title: Astute-class submarine

text: Input from General Dynamics helped resolve many of the software issues associated with 3D CAD; General Dynamics was also responsible for the introduction of vertical outfitting and other construction techniques. Consequently, much rework was needed on "Astute" now that detailed designs were complete. On 8 June 2007 "Astute" was launched and boats 2 and 3 ("Ambush" and "Artful") were at various stages of construction. A month previously, procurement for boat 4 ("Audacious") had been agreed. Boats 5 and 6 ("Anson" and "Agamemnon") were approved in March 2010. In June 2012 the order was placed for the manufacture of the nuclear reactor for boat 7 ("Agincourt"), as well as production of the first nuclear reactor for the . A £1.4 billion order to construct "Agamemnon" was issued by the MOD to BAE Systems on 19 April 2017


title: Astute-class submarine

text: In November 2009, a House of Commons Defence Select Committee found that delays due to technical and programme issues brought the "Astute" class to a position of being 57 months late and 53 per cent (or £1.35 billion) over-budget, with a forecast cost of £3.9 billion for the first three boats. Boat 4 or HMS "Audacious" handover was delayed from 2019 to 2021 due to "emergent technical issues". In February 2020, James Heappey, parliamentary under secretary of state for defence, confirmed that the in-service date for the final SSN, HMS "Agincourt", had slipped to 2026.


title: Astute-class submarine

text: In September 2021, the Ministry of Defence announced a £170 million investment into design work for the successor to the "Astute"-class. This funding included two £85 million contracts which were awarded to BAE Systems and Rolls Royce. The new class of submarine is expected to replace the "Astute"-class during the 2040s.


title: Astute-class submarine

text: The "Astute" class has stowage for 38 weapons and would typically carry a mix of Spearfish heavy torpedoes and Tomahawk Block IV cruise missiles, the latter costing £870,000 each. The Tomahawk missiles are capable of hitting a target to within a few metres, to a range of . In May 2022, the MOD announced that it would be upgrading these missiles to Block V standard from 2024, which boasts an extended range and modernised in-flight communication and target selection. The Astute Combat Management System is a new version of the Submarine Command System used on other classes of British submarine. The system receives data from the boat's sensors and displays the results on command consoles. The submarines also have Atlas Hydrographic DESO 25 high-precision echosounders, two CM010 non-hull-penetrating optronic masts—in place of conventional periscopes—which carry thermal imaging and low-light TV and colour CCD TV sensors. The class also mounts a Successor IFF system.


title: Astute-class submarine

text: For detecting enemy ships and submarines, the "Astute" class is equipped with the sophisticated Sonar 2076, an integrated passive/active search and attack sonar suite with bow, intercept, flank and towed arrays. BAE claims that the 2076 is the world's best sonar system. All of the Astute-class submarines will be fitted with the advanced Common Combat System.


title: Astute-class submarine

text: The boats of the "Astute" class are powered by a Rolls-Royce PWR2 (Core H) (a pressurised water reactor) and fitted with a pump-jet propulsor. The PWR2 reactor was developed for the "Vanguard"-class ballistic missile submarines and has a 25-year lifespan without the need for refuelling. As a result, the new submarines are about 30 per cent larger than previous British fleet submarines, which were powered by smaller-diameter reactors. Like all Royal Navy submarines, the bridge fin of the "Astute"-class boats is specially reinforced to allow surfacing through ice caps. These submarines can also be fitted with a dry deck shelter, which allows special forces (e.g. SBS) to deploy whilst the submarine is submerged. More than 39,000 acoustic tiles mask the vessel's sonar signature, giving the "Astute" class improved acoustic qualities over any other submarine previously operated by the Royal Navy.


title: Astute-class submarine

text: A 2009 safety assessment by the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator concluded that PWR2 reactor safety was significantly short of good practice in two important areas: loss-of-coolant accident and control of submarine depth following emergency reactor shutdown. The regulator concluded that PWR2 was "potentially vulnerable to a structural failure of the primary circuit", which is a failure mode with significant safety hazards to crew and the public. Operational procedures have been amended to minimise these risks.


title: Astute-class submarine

text: "Astute" is the second Royal Navy submarine class, after the "Vanguard" class, to have a bunk for each member of the ship's company, ending the practice of 'hot bunking', whereby two sailors on opposite watches shared the same bunk at different times. However, they have less mess-deck space than the built 45 years earlier and a Defence Board audit recognised mistakes had been made on accommodation standards and quality of life issues. Since it is nuclear powered, the boat has theoretically unlimited endurance, though in practice it is limited to 90 days at sea based on food carried (including 18,000 sausages and 4,200 Weetabix) and crew endurance.


title: Astute-class submarine

text: In 2012, during the joint exercise Fellowship, "Astute" performed simulated battles with the latest United States Navy , . Royal Navy Commander Iain Breckenridge was quoted, "Our sonar is fantastic and I have never before experienced holding a submarine at the range we were holding USS "New Mexico". The Americans were utterly taken aback, blown away with what they were seeing".


title: Astute-class submarine

text: The "Astute" class are designed to achieve a top speed of , but it was reported in 2012 that this speed could not be reached in trials due to a mismatch between the reactor and the turbine. However, in January 2015, the National Audit Office confirmed that demonstration of the top speed requirement (or Key Performance Measure (KPM)) for the "Astute" class was successful.


title: Astute-class submarine

text: The names "Astute", "Ambush" and "Artful" were last given to submarines that entered service towards the end of World War II. "Audacious", "Anson", "Agamemnon" and "Agincourt" were all names used by battleships that served in the First or Second World Wars.


title: Lamorne Morris

text: Lamorne Morris (born August 14, 1983) is an American actor, comedian and television personality. He is known for roles such as Winston Bishop in the Fox sitcom "New Girl" (2011-2018), Darrin Morris in the National Geographic docudrama "Valley of the Boom" (2019), about the 90s tech boom, and cartoonist Keef Knight in the Hulu comedy "Woke" (2020-2022). He has also had supporting roles in the films "" (2016), "Game Night" (2018)"," "" (2019), and "Yesterday" (2019).


title: Lamorne Morris

text: Morris grew up in the South Side of Chicago. As a teenager he moved to the western suburb of Glen Ellyn, where he attended Glenbard South High School. His mother worked for the United States Postal Service. He also has a brother, Devon. Before he discovered acting, Morris was a class clown who would frequently be sent to detention.


title: Lamorne Morris

text: Morris graduated from the College of DuPage in 2003 where he studied theatre and received the Chris Farley Memorial Acting Scholarship. He also attended the Second City Training Center, and was a member of Second City's Outreach And Diversity Ensemble. While studying at Second City, Morris worked as a server at Ed Debevic's, a retro-themed diner where the servers act rude to the diners.


title: Lamorne Morris

text: Morris appeared in commercials for State Farm Insurance, Taco Bell, Twix, Miller Lite, Las Vegas, 7 Up, Edge, Sears, Microsoft Windows, Chili's, McDonald's, Ford and Hornitos Tequila. In 2019, he became the spokesperson for Canadian based Bank of Montreal and Chicago-based BMO Harris Bank.


title: Lamorne Morris

text: Morris started out as an on-air personality for BET, hosting "HotWyred", an interactive tech and gaming show as well as the daily music and entertainment news show "BET Now" in addition to other appearances. Morris also hosted the game show "BrainRush" on Cartoon Network as part of CN Real.


title: Lamorne Morris

text: Morris's breakthrough came when he was cast as Winston Bishop in the comedy series "New Girl" on Fox (2011–2018). Morris did not appear until the second episode - originally, Damon Wayans Jr. was a member of the cast, in the role of Coach. However, Wayans' other comedy series, "Happy Endings", had already been picked up for a second season on rival network ABC. The producers of "New Girl" initially planned to recast Wayans' role, but later decided not to recast and instead wrote his character out in the second episode. Morris cowrote the season 4 episode "Par 5" and directed the final season episode in which Winston reconnects with his dad, played by J.B. Smoove.


title: Lamorne Morris

text: In November 2018 it was announced that Morris would be starring in a half-hour sitcom, "Woke", based on cartoonist Keith Knight's autobiographical comic strip "The K Chronicles" on Hulu. It ran for two seasons, released in 2020 and 2022, and was canceled in June 2022.


title: Lamorne Morris

text: Morris has also appeared in the films "" (2016), "Game Night" (2018)"," "The Christmas Chronicles" (2018), "" (2019), "Yesterday" (2019), "Bloodshot" (2020) and "Desperados" (2020).


title: Lamorne Morris

text: During the Covid-19 lockdown, Morris co-created and starred in the scripted action-comedy podcast "Unwanted" for QCODE. The 8-episode series revolves around a pair of slackers who attempt to capture an escaped murderer hiding in their town for a million-dollar reward.


title: Lamorne Morris

text: In April 2021, it was announced that Morris would co-star in an Indie horror film titled "Night Shift", alongside Phoebe Tonkin and Madison Hu. The film will be directed by Paul and Benjamin China


title: Lamorne Morris

text: He began cohosting "Welcome to Our Show", a "New Girl" rewatch podcast with co-stars Hannah Simone and Zooey Deschanel, distributed by IHeartRadio, in January 2022. In 2022, he was cast as Witt Farr in the upcoming fifth season of the FX black comedy crime drama anthology series "Fargo".


title: Lamorne Morris

text: Morris is an avid baseball, basketball and bowling fan, supporting the Chicago White Sox and famous professional bowler Pete Weber, and has said that every room in his house has something to do with basketball.


title: Santa Monica Studio

text: Santa Monica Studio is an American video game developer based in Los Angeles. A first-party studio for Sony Interactive Entertainment, it is best known for developing the "God of War" series. The studio was founded in 1999 by Allan Becker and was located in Santa Monica, California, until relocating to Playa Vista in 2014.


title: Santa Monica Studio

text: Santa Monica Studio was founded in 1999 by Allan Becker, a long-time Sony employee who wanted "to break out of the corporate Foster City group" of Sony Computer Entertainment. The studio was established in an office next to the developer Naughty Dog before moving into a brick building in the suburbs of Santa Monica, California. The building at Penn Station would be occupied for fifteen years. For its first game, the racing title "Kinetica", Santa Monica Studio decided to skip the PlayStation console and built the game for the console's then-upcoming successor, the PlayStation 2, instead. A game engine was developed "to give the [PlayStation 2] some legs" for "Kinetica" and future releases. While the game was developed during the studio's team building phase, producer Shannon Studstill focused on the game's release to prove to Sony that Santa Monica Studio was capable of delivering a product on schedule and within budget. "Kinetica" was released on time in 2001, with the studio staying under the allocated budget. After publication, Santa Monica Studio shifted to its next project, "God of War", while re-using the engine from "Kinetica".


title: Santa Monica Studio

text: The External Development group, a department within Santa Monica Studio separate from internal development teams, acts as both a video game publisher and business incubator for indie game studios, notably Thatgamecompany and its game "Journey." Other incubated teams include Broodworks, Eat Sleep Play, Fun Bits, Giant Sparrow, Incognito Entertainment, Q-Games, and Ready at Dawn. Becker left Santa Monica Studio in 2011. By March 2012, Becker had joined Sony's Japan Studio, while Shannon became Santa Monica Studio's "Senior Director of Product Development". In January 2014, Santa Monica Studio announced that it would move from their Penn Station offices to The Reserve, a 20-acre facility on Jefferson Boulevard in Playa Vista, Los Angeles. The of office space were "four or five times the size" of their previous Santa Monica office, according to Studstill. At the time, the studio employed roughly 240 people. An undisclosed numbers of staffers were laid off in February that year due to the cancelation of a new intellectual property, including Stig Asmussen, who headed the canceled project. The studio relocation was completed on July 22, 2014, coupled with a new logo, dubbed SMS "Vanguard".


title: Santa Monica Studio

text: In March 2020, Studstill left Santa Monica Studio to lead a new development studio under Stadia. Subsequently, a long-time employee and previous director of product development for Santa Monica Studio, Yumi Yang, was installed as the developer's studio head.


title: Musical.ly

text: Musical.ly (pronounced "musically"; stylized as musical.ly) was a Chinese social media service headquartered in Shanghai with an American office in Santa Monica, California, on which platform users created and shared short lip-sync videos. The first prototype was released in April 2014, and the official version was launched in August of that year. Through the app, users could create 15-second to 1-minute lip-syncing music videos and choose sound tracks to accompany them, use different speed options (time-lapse, fast, normal, slow motion, and epic) and add pre-set filters and effects. The app also allowed users to browse popular "musers", content, trending songs, sounds and hashtags, and uniquely interact with their fans.


title: Musical.ly

text: In June 2016, Musical.ly had over 90 million registered users, up from 10 million a year earlier. By the end of May 2017, the app had reached over 200 million users.


title: Musical.ly

text: ByteDance Ltd. acquired Musical.ly Inc. on November 10, 2017, and merged it into TikTok on August 2, 2018. At the same time, Musical.ly Inc. changed its name to TikTok Inc.


title: Musical.ly

text: Musical.ly Inc. was founded by long time friends Alex Zhu and Luyu Yang in Shanghai, China. Before launching Musical.ly, Zhu and Yang teamed up to build an education social network app, through which users could both teach and learn different subjects through short-form videos (3–5 minutes long). After having investors fund this venture, it took them about 6 months to build the product. However, once launched, this online self-learning platform did not get enough traction and the content produced was not engaging enough. They were unable to secure further investment, and after losing traction, they shut the service down. Zhu & Yang then began searching for a new business model in the consumer, social, and multimedia space. It led to them focusing on video content again, this time shorter (15s - 60s), which they thought would help keep the content light and playful. They let users select music snippets for their videos, which helped build a very small user base. Eventually the product pivoted to lip sync snippets after noticing a spike in downloads Thursday evenings during Lip Sync Battle.


title: Musical.ly

text: music videos were not very widely popular before, and the fundamental reason was that although people are willing to watch short videos, the supply was small, as there were too few people who were willing to shoot and share. Therefore, Musical.ly's entry point was to introduce a large amount of music, so that everyone can easily integrate music into the video, and a less fun video will become more fun. The first version of Musical.ly was officially launched in August 2014.


title: Musical.ly

text: At the beginning, the team launched the app in both the Chinese and American markets. However, compared to the domestic market's tepid reaction, their app was particularly popular in the American teenager market. As their team size was small, they decided to mainly focus on the U.S. market. The product quickly accumulated a group of loyal users, and although the total number of the users continued to be not very large, the activity level of the users was very high.


title: Musical.ly

text: In July 2015, the app began to attract millions of users, allowing "musers" (Musical.ly users) to lip-sync to millions of songs. Musical.ly climbed up to the number 1 position in the iOS App Store, becoming the most-downloaded free app in over 30 countries, including the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Brazil, the Philippines and Japan. In May 2016, Musical.ly reached 70 million downloads, with over 10 million new videos posted every day.


title: Musical.ly

text: In June 2016, Coca-Cola launched its #ShareACoke campaign on Musical.ly, which introduced Musical.ly's "User-Generated Ads" model. On July 24, 2016, during VidCon, Musical.ly officially launched Live.ly, its new live video streaming platform. On Live.ly, users could live-stream to their Musical.ly fans.


title: Musical.ly

text: On November 9, 2017, the "Wall Street Journal" reported that Musical.ly Inc had been sold to Bytedance Technology Co., which operates the program Toutiao, for as much as US$1 billion. However, Recode estimated that the sale would be for around US$800 million. On August 2, 2018, Bytedance consolidated the user accounts of Musical.ly and TikTok, merging the two apps into one and keeping the title TikTok. Users could still produce videos between 15 seconds and one minute, but could now access a larger number of filters and effects, as well as smoother editing and publishing systems and higher-quality code.


title: Musical.ly

text: Musical.ly users could record videos of 15-seconds to 1-minute in one or multiple shots, lip-syncing to sounds or comedy. The platform also enabled editing, through 14 pre-set filters and effects that allow a change in speed or reversing the motion of the recording. Additionally, Musical.ly also had a feature to create shorter videos, named "live moments", which were essentially GIFs with music. Users could "remuse" (reuse) sounds created by other users, which instills a new level of engagement with the content. Other ways in which users could interact with each other were through features such as "Ask a Question" and "Duet". In this regard, Musical.ly had an option called "Best Fan Forever", through which users can select certain followers who can participate in duets with them. Users could also send private messages to their friends using the direct.ly feature.


title: Musical.ly

text: Musical.ly had a sister app called Live.ly (stylized "live.ly", in which users could live-stream to their Musical.ly followers. On Live.ly, one could buy coins to send gifts to favorite creators, which equal real currency. There was also a collaborate option on Live.ly, meaning one could go live with a friend, guest fans to talk to them, and more.


title: Musical.ly

text: Musical.ly's structure allowed the viral dissemination of trends throughout the platform. The hashtags that were popular on this social network usually make reference to bits of pop culture and trends among the internet world. Because of its massive usage, a lot of events launched within the app could become viral global events, especially among teenagers. One of the most notable campaigns launched by Musical.ly was the "Don't Judge Challenge", which became widespread on the platform, as millions of teenagers around the world participated.


title: Musical.ly

text: On January 28, 2016, "Business Insider" released a survey, in which "10 of the 60 [interviewed teenagers] listed Musical.ly as the app they were most excited about."


title: Musical.ly

text: Active users with higher rates of popularity were assigned crowns by Musical.ly, which was the app's verification symbol. Some users of the platform gained great traction and a huge following not only within Musical.ly, but also outside it as well. Baby Ariel, also known as Ariel Martin who, in May 2017, had 19 million followers on Musical.ly alone, is one of several users who gained major media attention through Musical.ly. In April 2016, she was interviewed live on "Good Morning America". Mackenzie Ziegler and Maddie Ziegler became more famous on Musical.ly when they finished "Dance Moms". Jacob Sartorius, who later became a social media influencer, promoted his first single "Sweatshirt" on Musical.ly, after which the song reached number 10 on the iTunes Store. In June 2016, it was reported that Sartorius had signed with United Talent Agency. Loren Gray also started on Musical.ly and was at one point the most-followed individual on the platform after it became TikTok. Loren Gray was also the first person to reach 40 million followers on the platform. Lisa and Lena started on Musical.ly and reached 32.7 million followers by the end of March 2019. They later deleted their account due to the "unfun" vibes of the app. They created a new TikTok page on May 7, 2020, and, as of March 2021, have over 12 million followers.


title: Musical.ly

text: In June 2016, Musical.ly signed its first major label deal with Warner Music Group, allowing its music to be licensed for use on the Musical.ly platform and the app users to interact with WMG's artists and songs. Besides continuing to work with the UK-based 7digital, Musical.ly also teamed up with Apple Music in April 2017 permitting users to sign up to the streaming service to listen to full songs and cut out a fifteen-second segment of the songs for lip-syncing on the Musical.ly platform.


title: Wendy Moniz

text: Wendy Moniz (born January 19, 1969) is an American television actress. Her roles include Dinah Marler in the CBS soap opera "Guiding Light", as Rachel McCabe in "Nash Bridges", and as Louisa Archer in "The Guardian". From 2013 to 2014, Moniz starred as Elaine McAllister in ABC drama series "Betrayal". Moniz later had recurring roles as Laura Moretti in "House of Cards" (2015–2016), and as Governor Lynelle Perry in "Yellowstone" (2018–present).


title: Wendy Moniz

text: Moniz made her television debut in the CBS daytime soap opera "Guiding Light" as Dinah Marler. She starred as a series regular from 1995 to 1999, and was nominated for two "Soap Opera Digest" Awards. Moniz later returned as a guest star in 2000 and 2002.


title: Wendy Moniz

text: In 1999, Moniz landed a role in the primetime CBS drama pilot "Partners". In the same year, she starred as the female lead in the critically acclaimed television film adaptation of Mitch Albom's book "Tuesdays with Morrie". She later was a series regular in the short-lived NBC comedy series "Battery Park" opposite Elizabeth Perkins. In fall of 2000, Moniz was cast as a series regular in the role of Rachel McCabe in the sixth and final season of the CBS series "Nash Bridges". She later starred as Louisa "Lulu" Archer on the CBS series "The Guardian" opposite Simon Baker. The series aired from 2001 to 2004. Moniz guest starred in an episode of the NBC legal drama "Law & Order" in 2005, and had a recurring role as Stacey Walker in the ABC short-lived comedy-drama "Big Shots" in 2007. She later appeared as Jill Burnham on the FX series "Damages" from 2009 to 2010. In 2010 she was cast as Tom Selleck's love interest in the CBS police drama "Blue Bloods", but the role was recast with Andrea Roth. She later appeared in the recurring role of Llanview Mayor Finn - who succeeds the exiting Mayor "Dorian Lord" on the ABC daytime soap opera "One Life to Live" in 2011. She also appeared in the ABC series "666 Park Avenue" in 2012.


title: Wendy Moniz

text: In March 2013, Moniz was cast opposite Stuart Townsend, James Cromwell and Hannah Ware of the ABC drama series "Betrayal" directed by Patty Jenkins and based on the Dutch drama series "Overspel". In 2014, Moniz was cast as lead in the independent drama film "The Grief of Others" directed by Patrick Wang. She later has appeared in Netflix series "Daredevil" and "House of Cards". In 2016, she was cast in a recurring role as a love interest for her real-life husband, Frank Grillo, in the DirecTV drama "Kingdom". Since 2018, she has played Governor Lynelle Perry in the Paramount Network drama series "Yellowstone". She was promoted to series regular for fifth season.


title: Wendy Moniz

text: Moniz, of Portuguese and Irish descent, was born in Kansas City, Missouri. She attended Siena College in Loudonville, New York in 1991. She married David Birsner in 1991, but the couple divorced without issue in 1996. She married her former "Guiding Light" co-star, Frank Grillo in October 2000, and separated from him in February 2020 and finalised their divorce in September 2020. The couple has two sons.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: John Cameron Mitchell (born April 21, 1963) is a two-time Tony Award winning American actor, playwright, screenwriter, singer, songwriter, producer and director. He is best known as the writer, director and star of the 2001 film "Hedwig and the Angry Inch", which is based on the musical of the same name that he wrote the book for. He also portrayed the role of Joe Exotic in the Peacock limited series "Joe vs. Carole" in 2022.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: Mitchell was born in El Paso, Texas and was raised on a variety of military bases in Kansas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Germany. His father, John Henderson Mitchell, was a U.S. Army major general and the U.S. Commander of West Berlin from 1984 to 1988. His mother, Joan Cameron Mitchell, a native of Glasgow, Scotland, immigrated to the United States at a young age to become an art teacher. He had an older brother who died at birth and three younger brothers: Christopher Lloyd, Colin Mackenzie, and Samuel Latham, the last of whom died in 1977 when Mitchell was in eighth grade. He was raised devoutly Roman Catholic and he attended Catholic schools in both Scotland and the U.S., including St. Xavier High School in Junction City, Kansas, and St. Pius X High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, graduating from the latter in 1981. Mitchell's first stage role was as the Virgin Mary in a Nativity musical staged at a Scottish Benedictine boys' boarding school when Mitchell was 11-years-old. He studied theater at Northwestern University from 1981 to 1985, but did not graduate.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: Mitchell's first professional stage role was Huckleberry Finn in a 1985 Organic Theater adaptation at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. His first New York acting role was Huck Finn in the Broadway musical "Big River" (1985). He originated the role of Dickon on Broadway in "The Secret Garden", and appeared in the original cast of the off-Broadway musical "Hello Again". He received Drama Desk nominations for both roles, and can be heard on the original cast recordings for each.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: He appeared in the original cast of John Guare's "Six Degrees of Separation" (both off- and on-Broadway), and starred in Larry Kramer's off-Broadway sequel to "The Normal Heart", "The Destiny of Me", for which he received an Obie Award and a Drama Desk nomination.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: Mitchell's early television work includes guest-starring roles in "Daybreak", "MacGyver", "Head of the Class", "Law & Order", "The New Twilight Zone", "Freddy's Nightmares", "The Equalizer", "Our House", "", and "The Stepford Children". He was a regular cast member on the 1996 Fox sitcom "Party Girl", and was the long-running voice of Sydney, the animated kangaroo mascot of Dunkaroos snack cookies.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: Starring and co-starring film roles include a homicidal new waver in "Band of the Hand" (1986), a Polish immigrant violinist in "Misplaced" (1990), and a teen Lothario poet in "Book of Love" (1990). Mitchell had a single line ("Delivery!") in Spike Lee's "Girl Six" (1996) as a man auditioning for a pornographic film.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: Mitchell is a founding member of the Drama Department Theater Company, for which he adapted and directed Tennessee Williams' "Kingdom of Earth" starring Cynthia Nixon and Peter Sarsgaard.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: In 1998, Mitchell wrote (along with composer Stephen Trask) and starred in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch", an Obie Award-winning off-Broadway rock musical about a genderqueer East German rock musician chasing after an ex-lover who plagiarized her songs.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: Three years later, he directed and starred in the feature-film version of the play, for which he won Best Director at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Mitchell’s performance was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy. Both the play and the film were critical hits and have spawned cult followings around the world.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: The 2014 Broadway production of "Hedwig" starred Neil Patrick Harris and Lena Hall, was directed by Michael Mayer, and won four Tony Awards, including Best Actor in a Musical (Harris), Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Hall), and Best Revival of a Musical. Mitchell reprised his performance in the role of Hedwig on Broadway for a limited run in early 2015, opposite Lena Hall as Yitzhak. He received a 2015 Special Tony Award for his return to the role.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: After the success of "Hedwig", Mitchell expressed an interest in writing, directing, and producing a film that incorporated explicit sex in a naturalistic and thoughtful way, without using "stars". After three years of talent searches, improvisation workshops, and production, "Shortbus" premiered in May 2006 at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. The film garnered many awards, at venues such as the Athens, Gijon, and Zurich International Film Festivals.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: He directed the 2010 film "Rabbit Hole", starring Nicole Kidman (in an Oscar-nominated performance) and Aaron Eckhart, adapted from David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name about a couple dealing with the loss of their four-year-old son. Mitchell became interested in directing the project out of a personal connection to the story, having dealt with the death of his four-year-old brother as a teenager. The film debuted at the Toronto Film Festival.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: Mitchell was the executive producer of the 2004 film "Tarnation", a documentary about the life of Jonathan Caouette, whom he met when the latter auditioned for "Shortbus". "Tarnation" won 2004 Best Documentary from the National Society of Film Critics, the Independent Spirit Awards and the Gotham Awards. He directed videos for Bright Eyes' "First Day of My Life" (featuring "Secret Garden" co-star Alison Fraser) and the Scissor Sisters' "Filthy/Gorgeous"; the latter was banned from MTV Europe for its explicitly sexual content. In 2012, Mitchell wrote and produced a narrative short film for Sigur Rós titled "Seraph", directed by animator Dash Shaw.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: Mitchell has appeared as a pundit on "Politically Incorrect" and various VH1 and Independent Film Channel programs. He introduced films on a show called "Escape From Hollywood" on IFC for two years. He wrote and directed a number of short films and commercials for Dior including "Lady Grey London" and "L.A.dy Dior" both starring Marion Cotillard and "Dior Homme Sport", starring Jude Law. In 2013, He wrote and directed a fashion video for Agent Provocateur entitled "Insurrection".


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: In 2016, Mitchell appeared on Amanda Palmer and Jherek Bischoff's tribute album to late musician David Bowie, "Amanda Palmer and Jherek Bischoff: Strung Out In Heaven (A David Bowie Tribute)."He contributed vocals to English and German covers of Bowie's song, Heroes.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: Mitchell appeared as a recurring character, e-book editor David Pressler-Goings, on the 2013 and 2014 seasons of HBO series "Girls", and as Andy Warhol in the 2016 season of HBO's "Vinyl". Mitchell appeared in the 2016 documentary "Danny Says" alongside Danny Fields, Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop. He has recurred as a character based on Milo Yiannopoulos on CBS All Access's "The Good Fight" opposite Christine Baranski and as the character of Egon in Season 4 of Amazon Studios' "Mozart in the Jungle" opposite Gael García Bernal. In 2014, he directed an unaired pilot of Showtime series "Happyish" starring Philip Seymour Hoffman in his last role. John's film "How to Talk to Girls at Parties", a screen adaptation of Neil Gaiman's punk-era short story of the same title starring Elle Fanning, Alex Sharp, and Nicole Kidman was released by A24 in spring 2018. He directed (with co-director Mark A. Burkley) Netflix's "GLOW" Season 2 episode "Mother of All Matches" which was deemed Number One of "The best TV episodes of 2018" by Entertainment Weekly.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: Mitchell was a series cast member in Hulu's "Shrill", which stars Aidy Bryant and is based on Lindy West's memoir of the same title. He has recently toured "The Origin of Love: The Songs and Stories of Hedwig" featuring the songs of Stephen Trask and in 2019 released his latest musical, co-written with Bryan Weller, as a fictional podcast series entitled "" starring himself, Glenn Close, Patti Lupone, Cynthia Erivo, Denis O'Hare, Nakhane, Laurie Anderson, Alan Mandell, Marion Cotillard, Ben Foster, and Madeline Brewer presented by the Luminary Podcast Network. He is a regular cast member on the podcast "The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air)", which is published by Night Vale Presents. In 2019, John and Portland band Eyelids recorded "Turning Time Around," an album of Lou Reed covers produced by REM's Peter Buck and released by Jealous Butcher Records as a benefit for Mitchell's mother's Alzheimer's care.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: Mitchell's "distance-defying, community-built benefit album" "New American Dream" was released September 4, 2020 including collaborations with Ezra Furman, Alynda Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff, Stephen Trask, Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu, Wynton Marsalis, Jeremiah Lloyd Harmon, Catherine Russell and Leland benefitting a COVID food bank, a trans justice group and the Dr. MLK Scholarship Trust Fund.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: In 2022, he played Joe Exotic in Peacock's streaming series adaptation of the Wondery podcast series "Joe vs. Carole". John cowrote and sang a song from the point of view of the character, "Call Me Joe," featuring Nat Wolff as Joe's husband Travis Maldonado. That same year he appeared in the Netflix adaptation of "The Sandman" as Hal Carter, a B&B host and drag queen.


title: John Cameron Mitchell

text: In 1985, at the age of 22, Mitchell came out as gay to his family and friends. He came out publicly in a 1992 "New York Times" profile. His subsequent writing has often explored sexuality and gender. He is a Radical Faerie. Mitchell's experiences with the group influenced the making of "Shortbus". Along with "Shortbus" stars PJ DeBoy and Paul Dawson and performance artists Amber Martin and Angela Di Carlo, he is a co-founder and DJ of the long-running New York City monthly party "Mattachine," named after the early American gay rights organization Mattachine Society. In 2022, he came out as non-binary. Mitchell explained in an interview that as well as coming out as nonbinary he continues to use he/him pronouns.


title: Abstract art

text: Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world.


title: Abstract art

text: Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality. By the end of the 19th century many artists felt a need to create a new kind of art which would encompass the fundamental changes taking place in technology, science and philosophy. The sources from which individual artists drew their theoretical arguments were diverse, and reflected the social and intellectual preoccupations in all areas of Western culture at that time.


title: Abstract art

text: Abstract art, non-figurative art, non-objective art, and non-representational art are all closely related terms. They have similar, but perhaps not identical, meanings.


title: Abstract art

text: Abstraction indicates a departure from reality in depiction of imagery in art. This departure from accurate representation can be slight, partial, or complete. Abstraction exists along a continuum. Even art that aims for verisimilitude of the highest degree can be said to be abstract, at least theoretically, since perfect representation is impossible. Artwork which takes liberties, e.g. altering color or form in ways that are conspicuous, can be said to be partially abstract. Total abstraction bears no trace of any reference to anything recognizable. In geometric abstraction, for instance, one is unlikely to find references to naturalistic entities. Figurative art and total abstraction are almost mutually exclusive. But figurative and representational (or realistic) art often contain partial abstraction.


title: Abstract art

text: Both geometric abstraction and lyrical abstraction are often totally abstract. Among the very numerous art movements that embody partial abstraction would be for instance fauvism in which color is conspicuously and deliberately altered vis-a-vis reality, and cubism, which alters the forms of the real-life entities depicted.


title: Abstract art

text: Much of the art of earlier cultures – signs and marks on pottery, textiles, and inscriptions and paintings on rock – used simple, geometric and linear forms which might have had a symbolic or decorative purpose. It is at this level of visual meaning that abstract art communicates. One can enjoy the beauty of Chinese calligraphy or Islamic calligraphy without being able to read it.


title: Abstract art

text: Islam's sometimes negative view of figurative art has led to the proliferation of complex non-figurative artistic expression across the Islamic world. Non-figurative Islamic art is nearly as old as Islam itself, and some of the oldest examples of it can be found on such early buildings as the Dome of the Rock. While Islamic art may have reservations about painting humans and animals, it does not, however, feel the same about plants and inanimate objects.


title: Abstract art

text: Islamic art traditionally revolves around calligraphy, tessellating geometric patterns, and vegetal motifs called arabesques. These elements can be found in all Islamic applied arts, including architecture, rugmaking, pottery, glassmaking, and metalwork, as well as decorating the borders of otherwise figurative paintings.


title: Abstract art

text: As a result of the extensive dialogue between the Christian and Islamic world brought about by the Crusades, Islamic patterns and techniques would also come to be applied to European decorative arts, especially in Italy and Spain. Prominent examples include Spanish Mudéjar art and Venetian Gothic architecture.


title: Abstract art

text: In Chinese painting, abstraction can be traced to the Tang dynasty painter Wang Mo (王墨), who is credited to have invented the splashed-ink painting style. While none of his paintings remain, this style is clearly seen in some Song Dynasty Paintings. The Chan buddhist painter Liang Kai (梁楷, c. 1140–1210) applied the style to figure painting in his "Immortal in splashed ink" in which accurate representation is sacrificed to enhance spontaneity linked to the non-rational mind of the enlightened. A late Song painter named Yu Jian, adept to Tiantai buddhism, created a series of splashed ink landscapes that eventually inspired many Japanese Zen painters. His paintings show heavily misty mountains in which the shapes of the objects are barely visible and extremely simplified. This type of painting was continued by Sesshu Toyo in his later years.


title: Abstract art

text: Another instance of abstraction in Chinese painting is seen in Zhu Derun's "Cosmic Circle". On the left side of this painting is a pine tree in rocky soil, its branches laced with vines that extend in a disorderly manner to the right side of the painting in which a perfect circle (probably made with help of a compass) floats in the void. The painting is a reflection of the Daoist metaphysics in which chaos and reality are complementary stages of the regular course of nature.


title: Abstract art

text: In Tokugawa Japan, some Zen monk-painters created Enso, a circle who represents the absolute enlightenment. Usually made in one spontaneous brush stroke, it became the paradigm of the minimalist aesthetic that guided part of the Zen painting.


title: Abstract art

text: Patronage from the church diminished and private patronage from the public became more capable of providing a livelihood for artists. Three art movements which contributed to the development of abstract art were Romanticism, Impressionism and Expressionism. Artistic independence for artists was advanced during the 19th century. An "objective interest in what is seen", can be discerned from the paintings of John Constable, J M W Turner, Camille Corot and from them to the Impressionists who continued the "plein air" painting of the Barbizon school.


title: Abstract art

text: Early intimations of a new art had been made by James McNeill Whistler who, in his painting "", (1872), placed greater emphasis on visual sensation than the depiction of objects. Even earlier than that, with her 'spirit' drawings, Georgiana Houghton's choice to work with abstract shapes correlate with the unnatural nature of her subject, in a time when abstraction” isn't yet a concept (she organized an exhibit in 1871).


title: Abstract art

text: Expressionist painters explored the bold use of paint surface, drawing distortions and exaggerations, and intense color. Expressionists produced emotionally charged paintings that were reactions to and perceptions of contemporary experience; and reactions to Impressionism and other more conservative directions of late 19th-century painting. The Expressionists drastically changed the emphasis on subject matter in favor of the portrayal of psychological states of being. Although artists like Edvard Munch and James Ensor drew influences principally from the work of the Post-Impressionists they were instrumental to the advent of abstraction in the 20th century.


title: Abstract art

text: Paul Cézanne had begun as an Impressionist but his aim – to make a logical construction of reality based on a view from a single point, with modulated color in flat areas – became the basis of a new visual art, later to be developed into Cubism.


title: Abstract art

text: Additionally in the late 19th century in Eastern Europe mysticism and early modernist religious philosophy as expressed by theosophist Mme. Blavatsky had a profound impact on pioneer geometric artists like Hilma af Klint and Wassily Kandinsky. The mystical teaching of Georges Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky also had an important influence on the early formations of the geometric abstract styles of Piet Mondrian and his colleagues in the early 20th century. The spiritualism also inspired the abstract art of Kasimir Malevich and František Kupka.


title: Abstract art

text: At the beginning of the 20th century Henri Matisse and several other young artists including the pre-cubist Georges Braque, André Derain, Raoul Dufy and Jean Metzinger revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild", multi-colored, expressive landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called Fauvism. The raw language of color as developed by the Fauves directly influenced another pioneer of abstraction, Wassily Kandinsky.


title: Abstract art

text: Cubism, based on Cézanne's idea that all depiction of nature can be reduced to cube, sphere and cone became, along with Fauvism, the art movement that directly opened the door to abstraction in the early 20th century.


title: Abstract art

text: During the 1912 Salon de la Section d'Or, where František Kupka exhibited his abstract painting "Amorpha, Fugue en deux couleurs" ("Fugue in Two Colors") (1912), the poet Guillaume Apollinaire named the work of several artists including Robert Delaunay, Orphism. He defined it as, "the art of painting new structures out of elements that have not been borrowed from the visual sphere, but had been created entirely by the artist...it is a pure art."


title: Abstract art

text: Since the turn of the century, cultural connections between artists of the major European cities had become extremely active as they strove to create an art form equal to the high aspirations of modernism. Ideas were able to cross-fertilize by means of artist's books, exhibitions and manifestos so that many sources were open to experimentation and discussion, and formed a basis for a diversity of modes of abstraction. The following extract from "The World Backwards" gives some impression of the inter-connectedness of culture at the time: "David Burliuk's knowledge of modern art movements must have been extremely up-to-date, for the second Knave of Diamonds exhibition, held in January 1912 (in Moscow) included not only paintings sent from Munich, but some members of the German Die Brücke group, while from Paris came work by Robert Delaunay, Henri Matisse and Fernand Léger, as well as Picasso. During the Spring David Burliuk gave two lectures on cubism and planned a polemical publication, which the Knave of Diamonds was to finance. He went abroad in May and came back determined to rival the almanac "Der Blaue Reiter" which had emerged from the printers while he was in Germany".


title: Abstract art

text: From 1909 to 1913 many experimental works in the search for this 'pure art' had been created by a number of artists: Francis Picabia painted "Caoutchouc", c. 1909, "The Spring", 1912, "Dances at the Spring" and "The Procession, Seville", 1912; Wassily Kandinsky painted "Untitled (First Abstract Watercolor)", 1913, "Improvisation 21A", the "Impression" series, and "Picture with a Circle" (1911); František Kupka had painted the Orphist works, "Discs of Newton" (Study for "Fugue in Two Colors"), 1912 and "Amorpha, Fugue en deux couleurs" ("Fugue in Two Colors"), 1912; Robert Delaunay painted a series entitled "Simultaneous Windows" and "Formes Circulaires, Soleil n°2" (1912–13); Léopold Survage created "Colored Rhythm" (Study for the film), 1913; Piet Mondrian, painted "Tableau No. 1" and "Composition No. 11", 1913.


title: Abstract art

text: With his expressive use of color and his free and imaginative drawing Henri Matisse comes very close to pure abstraction in "French Window at Collioure" (1914), "View of Notre-Dame" (1914), and "The Yellow Curtain" from 1915.


title: Abstract art

text: And the search continued: The Rayist (Luchizm) drawings of Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov, used lines like rays of light to make a construction. Kasimir Malevich completed his first entirely abstract work, the Suprematist, "Black Square", in 1915. Another of the Suprematist group' Liubov Popova, created the Architectonic Constructions and Spatial Force Constructions between 1916 and 1921. Piet Mondrian was evolving his abstract language, of horizontal and vertical lines with rectangles of color, between 1915 and 1919, Neo-Plasticism was the aesthetic which Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg and other in the group De Stijl intended to reshape the environment of the future.


title: Abstract art

text: Many of the abstract artists in Russia became Constructivists believing that art was no longer something remote, but life itself. The artist must become a technician, learning to use the tools and materials of modern production. "Art into life!" was Vladimir Tatlin's slogan, and that of all the future Constructivists. Varvara Stepanova and Alexandre Exter and others abandoned easel painting and diverted their energies to theatre design and graphic works.


title: Abstract art

text: On the other side stood Kazimir Malevich, Anton Pevsner and Naum Gabo. They argued that art was essentially a spiritual activity; to create the individual's place in the world, not to organize life in a practical, materialistic sense. Many of those who were hostile to the materialist production idea of art left Russia. Anton Pevsner went to France, Gabo went first to Berlin, then to England and finally to America. Kandinsky studied in Moscow then left for the Bauhaus. By the mid-1920s the revolutionary period (1917 to 1921) when artists had been free to experiment was over; and by the 1930s only socialist realism was allowed.


title: Abstract art

text: As visual art becomes more abstract, it develops some characteristics of music: an art form which uses the abstract elements of sound and divisions of time. Wassily Kandinsky, himself an amateur musician, was inspired by the possibility of marks and associative color "resounding in the soul." The idea had been put forward by Charles Baudelaire, that all our senses respond to various stimuli but the senses are connected at a deeper aesthetic level.


title: Abstract art

text: Closely related to this, is the idea that art has "The spiritual dimension" and can transcend 'every-day' experience, reaching a spiritual plane. The Theosophical Society popularized the ancient wisdom of the sacred books of India and China in the early years of the century. It was in this context that Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky, Hilma af Klint and other artists working towards an 'objectless state' became interested in the occult as a way of creating an 'inner' object.


title: Abstract art

text: The universal and timeless shapes found in geometry: the circle, square and triangle become the spatial elements in abstract art; they are, like color, fundamental systems underlying visible reality.


title: Abstract art

text: The Bauhaus at Weimar, Germany was founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius. The philosophy underlying the teaching program was unity of all the visual and plastic arts from architecture and painting to weaving and stained glass. This philosophy had grown from the ideas of the Arts and Crafts movement in England and the Deutscher Werkbund. Among the teachers were Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Johannes Itten, Josef Albers, Anni Albers, and László Moholy-Nagy. In 1925 the school was moved to Dessau and, as the Nazi party gained control in 1932, The Bauhaus was closed. In 1937 an exhibition of degenerate art, 'Entartete Kunst' contained all types of avant-garde art disapproved of by the Nazi party. Then the exodus began: not just from the Bauhaus but from Europe in general; to Paris, London and America. Paul Klee went to Switzerland but many of the artists at the Bauhaus went to America.


title: Abstract art

text: During the 1930s Paris became the host to artists from Russia, Germany, the Netherlands and other European countries affected by the rise of totalitarianism. Sophie Tauber and Jean Arp collaborated on paintings and sculpture using organic/geometric forms. The Polish Katarzyna Kobro applied mathematically based ideas to sculpture. The many types of abstraction now in close proximity led to attempts by artists to analyse the various conceptual and aesthetic groupings. An exhibition by forty-six members of the Cercle et Carré group organized by Joaquín Torres-García assisted by Michel Seuphor contained work by the Neo-Plasticists as well as abstractionists as varied as Kandinsky, Anton Pevsner and Kurt Schwitters. Criticized by Theo van Doesburg to be too indefinite a collection he published the journal "Art Concret" setting out a manifesto defining an abstract art in which the line, color and surface only, are the concrete reality. Abstraction-Création founded in 1931 as a more open group, provided a point of reference for abstract artists, as the political situation worsened in 1935, and artists again regrouped, many in London. The first exhibition of British abstract art was held in England in 1935. The following year the more international "Abstract and Concrete" exhibition was organized by Nicolete Gray including work by Piet Mondrian, Joan Miró, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. Hepworth, Nicholson and Gabo moved to the St. Ives group in Cornwall to continue their 'constructivist' work.


title: Abstract art

text: During the Nazi rise to power in the 1930s many artists fled Europe to the United States. By the early 1940s the main movements in modern art, expressionism, cubism, abstraction, surrealism, and dada were represented in New York: Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger, Piet Mondrian, Jacques Lipchitz, André Masson, Max Ernst, and André Breton, were just a few of the exiled Europeans who arrived in New York. The rich cultural influences brought by the European artists were distilled and built upon by local New York painters. The climate of freedom in New York allowed all of these influences to flourish. The art galleries that primarily had focused on European art began to notice the local art community and the work of younger American artists who had begun to mature. Certain artists at this time became distinctly abstract in their mature work. During this period Piet Mondrian's painting "Composition No. 10", 1939–1942, characterized by primary colors, white ground and black grid lines clearly defined his radical but classical approach to the rectangle and abstract art in general.


title: Abstract art

text: Some artists of the period defied categorization, such as Georgia O'Keeffe who, while a modernist abstractionist, was a pure maverick in that she painted highly abstract forms while not joining any specific group of the period.


title: Abstract art

text: Eventually American artists who were working in a great diversity of styles began to coalesce into cohesive stylistic groups. The best-known group of American artists became known as the Abstract expressionists and the New York School. In New York City there was an atmosphere which encouraged discussion and there was a new opportunity for learning and growing. Artists and teachers John D. Graham and Hans Hofmann became important bridge figures between the newly arrived European Modernists and the younger American artists coming of age. Mark Rothko, born in Russia, began with strongly surrealist imagery which later dissolved into his powerful color compositions of the early 1950s. The expressionistic gesture and the act of painting itself, became of primary importance to Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, and Franz Kline. While during the 1940s Arshile Gorky's and Willem de Kooning's figurative work evolved into abstraction by the end of the decade. New York City became the center, and artists worldwide gravitated towards it; from other places in America as well.


title: Abstract art

text: Digital art, hard-edge painting, geometric abstraction, minimalism, lyrical abstraction, op art, abstract expressionism, color field painting, monochrome painting, assemblage, neo-Dada, shaped canvas painting, are a few directions relating to abstraction in the second half of the 20th century.


title: Abstract art

text: In the United States, "Art as Object" as seen in the Minimalist sculpture of Donald Judd and the paintings of Frank Stella are seen today as newer permutations. Other examples include Lyrical Abstraction and the sensuous use of color seen in the work of painters as diverse as Robert Motherwell, Patrick Heron, Kenneth Noland, Sam Francis, Cy Twombly, Richard Diebenkorn, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell.


title: Abstract art

text: One socio-historical explanation that has been offered for the growing prevalence of the abstract in modern art – an explanation linked to the name of Theodor W. Adorno – is that such abstraction is a response to, and a reflection of, the growing abstraction of social relations in industrial society.


title: Abstract art

text: Frederic Jameson similarly sees modernist abstraction as a function of the abstract power of money, equating all things equally as exchange-values. The social "content" of abstract art is then precisely the abstract nature of social existence – legal formalities, bureaucratic impersonalization, information/power – in the world of late modernity.


title: Abstract art

text: Post-Jungians by contrast would see the quantum theories with their disintegration of conventional ideas of form and matter as underlying the divorce of the concrete and the abstract in modern art.


title: Amazon Studios

text: Amazon Studios is an American television and film producer and distributor that is a subsidiary of Amazon. It specializes in developing television series and distributing and producing films. It was started in late 2010. Content is distributed through theaters and Amazon Prime Video, Amazon's digital video streaming service, whose competitors include Netflix and Hulu, among others.


title: Amazon Studios

text: Scripts for television and films used to be submitted online to Amazon and read by staff; however, the website states they no longer accept submissions. Amazon aimed to review submitted scripts within 90 days (although the process may be longer). If a project was chosen for development, the writer was paid $10,000. If a developed script was selected for distribution as a full-budget movie, the creator was paid $200,000; if it was selected for distribution as a full-budget series, the creator was paid $55,000 as well as "up to 5 percent of Amazon's net receipts from toy and t-shirt licensing, and other royalties and bonuses."


title: Amazon Studios

text: In 2008, Amazon expanded into film production, producing the film "The Stolen Child" with 20th Century Fox. In July 2015, Amazon announced it had acquired Spike Lee's new film, "Chi-Raq", as its first Amazon Original Movie.


title: Amazon Studios

text: Amazon Studios also released its only comic-book series, "Blackburn Burrow", in 2012 as a free download. It contained a survey allowing Amazon to collect feedback to determine whether or not it was worthwhile to make the comic into a film.


title: Amazon Studios

text: Amazon Studios had received more than 10,000 feature screenplay submissions as of September 2012 and 2,700 television pilots as of March 2013; 23 films and 26 television series were in active development as of March 2013. In late 2016, it reorganized its film division into Prime Movies.


title: Amazon Studios

text: On July 27, 2017, it was announced that, starting with the December 2017 release "Wonder Wheel", Amazon Studios would be its own self-distributing company. Previously, Amazon Studios had relied on multiple external studios to distribute their projects. The company also acquired global TV rights to "The Lord of the Rings" for $250 million. However, Amazon still has external distribution clients outside of the United States, such as Elevation Pictures in Canada, as well as Warner Bros. and StudioCanal in the UK and France.


title: Amazon Studios

text: In April 2018, Amazon Studios announced that they would no longer accept open submissions of screenplays.


title: Amazon Studios

text: In May 2021, Amazon (parent company of Amazon Studios) entered negotiations to acquire Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. On May 26, 2021, it was announced that the studio would be acquired by Amazon for $8.45 billion, subject to regulatory approval, continuing to operate as a label alongside Amazon Studios and Amazon Prime Video. The merger was finalized on March 17, 2022. Amazon will continue to partner with United Artists Releasing (MGM and Annapurna Pictures' joint distribution venture), which will continue to operate and release MGM titles theatrically "on a case-by-case basis."


title: Amazon Studios

text: In August 2021, it was reported that Steven Prinz inked an overall TV deal and a first-look deal with the studio. In September 2021, it was reported that Brian Otaño had signed a deal with Amazon Studios. Also in September, Eddie Murphy had signed a first-look film deal with Amazon Studios.


title: Amazon Studios

text: In January 2022, Westbrook signed a multi-year first-look deal with Amazon Studios. That same month, Amazon Studios signed a ten-figure deal with 87North Productions.


title: Amazon Studios

text: In November 2022, it was announced that Jennifer Salke, in addition to Amazon Studios, will be given full control of MGM's film and television divisions, with Brearton stepping down as COO to become the Vice President of PVS Corporate Strategy for MGM+ and MGM Alternative Television.


title: Amazon Studios

text: In December 2022, Intrepid Pictures signed a multi-year overall television deal with Amazon Studios. The studio is one of the largest employers in Culver City with roughly 2,700 staffing their headquarters and production facilities.


title: Amazon Studios

text: In 2015, "Transparent" was the first show produced by Amazon Studios to win a major award and the first show produced by a streaming media service to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy (a.k.a. "Golden Globe for Best Series"). In 2017, for "Manchester by the Sea", Amazon Studios became the first streaming media service to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture; the film was nominated for a total of six Academy Awards, winning two: Best Actor for Casey Affleck and Best Original Screenplay for Kenneth Lonergan. The film "The Salesman" (2016) won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film; it was directed by Asghar Farhadi and distributed in the US by Amazon Studios. In 2018, the period comedy-drama television series "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel", starring Rachel Brosnahan, won two Golden Globe Awards (Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy and Best Actress – Musical or Comedy for Brosnahan) and five Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for Brosnahan.


title: Acrophobia

text: Acrophobia is an extreme or irrational fear or phobia of heights, especially when one is not particularly high up. It belongs to a category of specific phobias, called space and motion discomfort, that share both similar causes and options for treatment.


title: Acrophobia

text: Most people experience a degree of natural fear when exposed to heights, known as the fear of falling. On the other hand, those who have little fear of such exposure are said to have a head for heights. A head for heights is advantageous for those hiking or climbing in mountainous terrain and also in certain jobs such as steeplejacks or wind turbine mechanics.


title: Acrophobia

text: People with acrophobia can experience a panic attack in high places and become too agitated to get themselves down safely. Approximately 2–5% of the general population has acrophobia, with twice as many women affected as men. The term is from the , , meaning "peak, summit, edge" and , , "fear".


title: Acrophobia

text: "Vertigo" is often used to describe a fear of heights, but it is more accurately a spinning sensation that occurs when one is not actually spinning. It can be triggered by looking down from a high place, by looking straight up at a high place or tall object, or even by watching something (i.e. a car or a bird) go past at high speed, but this alone does not describe vertigo. True vertigo can be triggered by almost any type of movement (e.g. standing up, sitting down, walking) or change in visual perspective (e.g. squatting down, walking up or down stairs, looking out of the window of a moving car or train). Vertigo is called "height vertigo" when the sensation of vertigo is triggered by heights.


title: Acrophobia

text: Height vertigo is caused by a conflict between vision, vestibular and somatosensory senses. This occurs when vestibular and somatosensory systems sense a body movement that is not detected by the eyes. More research indicate that this conflict leads to both motion sickness and anxiety.


title: Acrophobia

text: Traditionally, acrophobia has been attributed, like other phobias, to conditioning or a traumatic experience. Recent studies have cast doubt on this explanation. Individuals with acrophobia are found to be lacking in traumatic experiences. Nevertheless, this may be due to the failure to recall the experiences, as memory fades as time passes. To address the problems of self report and memory, a large cohort study with 1000 participants was conducted from birth; the results showed that participants with less fear of heights had more injuries because of falling. Psychologists Richie Poulton, Simon Davies, Ross G. Menzies, John D. Langley, and Phil A. Silva sampled subjects from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study who had been injured in a fall between the ages of 5 and 9, compared them to children who had no similar injury, and found that at age 18, acrophobia was present in only 2 percent of the subjects who had an injurious fall but was present among 7 percent of subjects who had no injurious fall (with the same sample finding that typical basophobia was 7 times less common in subjects at age 18 who had injurious falls as children than subjects that did not).


title: Acrophobia

text: More studies have suggested a possible explanation for acrophobia is that it emerges through accumulation of non-traumatic experiences of falling that are not memorable but can influence behaviours in the future. Also, fear of heights may be acquired when infants learn to crawl. If they fell, they would learn the concepts about surfaces, posture, balance, and movement. Cognitive factors may also contribute to the development of acrophobia. People tend to wrongly interpret visuo-vestibular discrepancies as dizziness and nausea and associate them with a forthcoming fall. A traumatic conditional event of falling may not be necessary at this point.


title: Acrophobia

text: A fear of falling, along with a fear of loud noises, is one of the most commonly suggested inborn or "non-associative" fears. The newer non-association theory is that a fear of heights is an evolved adaptation to a world where falls posed a significant danger. If this fear is inherited, it is possible that people can get rid of it by frequent exposure of heights in habituation. In other words, acrophobia could be attributed to the lack of exposure in early times. The degree of fear varies and the term phobia is reserved for those at the extreme end of the spectrum. Researchers have argued that a fear of heights is an instinct found in many mammals, including domestic animals and humans. Experiments using visual cliffs have shown human infants and toddlers, as well as other animals of various ages, to be reluctant in venturing onto a glass floor with a view of a few meters of apparent fall-space below it. Although human infants initially experienced fear when crawling on the visual cliff, most of them overcame the fear through practice, exposure and mastery and retained a level of healthy cautiousness. While an innate cautiousness around heights is helpful for survival, an extreme fear can interfere with the activities of everyday life, such as standing on a ladder or chair, or even walking up a flight of stairs. Still, it is uncertain if acrophobia is related to the failure to reach a certain developmental stage. Besides associative accounts, a diathetic-stress model is also very appealing for considering both vicarious learning and hereditary factors such as personality traits (i.e., neuroticism).


title: Acrophobia

text: Another possible contributing factor is a dysfunction in maintaining balance. In this case the anxiety is both well founded and secondary. The human balance system integrates proprioceptive, vestibular and nearby visual cues to reckon position and motion. As height increases, visual cues recede and balance becomes poorer even in normal people. However, most people respond by shifting to more reliance on the proprioceptive and vestibular branches of the equilibrium system.


title: Acrophobia

text: Some people are known to be more dependent on visual signals than others. People who rely more on visual cues to control body movements are less physically stable. An acrophobic, however, continues to over-rely on visual signals whether because of inadequate vestibular function or incorrect strategy. Locomotion at a high elevation requires more than normal visual processing. The visual cortex becomes overloaded, resulting in confusion. Some proponents of the alternative view of acrophobia warn that it may be ill-advised to encourage acrophobics to expose themselves to height without first resolving the vestibular issues. Research is underway at several clinics. Recent studies found that participants experienced increased anxiety not only during elevation in height, but also when they were required to move sideways in a fixed height.


title: Acrophobia

text: A recombinant model of the development of acrophobia is very possible, in which learning factors, cognitive factors (e.g. interpretations), perceptual factors (e.g. visual dependence), and biological factors (e.g. heredity) interact to provoke fear or habituation.


title: Acrophobia

text: ICD-10 and DSM-5 are used to diagnose acrophobia. Acrophobia Questionnaire (AQ) is a self report that contains 40 items, assessing anxiety level on a 0–6 point scale and degree of avoidance on a 0–2 point scale. The Attitude Towards Heights Questionnaires (ATHQ) and Behavioural Avoidance Tests (BAT) are also used.


title: Acrophobia

text: However, acrophobic individuals tend to have biases in self-reporting. They often overestimate the danger and question their abilities of addressing height relevant issues. A Height Interpretation Questionnaire (HIQ) is a self-report to measure these height relevant judgements and interpretations. The Depression Scale of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales short form (DASS21-DS) is a self report used to examine validity of the HIQ.


title: Acrophobia

text: Traditional treatment of phobias is still in use today. Its underlying theory states that phobic anxiety is conditioned and triggered by a conditional stimulus. By avoiding phobic situations, anxiety is reduced. However, avoidance behaviour is reinforced through negative reinforcement. Wolpe developed a technique called systematic desensitization to help participants avoid "avoidance". Research results have suggested that even with a decrease in therapeutic contact, densensitization is still very effective. However, other studies have shown that therapists play an essential role in acrophobia treatment. Treatments like reinforced practice and self-efficacy treatments also emerged.


title: Acrophobia

text: There have been a number of studies into using virtual reality therapy for acrophobia. Botella and colleagues and Schneider were the first to use VR in treatment. Specifically, Schneider utilised inverted lenses in binoculars to "alter" the reality. Later in the mid-1990s, VR became computer-based and was widely available for therapists. A cheap VR equipment uses a normal PC with head-mounted display (HMD). In contrast, VRET uses an advanced computer automatic virtual environment (CAVE). VR has several advantages over "in vivo" treatment: (1) therapist can control the situation better by manipulating the stimuli, in terms of their quality, intensity, duration and frequency; (2) VR can help participants avoid public embarrassment and protect their confidentiality; (3) therapist's office can be well-maintained; (4) VR encourages more people to seek treatment; (5) VR saves time and money, as participants do not need to leave the consulting room.


title: Acrophobia

text: Many different types of medications are used in the treatment of phobias like fear of heights, including traditional anti-anxiety drugs such as benzodiazepines, and newer options such as antidepressants and beta-blockers.


title: Acrophobia

text: Some desensitization treatments produce short-term improvements in symptoms. Long-term treatment success has been elusive.


title: Acrophobia

text: Approximately 2–5% of the general population has acrophobia, with twice as many women affected as men.


title: Acrophobia

text: A related, milder form of visually triggered fear or anxiety is called visual height intolerance (vHI). Up to one-third of people may have some level of visual height intolerance. Pure vHI usually has smaller impact on individuals compared to acrophobia, in terms of intensity of symptoms load, social life, and overall life quality. However, few people with visual height intolerance seek professional help.


title: Acrophobia

text: In the Alfred Hitchcock film "Vertigo", John "Scottie" Ferguson, played by James Stewart, has to resign from the police force after an incident which causes him to develop both acrophobia and vertigo. The word "vertigo" is only mentioned once, while "acrophobia" is mentioned several times. Early on in the film, Ferguson faints while climbing a stepladder. There are numerous references throughout the film to fear of heights and falling.


title: Coup de grâce

text: A coup de grâce (; 'blow of mercy') is a death blow to end the suffering of a severely wounded person or animal. It may be a mercy killing of mortally wounded civilians or soldiers, friends or enemies, with or without the sufferer's consent.


title: Coup de grâce

text: Examples of coup de grâce include shooting the heart or head (typically the back of the skull) of a wounded, but still living, person during an execution or by humanely killing a suffering, mortally wounded soldier, in war, for whom medical aid is not available. In pre-firearms eras the wounded were finished with edged or impact weapons to include cutting throats, blows to the head, and thrusts to the heart. Other examples include the officer leading a firing squad administering a coup de grâce to the condemned with a pistol if the first hail of gunfire fails to kill the prisoner; or a "kaishakunin" who performs a beheading to quickly end a samurai's agony after seppuku.


title: Coup de grâce

text: The phrase may also refer to the final event that causes a figurative death: "The business had been struggling for years. The sharp jump in oil prices was the coup de grâce."


title: Coup de grâce

text: In "Full Metal Jacket", Sergeant Joker finishes off a mortally wounded sniper who turns out to be a teenage girl, as she is begging them to finish her.


title: Coup de grâce

text: Professional wrestler Fergal Devitt, better known for his ring name Finn Bálor, named his finisher, a Diving foot stomp, "Coup de Grâce".


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were an American rock band from Gainesville, Florida. Formed in 1976, the band originally comprised lead singer and rhythm guitarist Tom Petty, lead guitarist Mike Campbell, keyboardist Benmont Tench, drummer Stan Lynch and bassist Ron Blair. In 1982, Blair, weary of the touring lifestyle, departed the band. His replacement, Howie Epstein, stayed with the band for the next two decades. In 1991, Scott Thurston joined the band as a multi-instrumentalist—mostly on rhythm guitar and second keyboard. In 1994, Steve Ferrone replaced Lynch on drums. Blair returned to the Heartbreakers in 2002, the year before Epstein's death. The band had a long string of hit singles including "Breakdown", "American Girl", "Refugee", "The Waiting", "Learning to Fly", and "Mary Jane's Last Dance", among many others, that stretched over several decades of work.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: The band's music was characterized as both Southern rock and heartland rock, cited alongside artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, and John Mellencamp as progenitors of that genre that arose in the late 1970s and 1980s. While the heartland rock movement waned in the 1990s, the band remained active and popular, touring regularly until Petty's death in 2017, after which the Heartbreakers disbanded. Their final studio album, "Hypnotic Eye", was released in 2014.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, their first year of eligibility. Although most of their material was produced and performed under the name "Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers", Petty released three solo albums, the most successful of which was "Full Moon Fever" (1989). In these releases, some members of the band contributed as collaborators, producing and performing as studio musicians.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: Petty's early bands included the Sundowners, the Epics, and Mudcrutch. In 1974, Mudcrutch signed with Shelter Records and re-located to Los Angeles, California. They released one single, "Depot Street", in 1975, which failed to chart; the group consequently disbanded.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In 1976, Petty, with himself as lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist, formed "Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers" with Mike Campbell on lead guitar, Benmont Tench on keyboards, Stan Lynch on drums and Ron Blair on bass. The Heartbreakers began their recording career with a self-titled album, released through the Shelter label. Initially, the Heartbreakers did not gain much traction in the U.S., although they achieved success in the U.K. playing "Anything That's Rock 'n' Roll" on "Top of the Pops". Early singles included "Breakdown" and "American Girl". Recalling the band's first gig in the U.K. in 1976, Petty states, "The audience just jumped up and charged the stage and were boogieing their brains out. It was such a rush. Wow, we had never seen anything like that, man." "Breakdown" was re-released in the U.S. and became a Top 40 hit in 1978, after word filtered back of the band's massive success in Britain, and perhaps more importantly after it featured on the extremely popular soundtrack to the 1978 film, FM. "American Girl" was covered in 1977 by Roger McGuinn on his "Thunderbyrd" LP.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' second album, "You're Gonna Get It!" (1978), was their first gold record, and featured the singles "I Need to Know" and "Listen To Her Heart". In 1979, the band was dragged into a legal dispute when ABC Records, Shelter's distributor, was sold to MCA Records. Petty refused to be transferred to another record label and held fast to his principles, which led to his filing for bankruptcy as a tactic against MCA.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In 1979, after their legal dispute was settled, the Heartbreakers released their third album "Damn the Torpedoes" through MCA's Backstreet label. The album rapidly went platinum. It included "Don't Do Me Like That" (#10 U.S., the group's first Top Ten single) and "Refugee" (#15 U.S.), their U.S. breakthrough singles.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: Although he was already extremely successful, Petty again ran into record company trouble when he and the Heartbreakers prepared to release "Hard Promises" (1981), the follow-up album to "Damn the Torpedoes". MCA wanted to release the record at the list price of $9.98. This so-called "superstar pricing" was a dollar more than the usual list price of $8.98. Petty voiced his objections to the price hike in the press, and the issue became a popular cause among music fans. Non-delivery of the album or naming it "Eight Ninety-Eight" were considered, but eventually MCA decided against the price increase. The album became a Top Ten hit, going platinum and spawning the hit single "The Waiting" (#19 U.S.). The album also included the duet "Insider", with Stevie Nicks.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: On their fifth album, "Long After Dark" (1982), bass player Ron Blair was replaced by Howie Epstein (formerly of Del Shannon's backing band), giving the Heartbreakers their line-up until 1991. "Long After Dark" features the hits "You Got Lucky" (U.S. #20) and "Change of Heart" (U.S. #21), and was to feature a track called "Keeping Me Alive", but producer Jimmy Iovine vetoed it from the album. Petty had expressed that he felt the album would have been more successful if "Keeping Me Alive" had been included.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: On the sixth album, "Southern Accents" (1985), the Heartbreakers picked up where they had left off. The recording was not without problems; Petty became frustrated during the mixing process and broke his left hand when punching a wall. The album included the psychedelic-sounding hit single "Don't Come Around Here No More" (#13 U.S.), which was produced by and co-written with Dave Stewart. The video for the single, which starred Stewart, featured Petty dressed as the Mad Hatter, mocking and chasing Alice from the book "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", then cutting and eating her as if she were a cake. This caused minor controversy after it was criticized by feminist groups, but the video did win an MTV Video Music Award.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: A successful concert tour led to the live album "" (1985). The band's live capabilities were also showcased when Bob Dylan invited the Heartbreakers to join him on his True Confessions Tour through Australia, Japan and the U.S. (1986) and Europe (1987). Petty praised Dylan, saying, "I don't think there is anyone we admire more."


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: Also in 1987, the group released "Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)", a studio album made to sound like a live recording, using a technique they borrowed from Dylan. It includes "Jammin' Me" (#18 U.S.), which Petty wrote with Dylan and Campbell. Dylan recorded a version of the Petty composition "Got My Mind Made Up" on his album "Knocked Out Loaded", which was credited as being written by Dylan and Petty.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In 1989, Petty released his debut solo album "Full Moon Fever", which included five singles ("I Won't Back Down", "Runnin' Down a Dream", "Free Fallin'", "A Face in the Crowd" and "Yer So Bad"), and was accompanied by a tour with The Replacements. Two years later, the Heartbreakers released "Into the Great Wide Open", produced by Jeff Lynne, who had worked with Petty in the Traveling Wilburys. Songs included the title track itself and "Learning to Fly". Multi-instrumentalist Scott Thurston joined the band as of the tour for the album.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In 1993, Petty released "Greatest Hits", which included the hit single "Mary Jane's Last Dance". Stan Lynch had moved to Florida, but was persuaded to return for his last session with the band.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In 1994, Lynch left the band. Drummer Dave Grohl, formerly of the band Nirvana, sat in on a number of performances, but declined to join the band, instead choosing to pursue his own solo work which eventually grew into the band Foo Fighters. The band was now and for the next several years officially a quartet with no permanent drummer, but beginning in 1995 for live shows Steve Ferrone, formerly a session and touring musician who had played with numerous other acts, served as drummer. He had worked with Petty, Campbell, Tench, and Epstein on Petty's solo album "Wildflowers".


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In 1995, a six-CD box-set titled "Playback" was released. Approximately half of the tracks were previously available on albums, and the rest were B-sides, demos and live tracks. Two notable tracks are a "solo" version of Petty's 1981 duet with Stevie Nicks, "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around", and the song "Waiting for Tonight", which features vocals by the Bangles. The latter song also appeared on the two-CD anthology released in 2000, "".


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In 1996, Petty "reunited" with the Heartbreakers and released a soundtrack to the film "She's the One" starring Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Aniston, titled "Songs and Music from "She's the One"". Three songs charted from the album: "Walls (Circus)" (featuring Lindsey Buckingham), "Climb that Hill", and a song written by Lucinda Williams, "Changed the Locks". The album also included a cover version of Beck's song "Asshole". Curt Bisquera, not an official member of the group, was the drummer on most of the album, with Ringo Starr substituting on one track and Ferrone playing on two others.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In 1999, Petty and the Heartbreakers released the album "Echo", produced by Rick Rubin. The album reached number 10 in the U.S. album charts and featured, amongst other singles, "Room at the Top". The band was still officially a four-piece (Petty, Campbell, Tench and Epstein), augmented by Ferrone on drums and Scott Thurston on various guitars, lap steel and ukulele. Both Ferrone and Thurston were promoted to full band membership after the album was released, and would remain Heartbreakers for the rest of the band's existence.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: On April 28, 1999, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 7018 Hollywood Boulevard, for their contributions to the recording industry.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In 2002, the group released "The Last DJ". Many of the tracks' lyrics contain stinging attacks on the music industry and major record companies. The album reached number 9 in the U.S. charts. Bassist Ron Blair played on two of the tracks. He replaced Epstein, who had previously been Blair's replacement, on the band's 2002 tour as a result of Epstein's deepening personal problems and drug abuse. Epstein died in 2003 at the age of 47.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In the band's thirtieth anniversary year, 2006, they headlined the fifth annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. In addition to Bonnaroo, Petty was on tour throughout the summer of 2006. The tour started in Charlotte, North Carolina, on June 9 and ended in Randall's Island, New York on August 19. Stops included major cities such as New York, St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Denver. Supporting acts during the tour included Pearl Jam, the Allman Brothers Band, and Trey Anastasio. Additionally, Stevie Nicks joined the band onstage during the first eight concerts as well as subsequent second-leg dates to perform various songs from the Heartbreakers' catalog. For the Highway Companion Tour, they offered a Highway Companion's Club which allowed fans to receive priority seating, discounts at the Tom Petty Store, a complimentary CD of "Highway Companion" and a personalized email address.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: On September 21, 2006, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers received the keys to the city of Gainesville, Florida, where he and his bandmates either lived or grew up. Petty quipped, when questioned about the key he received from Gainesville's mayor, "It's a lot nicer than the one we got in Chicago."


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: From July 2006 until 2007, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio featured an exhibit of Tom Petty items. Much of the content was donated by Petty himself from a visit to his home by some of the Rock Hall curatorial staff.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In 2007, the band accepted an invitation to participate in a tribute album to Fats Domino, contributing their version of "I'm Walkin'" to "" (Vanguard).


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In 2008, the Heartbreakers were also featured as the Super Bowl XLII halftime show. In April that year, the members of Petty's previous band, Mudcrutch—Petty, Tench, and Campbell, along with Randall Marsh and Tom Leadon—released a Mudcrutch album. In late 2008, they released a live EP.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: The band issued "The Live Anthology", a collection of live recordings, on November 23, 2009, and announced a new studio album, "Mojo", for release in the spring of 2010. The band released "Hypnotic Eye" on July 29, 2014, and archive recordings from their Playlist box set "Nobody's Children" and "Through the Cracks" digitally in 2015.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In 2017, the band embarked on a 40th Anniversary Tour of the United States. The tour began on April 20 in Oklahoma City and ended on September 25 with a performance at the Hollywood Bowl in Hollywood, California. The Hollywood Bowl concert, which became the Heartbreakers' final show, ended with a performance of "American Girl".


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: Early in the morning on October 2, 2017, Petty was found unconscious in his home, not breathing, and in full cardiac arrest. Following premature media reports of his death, Petty later officially died at the UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, California. He was 66.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: Though the group did not formally disband, Petty stated in his final interview, with the "Los Angeles Times" a few days before his death, that the Heartbreakers would probably disband if one of its members died or became too ill to perform.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In April 2018, Campbell, Tench and Ferrone acted as the house band for the Light Up the Blues benefit concert in Los Angeles, backing Beck, Neil Young, Patti Smith, and Stephen Stills, with whom they performed Petty's "I Won't Back Down". That same month, it was announced that Campbell (along with Neil Finn) had joined Fleetwood Mac to replace lead guitarist Lindsey Buckingham.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: During the course of the band, the various members did session work for other notable artists. In 1981, Petty and Campbell wrote the lyrics to "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around", which was intended as a Heartbreakers song. However, their producer Jimmy Iovine, who was also producing Stevie Nicks, suggested it be turned into a duet with her, and the band agreed, so the song ended up on her album "Bella Donna". All the Heartbreakers except Ron Blair had performed on the track.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In the mid-1980s, former Eagle Don Henley teamed up with Campbell, Tench and Lynch for his 1984 album "Building the Perfect Beast". Campbell wrote a demo version of the track "The Boys of Summer" and showed it to Petty, who both felt it did not fit "Southern Accents", the album they were working on at the time. Iovine suggested recording it with Henley, with whom they re-recorded it after Henley changed the key. Henley collaborated with Campbell and Lynch for his 1989 album "The End of the Innocence", with the two Heartbreakers producing it alongside the likes of Danny Kortchmar and Bruce Hornsby. Campbell again wrote one of the hits from the album, "The Heart of the Matter".


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In 1986, Bob Dylan wrote and recorded the track "Band of the Hand" as the theme song for the Paul Michael Glaser film of the same title. On the recording, Dylan is backed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, with a group of backing singers including Stevie Nicks, and the track is credited to "Bob Dylan and the Heartbreakers".


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: Stan Lynch went on to produce Henley's 2000 album "Inside Job" and 2015 album "Cass County". He also contributed to the Eagles' 1994 reunion album, "Hell Freezes Over", playing percussion and having a hand in its production.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: Mike Campbell played slide guitar on "6th Avenue Heartache", released in 1996 by the Wallflowers. He recorded his guitar part without even meeting the band.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In the mid-1990s, members of the Heartbreakers teamed up to perform on Johnny Cash's "American Recordings" series of albums. The entire band played on "Unchained", save for Lynch, who had left in 1994. For "", only Campbell and Petty contributed, the latter performing a duet with Cash on a cover of "I Won't Back Down". Tench and Campbell then contributed to "", "", and "". In March 2014, Cash's son had hinted that four or five more American albums may be released.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: Petty released three solo albums. The first was 1989's "Full Moon Fever", which included his signature tune, "Free Fallin'", as well as "I Won't Back Down", later covered by Johnny Cash, and "Runnin' Down a Dream" and Gene Clark's Byrds classic "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better".


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: The Heartbreakers were dismayed by Petty's decision to go solo. Nevertheless, Campbell played guitar solos on every track, Tench contributed piano to one track, and Epstein provided backing vocals to two tracks.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: Petty's second solo album, "Wildflowers", included all Heartbreakers members except for Stan Lynch. The album, which featured Steve Ferrone on drums, produced the single "You Don't Know How It Feels".


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: Petty's final solo album was "Highway Companion". As with "Full Moon Fever", it was produced by Jeff Lynne. Campbell was the lead guitarist for the album, but no other Heartbreaker participated in the recording, as all instruments and vocals were performed by Petty, Campbell and Lynne.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: Petty fought against his record company on more than one occasion: first in 1979 over transference to another label, and then again in 1981 over the price of his record, which was (at that time) considered expensive. He was also outspoken on the current state of the music industry and modern radio stations, a topic that was a center concept of the lyrics of his 2002 album "The Last DJ" and its respective limited edition DVD.


title: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

text: In an interview with "Billboard" magazine, Petty described himself as "not really [being] involved in the business side of music".


title: Barrett's esophagus

text: Barrett's esophagus is a condition in which there is an abnormal (metaplastic) change in the mucosal cells lining the lower portion of the esophagus, from stratified squamous epithelium to simple columnar epithelium with interspersed goblet cells that are normally present only in the small intestine and large intestine. This change is considered to be a premalignant condition because it is associated with a high incidence of further transition to esophageal adenocarcinoma, an often-deadly cancer.


title: Barrett's esophagus

text: The main cause of Barrett's esophagus is thought to be an adaptation to chronic acid exposure from reflux esophagitis. Barrett's esophagus is diagnosed by endoscopy: observing the characteristic appearance of this condition by direct inspection of the lower esophagus; followed by microscopic examination of tissue from the affected area obtained from biopsy. The cells of Barrett's esophagus are classified into four categories: nondysplastic, low-grade dysplasia, high-grade dysplasia, and frank carcinoma. High-grade dysplasia and early stages of adenocarcinoma may be treated by endoscopic resection or radiofrequency ablation. Later stages of adenocarcinoma may be treated with surgical resection or palliation. Those with nondysplastic or low-grade dysplasia are managed by annual observation with endoscopy, or treatment with radiofrequency ablation. In high-grade dysplasia, the risk of developing cancer might be at 10% per patient-year or greater.


title: Barrett's esophagus

text: The incidence of esophageal adenocarcinoma has increased substantially in the Western world in recent years. The condition is found in 5–15% of patients who seek medical care for heartburn (gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD), although a large subgroup of patients with Barrett's esophagus are asymptomatic. The condition is named after surgeon Norman Barrett (1903–1979) even though the condition was originally described by Philip Rowland Allison in 1946.


title: Barrett's esophagus

text: The change from normal to premalignant cells indicate Barrett's esophagus does not cause any particular symptoms. Barrett's esophagus, however, is associated with these symptoms:


title: Barrett's esophagus

text: The risk of developing Barrett's esophagus is increased by central obesity (vs. peripheral obesity). The exact mechanism is unclear. The difference in distribution of fat among men (more central) and women (more peripheral) may explain the increased risk in males.


title: Barrett's esophagus

text: Barrett's esophagus occurs due to chronic inflammation. The principal cause of chronic inflammation is gastroesophageal reflux disease, GERD (UK: GORD). In this disease, acidic stomach, bile, and small intestine and pancreatic contents cause damage to the cells of the lower esophagus. In turn, this provokes an advantage for cells more resistant to these noxious stimuli in particular HOXA13-expressing stem cells that are characterised by distal (intestinal) characteristics and outcompete the normal squamous cells.


title: Barrett's esophagus

text: This mechanism also explains the selection of HER2/neu (also called ERBB2) and the overexpressing (lineage-addicted) cancer cells during the process of carcinogenesis, and the efficacy of targeted therapy against the Her-2 receptor with trastuzumab (Herceptin) in the treatment of adenocarcinomas at the gastroesophageal junction.


title: Barrett's esophagus

text: Researchers are unable to predict who with heartburn will develop Barrett's esophagus. While no relationship exists between the severity of heartburn and the development of Barrett's esophagus, a relationship does exist between chronic heartburn and the development of Barrett's esophagus. Sometimes, people with Barrett's esophagus have no heartburn symptoms at all.


title: Barrett's esophagus

text: Some anecdotal evidence indicates those with the eating disorder bulimia are more likely to develop Barrett's esophagus because bulimia can cause severe acid reflux, and because purging also floods the esophagus with acid. However, a link between bulimia and Barrett's esophagus remains unproven.


title: Barrett's esophagus

text: During episodes of reflux, bile acids enter the esophagus, and this may be an important factor in carcinogenesis. Individuals with GERD and BE are exposed to high concentrations of deoxycholic acid that has cytotoxic effects and can cause DNA damage.