract concepts, various objects, and other entities, that can be looked up by humans and machines to retrieve useful information and to link knowledge in other knowledge bases and databases.


title: Metadata

text: Metadata may be included in the page's header or in a separate file. Microformats allow metadata to be added to on-page data in a way that regular web users do not see, but computers, web crawlers and search engines can readily access. Many search engines are cautious about using metadata in their ranking algorithms because of exploitation of metadata and the practice of search engine optimization, SEO, to improve rankings. See the Meta element article for further discussion. This cautious attitude may be justified as people, according to Doctorow, are not executing care and diligence when creating their own metadata and that metadata is part of a competitive environment where the metadata is used to promote the metadata creators own purposes. Studies show that search engines respond to web pages with metadata implementations, and Google has an announcement on its site showing the meta tags that its search engine understands. Enterprise search startup Swiftype recognizes metadata as a relevance signal that webmasters can implement for their website-specific search engine, even releasing their own extension, known as Meta Tags 2.


title: Metadata

text: This metadata can be linked to the video media thanks to the video servers. Most major broadcast sporting events like FIFA World Cup or the Olympic Games use this metadata to distribute their video content to TV stations through keywords. It is often the host broadcaster who is in charge of organizing metadata through its "International Broadcast Centre" and its video servers. This metadata is recorded with the images and entered by metadata operators ("loggers") who associate in live metadata available in "metadata grids" through software (such as Multicam(LSM) or IPDirector used during the FIFA World Cup or Olympic Games).


title: Metadata

text: Metadata that describes geographic objects in electronic storage or format (such as datasets, maps, features, or documents with a geospatial component) has a history dating back to at least 1994 (refer to the MIT Library page on FGDC Metadata). This class of metadata is described more fully on the geospatial metadata article.


title: Metadata

text: Ecological and environmental metadata is intended to document the "who, what, when, where, why, and how" of data collection for a particular study. This typically means which organization or institution collected the data, what type of data, which date(s) the data was collected, the rationale for the data collection, and the methodology used for the data collection. Metadata should be generated in a format commonly used by the most relevant science community, such as Darwin Core, Ecological Metadata Language, or Dublin Core. Metadata editing tools exist to facilitate metadata generation (e.g. Metavist, Mercury, Morpho). Metadata should describe the provenance of the data (where they originated, as well as any transformations the data underwent) and how to give credit for (cite) the data products.


title: Metadata

text: When first released in 1982, Compact Discs only contained a Table Of Contents (TOC) with the number of tracks on the disc and their length in samples. Fourteen years later in 1996, a revision of the CD Red Book standard added CD-Text to carry additional metadata. But CD-Text was not widely adopted. Shortly thereafter, it became common for personal computers to retrieve metadata from external sources (e.g. CDDB, Gracenote) based on the TOC.


title: Metadata

text: Digital audio formats such as digital audio files superseded music formats such as cassette tapes and CDs in the 2000s. Digital audio files could be labeled with more information than could be contained in just the file name. That descriptive information is called the audio tag or audio metadata in general. Computer programs specializing in adding or modifying this information are called tag editors. Metadata can be used to name, describe, catalog, and indicate ownership or copyright for a digital audio file, and its presence makes it much easier to locate a specific audio file within a group, typically through use of a search engine that accesses the metadata. As different digital audio formats were developed, attempts were made to standardize a specific location within the digital files where this information could be stored.


title: Metadata

text: As a result, almost all digital audio formats, including mp3, broadcast wav, and AIFF files, have similar standardized locations that can be populated with metadata. The metadata for compressed and uncompressed digital music is often encoded in the ID3 tag. Common editors such as TagLib support MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MPC, Speex, WavPack TrueAudio, WAV, AIFF, MP4, and ASF file formats.


title: Metadata

text: With the availability of cloud applications, which include those to add metadata to content, metadata is increasingly available over the Internet.


title: Metadata

text: Metadata can be stored either "internally", in the same file or structure as the data (this is also called "embedded metadata"), or "externally", in a separate file or field from the described data. A data repository typically stores the metadata "detached" from the data but can be designed to support embedded metadata approaches. Each option has advantages and disadvantages:


title: Metadata

text: Metadata can be stored in either human-readable or binary form. Storing metadata in a human-readable format such as XML can be useful because users can understand and edit it without specialized tools. However, text-based formats are rarely optimized for storage capacity, communication time, or processing speed. A binary metadata format enables efficiency in all these respects, but requires special software to convert the binary information into human-readable content.


title: Metadata

text: Each relational database system has its own mechanisms for storing metadata. Examples of relational-database metadata include:


title: Metadata

text: In database terminology, this set of metadata is referred to as the catalog. The SQL standard specifies a uniform means to access the catalog, called the information schema, but not all databases implement it, even if they implement other aspects of the SQL standard. For an example of database-specific metadata access methods, see Oracle metadata. Programmatic access to metadata is possible using APIs such as JDBC, or SchemaCrawler.


title: Metadata

text: One of the first satirical examinations of the concept of Metadata as we understand it today is American Science Fiction author Hal Draper's short story, MS Fnd in a Lbry (1961).


title: Metadata

text: Here, the knowledge of all Mankind is condensed into an object the size of a desk drawer, however, the magnitude of the metadata (e.g. catalog of catalogs of... , as well as indexes and histories) eventually leads to dire yet humorous consequences for the human race.


title: Metadata

text: The story prefigures the modern consequences of allowing metadata to become more important than the real data it is concerned with, and the risks inherent in that eventuality as a cautionary tale.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Legend is a 1985 American epic dark fantasy adventure film directed and initiated by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, Tim Curry, David Bennent, Alice Playten, Billy Barty, Cork Hubbert, and Annabelle Lanyon. The film revolves around Jack, a pure being who must stop the Lord of Darkness who plots to cover the world with eternal night.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Although not a commercial success when first released, it won the British Society of Cinematographers Award for Best Cinematography in 1985 for cinematographer Alex Thomson, as well as being nominated for multiple awards: Oscar for Best Makeup; Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films Saturn Award for Best Makeup; BAFTA Awards for Best Costume Design, Best Makeup Artist, Best Special Visual Effects; DVD Exclusive Awards; and Young Artist Awards. Since its premiere and the subsequent release of the unrated Director's Cut, the film has become a cult classic.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: In order to cast the world into eternal night, the Lord of Darkness sends the goblin Blix to kill the unicorns in the forest near his castle and bring him their horns. Told by Darkness that the best bait is Innocence, Blix and his colleagues Pox and Blunder follow Princess Lili as she visits her forest-dwelling paramour, Jack in the Green. There Jack teaches Lili to speak to animals, then takes her blindfolded to a forest stream where he senses the unicorns will appear. When Lili holds out her hand to touch the stallion, Blix shoots him with a poison dart from his blowpipe and the unicorns flee. Jack is angry, but Lili laughs off his concern and issues a challenge by throwing her ring into a pond, declaring she will marry whomever finds it. While Jack dives in after the ring, the goblins track down the poisoned stallion and sever his alicorn, causing winter to descend. Lili runs off in terror, and Jack is barely able to break through the surface of the now-frozen pond.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Lili takes refuge in the cottage of a peasant family that is now frozen in time. While there, Lili sees the goblins test the alicorn's magic powers and overhears how she was the bait in their slaying of the stallion. She follows the goblins to a rendezvous with Darkness, who tells them the world cannot be cast into eternal night as long as the surviving mare still lives. Blunder unsuccessfully tries using the alicorn to overthrow Darkness and is sent into the castle's dungeon. Meanwhile, Jack, accompanied by the forest elf Honeythorn Gump, the fairy Oona, and the dwarves Brown Tom and Screwball, finds the mare mourning the lifeless stallion. Lamenting over his role in their current predicament, Jack apologizes to the mare, who communicates to him that the alicorn must be recovered and returned to the stallion by a great hero. Deciding Jack is that hero, the group leaves Brown Tom to guard the unicorns while Jack and the others retrieve a hidden cache of ancient weapons and armor. In their absence, Lili warns Brown Tom of the goblins coming back to kill the mare. He is then incapacitated by the goblins, who capture both Lili and the mare.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Upon returning, Jack and his group make their way to Darkness' castle. On the way, they are attacked by a swamp hag named Meg Mucklebones, but Jack defeats her by flattering her appearance and then decapitating her. At the castle, Jack's group falls into an underground prison cell, where they encounter Blunder, who is revealed to be a fairy gone astray, before he is dragged off by an ogre to be baked into a pie. Oona uses her magic to escape their cell and retrieves the keys to free the others.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Meanwhile, as Lili roams the castle seeking warmth and escape, a dark, dancing entity appears to tempt and turn her into a gothic version of herself. Darkness orchestrated this to claim her as his bride, and seemingly seduced, she agrees to wed him on condition that she will be the one to kill the mare in the upcoming ritual. Overhearing their conversation, Jack and Gump learn Darkness can be destroyed by daylight. After saving Blunder, the group takes the ogres' giant metal platters as makeshift mirrors to reflect sunlight into the chamber where the mare is to be sacrificed.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: As the ritual begins, Lili tries to free the mare, but Darkness casts onto her a spell of sleep. Jack's group redirects the setting sun with the platters as he fights Darkness, finally wounding him with the stallion's alicorn right before the redirected sunlight shines into the room, blasting Darkness to the edge of the eternal void. Darkness warns them that because evil lurks in all beings, he will never truly be vanquished. Wavering in doubt, Jack finally severs the hands of Darkness, thus expelling him into the void. Gump then returns the stallion to life by magically reattaching its alicorn. With the stallion reunited with the mare, winter suddenly ends. Jack retrieves Lili's ring from the pond and places it on her finger, waking her from the spell.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: While filming "The Duellists" in France, Ridley Scott conceived "Legend" after another planned project, "Tristan and Isolde", fell through temporarily. However, he believed that it would be an art film with limited audience appeal and went on to make "Alien" and did pre-production work on "Dune", another halted project, which was eventually finished by director David Lynch. Frustrated, he came back to the idea of filming a fairy tale or mythological story.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: For inspiration, Scott read all the classic fairy tales, including ones by the Brothers Grimm. From that, he conceived a story about a young hermit who is transformed into a hero when he battles the Darkness in order to rescue a beautiful princess and release the world from a wintery curse.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Scott wanted "Legend" to have an original screenplay because he believed that "it was far easier to design a story to fit the medium of cinema than bend the medium for an established story". By chance, he discovered several books written by American novelist William Hjortsberg and found that the writer had already written several scripts for some unmade lower-budgeted films. Scott asked him if he was interested in writing a fairy tale. He was already writing some and agreed. Scott remembers, "The first notion was to actually make a classical fairy story, but if you actually analyze a classical fairy story, most are either very short, or very complex". The two men bonded over Jean Cocteau's 1946 film of "Beauty and the Beast". In January 1981, just before beginning principal photography on "Blade Runner", Scott spent five weeks with Hjortsberg working out a rough storyline for what was then called "Legend of Darkness".


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Originally, Scott "only had the vague notion of something in pursuit of the swiftest steed alive which, of course, was the unicorn". Scott felt that they should have a quest and wanted unicorns as well as magic armor and a sword. Hjortsberg suggested plunging the world into wintery darkness. Hjortsberg's first draft of "Legend of Darkness" also had Princess Lili slowly transform into a clawed and fur-covered beast who is whipped and sexually seduced by the antagonist (called Baron Couer De Noir in this draft). Scott wanted to show the outside world as little as possible and they settled on the clockmaker's cottage.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Initially, the quest was longer, but it was eventually substantially reduced. Scott wanted to avoid too many subplots that departed from the main story and go for a "more contemporary movement rather than get bogged down in too classical a format". By the time Scott had finished "Blade Runner", he and Hjortsberg had a script that was "lengthy, hugely expensive, and impractical in its size and scope". They went through it and took out large sections that were secondary to the story. The two men went through 15 script revisions.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: The look Scott envisioned for "Legend" was influenced by the style of Disney animation. He had even offered the project to Disney, but they were intimidated by the film's dark tone at a time when Disney still focused on family-friendly material. Visually, Scott referenced films like "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", "Fantasia" and "Pinocchio". The look of "Legend" was also influenced by the art of Arthur Rackham and Heath Robinson. Scott had initially sought the services of conceptual designer Brian Froud, but was turned down. He then hired Alan Lee as a visual consultant, who drew some characters and sketched environments. However, Scott eventually replaced Lee with Assheton Gorton, a production designer whom he had wanted for both "Alien" and "Blade Runner". Scott hired Gorton because he knew "all the pitfalls of shooting exteriors on a soundstage. We both knew that whatever we did would never look absolutely real, but would very quickly gain its own reality and dispense with any feeling of theatricality".


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Scott also consulted with effects expert Richard Edlund because the director did not want to limit major character roles to the number of smaller people who could act. At one point, the director considered Mickey Rooney to play one of the major characters but he did not look small enough next to Tom Cruise. Edlund considered shooting on 70 mm film stock, taking the negative, and reducing the actors to any size they wanted—but this was deemed too expensive. Thus, Scott was tasked with finding an ensemble of small actors. "Legend" would be financed with a budget of $24.5 million, and would be distributed by Universal Pictures in North America and by 20th Century Fox in all other territories.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: In order to achieve the look of "Legend" that he wanted, Scott scouted locations in the Sequoias of Yosemite National Park to see the grand scale of trees there. "The whole environment is so stunning ... It was so impressive, but I didn't know how you would control it". However, it would cost too much to shoot on location and he decided to build a forest set on the 007 Stage, named after and used for many James Bond films, at Pinewood Studios. The crew spent 14 weeks constructing the forest set, and Scott was worried that it would not look real enough. It was only days before the start of principal photography that it looked good enough to film. The trees were 60 feet high with trunks 30 feet in diameter and were sculpted out of polystyrene built onto tubular scaffolding frames. In addition, other sets were constructed on five huge soundstages.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Johnny Depp, Jim Carrey and Robert Downey Jr. were considered for the role of Jack. While Scott was considering Richard O'Brien to play Meg Mucklebones, he watched "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and saw Tim Curry. He thought the actor would be ideal to play Darkness because the actor had film and theatrical experience. Tim Curry's makeup as Darkness in "Legend" is considered to be one of the most iconic images in all of fantasy cinema. Scott discovered Mia Sara in a casting session and was impressed by her "good theatrical instincts".


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Scott contacted Rob Bottin, who designed the special makeup effects for "The Howling", about working on "Blade Runner", but Bottin was already committed to John Carpenter's "The Thing". Scott told him about "Legend", and toward the end of production on "The Thing", Bottin read a script for the film and saw an excellent opportunity to create characters in starring roles.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: After wrapping his work with Carpenter, Bottin met with Scott to reduce the thousands of creatures suggested by the script to a manageable quantity. The process would involve complicated prosthetic makeup that would be worn for up to 60 days with some full body prosthetics. According to Bottin, at the time, "Legend" had the largest makeup crew ever dedicated to one project. Bottin divided his facility into different shops in order to cover the immense workload. As actors were cast, Bottin and his crew began making life casts and designed characters on drafting paper laid over sketches of the actors' faces. He designed the prosthetics in his Los Angeles studio and spent some time in England occasionally helping with the application of makeup.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: With the exception of Cruise and Sara, all the principal actors spent hours every morning having extensive makeup applied. Between 8 and 12 prosthetic pieces were applied individually to each face, then made up, molded and grafted into the actor's face so that the prosthetics moved with their muscles. Each person needed three makeup artists working on them for an average time of three and a half hours spent applying prosthetics. Actor Tim Curry took five and a half hours because his entire body was encased in makeup, the film's most challenging character design.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Curry had to wear a large, bull-like structure atop his head with three-foot fiberglass horns supported by a harness underneath the makeup. The initial design of the horns placed a strain on the back of the actor's neck because they extended forward and not straight up but Bottin and his crew eventually reduced the weight of the horns. At the end of the day, he spent an hour in a bath in order to liquefy the soluble spirit gum. At one point, Curry became claustrophobic, got too impatient, and pulled the makeup off too quickly, tearing off his own skin in the process. Scott had to shoot around the actor for a week as a result.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Principal photography began on March 26, 1984 on the 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios. On June 27, 1984, with ten days filming left on this stage, the entire set burned down during a lunch break. Reportedly, flames from the set fire leapt more than 100 feet into the air and the clouds of smoke could be seen five miles away. It occurred during lunchtime, and no one was hurt. Scott quickly made changes to the shooting schedule and only lost three days moving to another soundstage. Meanwhile, the art department rebuilt the section of the forest set that was needed to complete filming. Due to the fire, the scenes of Lili meeting the unicorns for the first time and finding the cottages in the snow were filmed in the garden of the main house behind Shepperton Studios. The underwater scenes were filmed in Silver Springs, Florida for the "purity" of the water. Cruise did all his own diving and swimming in waters that, according to Scott, had real alligators 25 feet from where they were filming.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Scott's first cut of "Legend" ran 125 minutes long. He then believed there were minor plot points that could be trimmed and cut the film down to 113 minutes, so he tested this version for an audience in Orange County. However, it was decided that the audience had to work too much to be entertained, and another 20 minutes was cut. The 95-minute version was shown in Great Britain and then the film was cut down even further to 89 minutes for North America.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: At the time, Scott said, "European audiences are more sophisticated. They accepted preambles and subtleties whereas the U.S. goes for a much broader stroke." He and Universal delayed the North American theatrical release until 1986 so that they could replace Jerry Goldsmith's score with music by Tangerine Dream, Yes lead singer Jon Anderson, and Bryan Ferry.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Scott allowed Goldsmith's score to remain on European prints and the composer said, "that this dreamy, bucolic setting is suddenly to be scored by a techno-pop group seems sort of strange to me". Normally, Goldsmith would spend 6–10 weeks on a film score, but for "Legend", he spent six months writing songs and dance sequences ahead of time.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: In 2000, Universal unearthed an answer print of the 113-minute preview cut with Jerry Goldsmith's score. This print had minor visual anomalies that were eventually digitally replaced, occasionally with finished shots from the 89-minute U.S. version. This edition is Scott's preferred 2002 "Director's Cut", with the restored Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack. The Director's Cut's source is one of only two prints of this extended version known to exist, used for Universal's 2002 DVD (and eventual Blu-ray) "Ultimate Edition".


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: "Legend" received mixed reviews. The film holds a 41% approval rating on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes based on 44 reviews, with an average rating of 5/10. The consensus reads: "Not even Ridley Scott's gorgeously realized set pieces can save "Legend" from its own tawdry tale -- though it may be serviceable for those simply looking for fantasy eye candy."


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Steve Biodrowski of "Cinefantastique" praised the film, highlighting the makeup design by Rob Bottin and Tim Curry's performance as Darkness, saying that "[b]ecause of the visuals (and Curry's performance, which is mostly limited to the last 20 minutes), the film is worth seeing". Widgett Walls of needcoffee.com also praised the film, once again highlighting Bottin's makeup, focusing on the character of Darkness, saying simply that "Tim Curry's Darkness is absolutely incredible."


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" said that "[i]t's a slap-dash amalgam of Old Testament, King Arthur, "The Lord of the Rings" and any number of comic books." Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" praised the visuals as "a sumptuous, richly colored feast for cinematographer Alex Gordon's camera", but thought the film "surely could have used more humor and invention". Kim Newman of "The Monthly Film Bulletin" wrote that "like "Blade Runner" before it, the film suffers so much from an over-emphasis on details at the expense of the actual story that it becomes a plodding bore." Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film half of one star out of four and stated that writing the review was "akin to recalling a bad dream", concluding that "I don't want to remember any more about "Legend" than to make sure I include it in my 'worst films of 1986' list and never rent it when it comes out as a video cassette." The film has been described as the "extinction event" that discouraged Hollywood from making fantasy films.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" praised Bottin's makeup and Assheton Gorton's set design and the performances of Tim Curry and Tom Cruise, but noted that the effects were so good that the roles could have been played by almost anyone. Ebert also said that the movie was composed of all of the right ingredients to be successful, but that the film simply "doesn't work". He went on to say that "[a]ll of the special effects in the world, and all of the great makeup, and all of the great Muppet creatures can't save a movie that has no clear idea of its own mission and no joy in its own accomplishment". However, with the release of the 2002 Director's Cut, he agreed with many fans on how it was intended to question the balance between good and evil, and gives the main characters moral flaws to display the imperfections of humans. The release of the Director's Cut in 2002 also had the original score from Jerry Goldsmith restored, and brought renewed attention to the film. Both Ridley Scott and Tom Cruise have requested their fans to view this version, even to the extent of Cruise disowning the US version entirely as a "stereotypical 80's fantasy".


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Neil Gaiman reviewed "Legend" for "Imagine" magazine, and stated that "Glimmers of intelligence show here and there in the script, suggesting that William Hjortsberg probably had some idea of what he was doing when he wrote this - understanding that fairies are wilful, capricious creatures, for example - and he'll probably make a fairly good novel out of it, but if you go and see the film don't say I didn't warn you."


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Due to the changes in the film from its European and American releases, "Legend" has two different soundtracks. The first, produced, composed and conducted by Jerry Goldsmith, was used for its initial European release and restored in the director's cut edition of the Region 1 DVD release. The second soundtrack features music by German electronic artists Tangerine Dream and was used for the initial theatrical and home video releases in the United States. This soundtrack also includes songs by Jon Anderson of Yes and Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: The following songs are featured in the European and Director's Cuts, with lyrics composed by John Bettis (composer of many Carpenters songs) and music by Jerry Goldsmith:


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: A promotional music video (presumably for the U.S. market, where the Tangerine Dream soundtrack was used) was created for the Bryan Ferry song "Is Your Love Strong Enough". The video, which incorporates Ferry and guitarist David Gilmour into footage from the film, is included as a bonus on disc 2 of the 2002 "Ultimate Edition" DVD release.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: In 2002, Universal released the 113-minute Director's Cut on Region 1 DVD, restoring previously cut scenes and the original Goldsmith score.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: Universal released a Blu-ray version of the "Ultimate Edition" on May 31, 2011. With the exception of the 2002 DVD-ROM features, this disc carries over all the content from the DVD, including the Jerry Goldsmith-scored "Director's Cut" and the Tangerine Dream-scored theatrical version.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: 20th Century Studios—the international rights holder via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures—has released a Blu-ray issue for Region 2 of both the 94-minute European version and the 113-minute Director's Cut, both with Jerry Goldsmith's music.


title: Legend (1985 film)

text: In September, 2021, the film was reissued yet again by Arrow Films (under license from Universal) as a 2-disc "Limited Edition" including the two major cuts of the movie (theatrical and Director's Cuts with their respective corresponding scores), with nearly all the bonus content from the previous Universal releases, plus new documentaries on the film. The International Version was not included on this new set as the rights to that edition are held by The Walt Disney Company (via the library of 20th Century Studios).


title: Exodus: Gods and Kings

text: Exodus: Gods and Kings is a 2014 biblical epic film directed and produced by Ridley Scott and written by Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, Jeffrey Caine, and Steven Zaillian. The film stars Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, John Turturro, Aaron Paul, Ben Mendelsohn, Sigourney Weaver, and Ben Kingsley. It is inspired by the biblical episode of the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt led by Moses and related in the Book of Exodus. Development on the film was first announced by Scott in June 2012. Filming occurred primarily in Spain beginning in October 2013, with additional filming at Pinewood Studios in England.


title: Exodus: Gods and Kings

text: The film was released on December 12, 2014 by 20th Century Fox, to mixed reviews from critics, who praised the visuals. The film was also banned in Egypt and in the United Arab Emirates for "historical inaccuracies". It earned $268 million worldwide on a budget of $140–200 million.


title: Exodus: Gods and Kings

text: In 1300 BC, Moses, a general and accepted member of the Egyptian royal family, prepares to attack an encamped Hittite army with Prince Ramesses at Kadesh. A High Priestess divines a prophecy from animal intestines, which she relates to Ramesses's father, Seti I. She tells the two men of the prophecy, in which "a leader" (either Moses or Ramesses) will be "saved" and the savior "will someday lead." During the battle, Moses saves Ramesses's life, leaving both men troubled. Later, Moses volunteers to go to the city of Pithom in place of his cousin to meet with the Viceroy Hegep, who oversees the Hebrew slaves. Upon his arrival, he encounters the slave Joshua being lashed and questions the vicious lashing. Moses is appalled by the horrific conditions the slaves must toil in. Moses meets with the slave elders to see if the slaves are planning on sedition as claimed by the Viceroy. After said meetings, Moses receives a message via Joshua that Nun is looking for him. Moses finds Nun in the prayer house where he informs him of his true lineage; he is the child of Hebrew parents who was sent by his sister Miriam to be raised by Pharaoh's daughter (he was born during the extermination of the Jewish heirs). Moses is stunned at the revelation and leaves angrily; during which he is attacked by two guards whom he quickly kills. However, two Hebrews spies overhear Nun's story and report their discovery to the Viceroy.


title: Exodus: Gods and Kings

text: Moses returns home where soon after Seti dies, and Ramesses becomes the new Pharaoh (Ramesses II). Hegep, the viceroy reveals Moses's true lineage to Ramesses, but Ramesses is unconvinced. At the urging of Queen Tuya, he interrogates the servant Miriam, who denies being Moses's sister. When Ramesses threatens to cut off her arm, Moses intervenes saving her and confirms he is a Hebrew. Although Tuya wants Moses killed, Ramesses, still unwilling to believe the story, exiles him instead. Before leaving Egypt, Moses meets with his adopted mother and Miriam, who refer to him by his birth name of Moshe. Following a journey into the desert, Moses comes to Midian where he meets Zipporah and her father, Jethro. Moses becomes a shepherd, marries Zipporah, and has a son, Gershom.


title: Exodus: Gods and Kings

text: Years later, Moses is injured in a rockslide. He encounters a burning bush and a boy, a manifestation of the God of Abraham. While recovering, Moses reveals his past to Zipporah and reveals what God has asked him to do. This drives a wedge between the couple, but Moses leaves anyway. In Egypt, Moses reunites with Nun and Joshua, as well as meeting his brother Aaron for the first time. Moses confronts Ramesses, demanding the Hebrews be released from servitude. Ramesses refuses to listen, insisting that freeing them is economically impossible. Upon Moses threatening Ramesses's life, Ramesses orders Moses's death, as well as killing random Hebrew families until Moses is found. Using his military skills, Moses trains the slaves and leads them in an insurgency, prompting Ramesses to retaliate harshly. God's manifestation appears to Moses and explains that ten plagues will affect Egypt. The first nine plagues deal massive damage to Egypt and its people, but Ramesses does not back down, even oppressing his people further to maintain his position. Moses is horrified to learn from God that the tenth plague will be the death of all firstborn children but follows through with the plan, instructing the Hebrews to protect themselves by covering their doors with lambs' blood. That night, all of Egypt's firstborn children die, including Ramesses's infant son. Ramesses, devastated, surrenders, allowing the Hebrews to leave.


title: Exodus: Gods and Kings

text: During the Exodus, the Hebrews follow Moses's original path through the desert towards the Red Sea. Still grieving his son, Ramesses assembles his army and gives chase. After making their way through a dangerous mountain pass, Moses and the Hebrews arrive at the edge of the sea, uncertain about what to do. In despair, Moses flings his sword into the sea, which recedes and clears a path to the opposite side. Ramesses and his army continue the pursuit, but Moses stays behind to confront them. The Red Sea reverts back, drowning the majority of the Egyptians (crossing the Red Sea). Moses survives and rejoins the Hebrews. Ramesses also survives, but is distraught and stunned over the destruction of his army, and with no apparent way to return to Egypt. Moses leads the Hebrews back to Midian, where he reunites with Zipporah and Gershom. At Mount Sinai, Moses transcribes the Ten Commandments which will be his replacement as the law when he dies. Years later, an elderly Moses riding with the Ark of the Covenant sees God's manifestation walking with the Hebrews through the desert.


title: Exodus: Gods and Kings

text: Anton Alexander has a small role as the Israelite Dathan, while Kevork Malikyan appears as Zipporah's father, Jethro.


title: Exodus: Gods and Kings

text: In June 2012, Ridley Scott announced that he was developing an adaptation of the Book of Exodus, tentatively titled "Moses". On March 27, 2014, the studio changed the title of the film from "Exodus" to "Exodus: Gods and Kings".


title: Exodus: Gods and Kings

text: Some controversy and criticism arose concerning biblical accuracy of the script and its portrayal. Ridley Scott publicly stated that he would be looking to natural causes for the miracles, including drainage from a tsunami for the parting of the Red Sea. According to Scott, the parting of the Red Sea was caused by a tsunami believed to have been triggered by an underwater earthquake off the Italian coast around 3000 BC. Christian Bale said of Moses, whom he portrayed, "I think the man was likely schizophrenic and was one of the most barbaric individuals that I ever read about in my life." Author Brian Godawa responded, "It's accurate to portray Moses as an imperfect hero, so Christians won't take issue with that, but to be so extreme as to call him one of the most barbaric people in history, that sounds like he's going out of his way to distance himself from the very people you’d think he wants to appeal to." The CEO of Faith-Driven Consumer, Chris Stone, criticized Bale's comments, "There's nothing in the biblical history that supports that. It's an indication that there will be a tremendous disconnect between Bale’s interpretation and the expectations of the market" and suggested that Christians would not go to cinemas to see the film.


title: Exodus: Gods and Kings

text: On March 15, 2013, "Deadline Hollywood" reported Scott wanted Christian Bale to star in the film; in August he confirmed the role to be Moses. On the same day, Joel Edgerton joined the cast to play Ramses and production was set to begin in September. The studio announced the casting calls in Spain's Almería and Pechina for 3,000 to 4,000 extras, and on the island of Fuerteventura for another 1,000 to 2,000 extras. On August 27, Aaron Paul joined the film to play Joshua. Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley, and John Turturro were then still negotiating about joining the cast.