Embassy Pictures

Embassy Pictures Corporation (later known as AVCO Embassy Pictures and later Embassy Films Associates) was an independent studio and distributor responsible for such films as Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, The Graduate, The Lion in Winter, Carnal Knowledge, The Night Porter, This Is Spinal Tap, The Fog, and Escape from New York.

Founding

The company was founded in 1942 by Joseph E. Levine, initially to distribute foreign films in the United States.

Some of Levine's early successes were the Italian-made Hercules films with Steve Reeves, Ishiro Honda's Godzilla, King of the Monsters, and the 1961 adaptation of The Thief of Bagdad (which had virtually nothing to do with the 1940 version). Embassy also distributed Federico Fellini's film 8½ and Rick Carrier's Strangers in the City (1962).

In 1963, Levine was offered a $30 million deal with Paramount Pictures to produce films in the vein of his previous successes. Paramount would finance the films and Embassy would receive part of its profits. Under the deal, Levine produced The Carpetbaggers and its prequel Nevada Smith, which were successes, along with flops such as Harlow, starring Carroll Baker, and The Oscar.

Diplomatic mission

A diplomatic mission is a group of people from one state or an international inter-governmental organisation (such as the United Nations) present in another state to represent the sending state/organisation officially in the receiving state. In practice, a diplomatic mission usually denotes the resident mission, namely the office of a country's diplomatic representatives in the capital city of another country. As well as being a diplomatic mission to the country in which it is situated, it may also be a non-resident permanent mission to one or more other countries. There are thus resident and non-resident embassies.

Naming

A permanent diplomatic mission is typically known as an embassy, and the head of the mission is known as an ambassador, or high commissioner. The term "embassy" is commonly used also as a section of a building in which the work of the diplomatic mission is carried out, but, strictly speaking, it is the diplomatic delegation itself that is the embassy, while the office space and the diplomatic work done is called the Chancery. Therefore, the Embassy is in the Chancery.

Image

An image (from Latin: imago) is an artifact that depicts visual perception, for example a two-dimensional picture, that has a similar appearance to some subject—usually a physical object or a person, thus providing a depiction of it.

Characteristics

Images may be two-dimensional, such as a photograph, screen display, and as well as a three-dimensional, such as a statue or hologram. They may be captured by optical devices – such as cameras, mirrors, lenses, telescopes, microscopes, etc. and natural objects and phenomena, such as the human eye or water.

The word image is also used in the broader sense of any two-dimensional figure such as a map, a graph, a pie chart, or a painting. In this wider sense, images can also be rendered manually, such as by drawing, the art of painting, carving, rendered automatically by printing or computer graphics technology, or developed by a combination of methods, especially in a pseudo-photograph.

A volatile image is one that exists only for a short period of time. This may be a reflection of an object by a mirror, a projection of a camera obscura, or a scene displayed on a cathode ray tube. A fixed image, also called a hard copy, is one that has been recorded on a material object, such as paper or textile by photography or any other digital process.

Windows Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker (codenamed Sundance, formerly known as Windows Live Movie Maker in Windows 7) is a video editing software by Microsoft. It is a part of Windows Essentials software suite and offers the ability to create and edit videos as well as to publish them on OneDrive, Facebook, Vimeo, YouTube, and Flickr.

History

Initial releases

The first release of Windows Movie Maker was included with Windows ME in 2000.

Version 1.1 was included in Windows XP a year later, and included support for creating DV AVI and WMV 8 files. Version 2.0 was released as a free update in November 2002, and added a number of new features. Version 2.1, a minor update, is included in Windows XP Service Pack 2. The Movie Maker in Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 had more transitions and support for DVD burning.

Windows Vista

The next version of Movie Maker was released as part of Windows Vista and – like most Windows components – reported version number 6.0.6000, same as Windows Vista itself. It included new effects and transitions, support for playback on the Xbox 360, and support for the DVR-MS file format that Windows Media Center records television in. The HD version in Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista also added support for capturing from HDV camcorders. The capture wizard also created DVR-MS type files from HDV tapes. However, the Windows Vista version of Windows Movie Maker removed support for importing video from an analog video source such as an analog camcorder, VCR or from a webcam.