Peterhof St Petersburg

The historical period drama is a film genre in which stories are based upon historical events and famous people. Some historical dramas are docudramas, which attempt an accurate portrayal of a historical event or biography, to the degree that the available historical research will allow.

Cinemakers:Stopmotion

Stop motion (hyphenated stop-motion when used as an adjective) is an animation technique that physically manipulates an object so that it appears to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a fast sequence. Dolls with movable joints or clay figures are often used in stop motion for their ease of repositioning. Stop motion animation using plasticine is called clay animation or "clay-mation". Not all stop motion requires figures or models; many stop motion films can involve using humans, household appliances and other things for comedic effect. Stop motion can also use sequential drawing in a similar manner to traditional animation, such as a flip book. Stop motion using objects is sometimes referred to as pixilation or object animation.

Jutland

 

 

  

Image stabilization (IS) is a family of techniques that reduce blurring associated with the motion of a camera or other imaging device during exposure. Generally, it compensates for pan and tilt (angular movement, equivalent to yaw and pitch) of the imaging device, though electronic image stabilization can also compensate for rotation. It is used in image-stabilized binoculars, still and video cameras, astronomical telescopes, and also smartphones, mainly the high-end. With still cameras, camera shake is a particular problem at slow shutter speeds or with long focal length (telephoto or zoom) lenses. With video cameras, camera shake causes visible frame-to-frame jitter in the recorded video. In astronomy, the problem of lens-shake is amplified by variation in the atmosphere, which changes the apparent positions of objects over time.

Palm Sunday

The concept of tradition, as the notion of holding on to a previous time, is also found in political and philosophical discourse. For example, it is the basis of the political concept of traditionalism, and also strands of many world religions including traditional Catholicism. In artistic contexts, tradition is used to decide the correct display of an art form. For example, in the performance of traditional genres (such as traditional dance), adherence to guidelines dictating how an art form should be composed are given greater importance than the performer's own preferences. A number of factors can exacerbate the loss of tradition, including industrialization, globalization, and the assimilation or marginalization of specific cultural groups. In response to this, tradition-preservation attempts have now been started in many countries around the world, focusing on aspects such as traditional languages. Tradition is usually contrasted with the goal of modernity and should be differentiated from customs, conventions, laws, norms, routines, rules and similar concepts.

Vincent poem by Poe

Horror film is a film genre that seeks to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on their fears. Inspired by literature from authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley, horror films have existed for more than a century. The macabre and the supernatural are frequent themes, and may overlap with the fantasy, supernatural fiction and thriller genres.

Horror films often deal with viewers' nightmares, fears, revulsions and terror of the unknown. Plots within the horror genre often involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or personage into the everyday world. Prevalent elements include ghosts, extraterrestrials, vampires, werewolves, demons, gore, torture, vicious animals, evil witches, monsters, zombies, cannibals, psychopaths, and serial killers.

To the zoo of Artis

A preview performance refers to a showing of a film to a select audience, usually for the purposes of corporate promotions, before the public film premiere itself. Previews are sometimes used to judge audience reaction, which if unexpectedly negative, may result in recutting or even refilming certain sections based on the audience response.

 

NorthBrabant fashion and shoes

Subtitles are derived from either a transcript or screenplay of the dialog or commentary in films, television programs, video games, and the like, usually displayed at the bottom of the screen, but can also be at the top of the screen if there is already text at the bottom of the screen. They can either be a form of written translation of a dialog in a foreign language, or a written rendering of the dialog in the same language, with or without added information to help viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing to follow the dialog, or people who cannot understand the spoken dialogue or who have accent recognition problems.

Van Gogh Shadow :: Luca Agnani

The Van Gogh paintings appearing in the video are as follows:

1. Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries
2. Langlois Bridge at Arles, The
3. Farmhouse in Provence
4. White House at Night, The
5. Still Life
6. Evening The Watch (after Millet)
7. View of Saintes-Maries
8. Bedroom
9. Factories at Asnieres Seen
10. White House at Night, The
11. Restaurant

12. First Steps (after Millet)
13. Self-Portrait

Soviet toys

Soviet Toys, a Russian political stop motion film of 1924 by Dziga Vertov, considered to be Soviet Union's oldest animated film.

 

More Sweetly Play the Dance

The South African artist William Kentridge has achieved a worldwide reputation with his large, poetic and incisive installations.
Over the last decades the artist has developed a multidisciplinary way of working that combines film, animation, drawing, music and theatre. Typical of his work are the powerful charcoal drawings that he turns into moving images. Kentridge’s work explores the historically charged past of his native country.
The artist is producing a large-scale installation for EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. It is shown on eight large screens and accompanied by a soundtrack of an African brass band.

Film: images and ideas

What are Creative Commons licenses?

Creative Commons licenses provide an easy way to manage the copyright terms that attach automatically to all creative material under copyright. Our licenses allow that material to be shared and reused under terms that are flexible and legally sound. Creative Commons offers a core suite of six copyright licenses. Because there is no single "Creative Commons license," it is important to identify which of the six licenses you are applying to your material, which of the six licenses has been applied to material that you intend to use, and in both cases the specific version.

All of our licenses require that users provide attribution (BY) to the creator when the material is used and shared. Some licensors choose the BY license, which requires attribution to the creator as the only condition to reuse of the material. The other five licenses combine BY with one or more of three additional license elements: NonCommercial (NC), which prohibits commercial use of the material; NoDerivatives (ND), which prohibits the sharing of adaptations of the material; and ShareAlike (SA), which requires adaptations of the material be released under the same license.

Nightmare

Promotion refers to raising customer awareness of a product or brand, generating sales, and creating brand loyalty. It is one of the four basic elements of the market mix, which includes the four P's: price, product, promotion, and place.

Promotion is also defined as one of five pieces in the promotional mix or promotional plan. These are personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, and publicity. A promotional mix specifies how much attention to pay to each of the five factors, and how much money to budget.

 

Its all Illusion

An illusion is a distortion of the senses, revealing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. Though illusions distort reality, they are generally shared by most people. Illusions may occur with any of the human senses, but visual illusions (optical illusions), are the most well-known and understood. The emphasis on visual illusions occurs because vision often dominates the other senses. For example, individuals watching a ventriloquist will perceive the voice is coming from the dummy since they are able to see the dummy mouth the words. Some illusions are based on general assumptions the brain makes during perception. These assumptions are made using organizational principles (e.g., Gestalt theory), an individual's capacity for depth perception and motion perception, and perceptual constancy. Other illusions occur because of biological sensory structures within the human body or conditions outside of the body within one’s physical environment.

Film is MOVEMENT

Kurosawa had an innate understanding that there is inherent drama in the wind blowing in the trees. Like Andrei Tarkovsky and later Terrence Malick, he liked to place human drama squarely in the realm of nature. The rain falls, a fire rages and that movement makes an image compelling. He understood that graphic considerations outweighed psychological ones – he simplified and exaggerated a character’s movement with the frame to make character traits and emotions easy to register for the audience. His camera movements were clear, motivated and fluid.

Cameraless filmmaking

16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film, with other common film gauges including 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, educational) film making or for low budget motion pictures. It also existed as a popular amateur or home movie making format for several decades, alongside 8 mm film, and later Super 8 film. In 1923, Eastman Kodak released the first 16 mm "outfit" consisting of a camera, projector, tripod, screen and splicer for $335. RCA-Victor introduced a 16 mm sound movie projector in 1932 and developed an optical sound-on-film 16 mm camera, released in 1935.

Cinema Remake

Cinema Remake shows that completely new creations can emerge from older work. The origins of the remakes are therefore sometimes difficult to find (sometimes literally distant because the so-called original does not exist at all). It means that the works stand alone and are therefore just as original as the so-called original.

Wild West Pictures

Western fiction is a genre of literature set in the American Old West frontier and typically set from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. Well-known writers of Western fiction include Zane Grey from the early 20th century and Louis L'Amour from the mid 20th century. The genre peaked around the early 1960s, largely due to the popularity of televised Westerns such as Bonanza. Readership began to drop off in the mid- to late 1970s and has reached a new low in the 2000s. Most bookstores, outside of a few west American states, only carry a small number of Western fiction books.

 

Digital progress

The Archives Portal Europe also cooperates with Europeana to make archival material searchable and findable within its cross-domain approach of presenting cultural heritage objects online from libraries, archives, museums and audio-visual collections. We are an important strategic partner of Europeana and are working with them to develop a common digital infrastructure for cultural heritage across Europe.

Legoland again

The Dogme 95 Collective caught the attention of the international film world with its strict "vows of chastity" or rules for filmmakers that force filmmakers to concentrate on purity of story and the actors' performances rather than special effects and other cinematic devices.

The first Dogme 95 film, The Celebration (Festen), directed by Thomas Vinterberg, received many awards on the international film festival circuit and was named by both the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the New York Film Critics Circle as the best foreign-language film of the year.

The members of the Dogme 95 Collective were von Trier, Vinterberg, Kristian Levring, and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen. Although the Dogme 95 movement originated in Denmark, filmmakers around the world soon experimented with the rigid guidelines and sought certification for their films as Dogme. 

 

Tenerife

a mobilephone film about a nice house on the island

La douce France

The earliest practical and commercially successful color photography reversal process was the Lumière Autochrome, introduced in 1907. This was an additive method, using a panchromatic emulsion coated on a thin glass plate previously coated with a layer of dyed potato starch grains. Autochrome plates were discontinued in the 1930s[1] after the introduction of Lumière Filmcolor in sheet film and Lumicolor in roll film sizes. Also using the additive principle and reversal processing were the Agfa color screen plates and films and Dufaycolor film, all of which were discontinued by 1961.

Leopold Godowsky, Jr. and Leopold Mannes, working with the Eastman Kodak Company, developed Kodachrome, the first commercially successful color film to use the subtractive method. Kodachrome was introduced in 1935 as 16mm motion picture film, and in 1936 as 35mm film for still cameras. The Kodachrome films contained no color dye couplers; these were added during processing.

 

Fisk in Sweden

Movement can be used extensively by film makers to make meaning. It is how a scene is put together to produce an image. A famous example of this, which uses "dance" extensively to communicate meaning and emotion, is the film, West Side Story.

Spanish clippings

Unlike traditional movies largely dominated by studios, clip movies are overwhelmingly supplied by amateurs. In May 2006, The Economist reported that 90% of clips on YouTube came from amateurs, a few of whom are young comedians. It, in effect, also brought amateur talents.

People of Barcelona

Today, 10 to 20% of box office receipts in Spain are generated by domestic films, a situation that repeats itself in many nations of Europe and the Americas. The Spanish government has therefore implemented various measures aimed at supporting local film production and movie theaters, which include the assurance of funding from the main national television stations.

Russia 9 may

Alex Author: Alex Soloviev
Author webpage: https://vimeo.com/alexsoloviev
Licence: ATTRIBUTION LICENSE 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/)
Downloaded at Mazwai.com

 

 

Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky (Russian: Андре́й Арсе́ньевич Тарко́вский; 4 April 1932 – 29 December 1986) was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director.

Tarkovsky's films include Ivan's Childhood (1962), Andrei Rublev (1966), Solaris (1972), Mirror (1975), and Stalker (1979). He directed the first five of his seven feature films in the Soviet Union; his last two films, Nostalghia (1983) and The Sacrifice (1986), were produced in Italy and Sweden, respectively. His work is characterized by long takes, unconventional dramatic structure, distinctly authored use of cinematography, and spiritual and metaphysical themes. His contribution to cinema was so influential that works done in a similar way are described as Tarkovskian.

The Trick

Magic (sometimes referred to as stage or street magic to distinguish it from paranormal or ritual magic) is one of the oldest performing arts in the world in which audiences are entertained by staged tricks or illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats using natural means.These feats are called magic tricks, effects, or illusions.

The General

Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents supposedly unscripted real-life situations, and often features an otherwise unknown cast of individuals who are typically not professional actors, although in some shows celebrities may participate. It differs from documentary television in that the focus tends to be on drama, personal conflict, and entertainment rather than educating viewers.

Troyes city

The term digital rights describes the human rights that allow individuals to access, use, create, and publish digital media or to access and use computers, other electronic devices, or communications networks. The term is particularly related to the protection and realization of existing rights, such as the right to privacy or freedom of expression, in the context of new digital technologies, especially the Internet. Internet access is recognized as a right by the laws of several countries.

I have a dream about Troyes

  Fiction is the classification for any story created by the imagination and, therefore, not based strictly on history or fact. Fiction can be expressed in a variety of formats, including writings, live performances, films, television programs, video games, and role-playing games, though the term originally and most commonly refers to the major narrative forms of literature including the novel, novella, short story, and play. Fiction constitutes an act of creative invention, so that faithfulness to reality is not typically assumed; in other words, fiction is not expected to present only characters who are actual people or descriptions that are factually true. The context of fiction is generally open to interpretation, due to fiction's freedom from any necessary embedding in reality.

Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, commonly known as Auguste Renoir (25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919), was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau."

He was the father of actor Pierre Renoir (1885–1952), filmmaker Jean Renoir (1894–1979) and ceramic artist Claude Renoir (1901–69). He was the grandfather of the filmmaker Claude Renoir (1913–1993), son of Pierre.

Novoya Zemlya

A new Dutch film
Nova Zembla is a 2011 Dutch historical drama film directed by Reinout Oerlemans. It is the first Dutch feature film in 3D.

The film describes the last journey of Willem Barentsz and Jacob van Heemskerk through 1596-1597 when they and their crew tried to discover the Northeast Passage to the Indies. However, due to the sea ice, they are stranded on the island of Novaya Zemlya and have to spend the winter there in Het Behouden Huys (The Safe Home). The story is told through the eyes of Gerrit de Veer, and is loosely based on a diary he published in 1598 after his safe return. Gerrit is portrayed as having a relationship with Catharina Plancius, the daughter of the astronomer, cartographer and reverend Petrus Plancius, who pioneered the concept of the North East passage to reach the Indies. The Novaya Zemlya effect, first described by De Veer, is shown in the film, albeit in a non-historical fashion.

5 tricks to add depth to your shots

The Cinematographer's best kept secrets

Director/Cinematographer Matthew Rosen explains the tricks of the trade.

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Champagne-Ardennes

Champagne is a sparkling wine produced from grapes grown in the Champagne region of France following rules that demand, among other things, secondary fermentation of the wine in the bottle to create carbonation, specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from specific parcels in the Champagne appellation and specific pressing regimes unique to the region. Some use the term Champagne as a generic term for sparkling wine, but in most countries, it is illegal to officially label any product Champagne unless it both comes from the Champagne region and is produced under the rules of the appellation.

The primary grapes used in the production of Champagne are black Pinot noir and Pinot Meunier but also white Chardonnay. Champagne appellation law only allows grapes grown according to appellation rules in specifically designated plots within the appellation to be used in the production of Champagne.

Auxerre

In filmmaking and video production, a crane shot is a shot taken by a camera on a crane or jib. The most obvious uses are to view the actors from above or to move up and away from them, a common way of ending a movie. Camera cranes go back to the dawn of movie-making, and were frequently used in silent films to enhance the epic nature of large sets and massive crowds.

Svalbard

Henk de Velde (sailing) en Frans Mouws (filming)

Svalbard formerly known by its Dutch name Spitsbergen) is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. Situated north of mainland Europe, it is about midway between continental Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range from 74° to 81° north latitude, and from 10° to 35° east longitude. The largest island is Spitsbergen, followed by Nordaustlandet and Edgeøya.

Administratively, the archipelago is not part of any Norwegian county, but forms an unincorporated area administered by a governor appointed by the Norwegian government. Since 2002, Svalbard's main settlement, Longyearbyen, has had an elected local government, somewhat similar to mainland municipalities. Other settlements include the Russian mining community of Barentsburg, the research station of Ny-Ålesund, and the mining outpost of Sveagruva. Svalbard is the northernmost settlement in the world with a permanent civilian population. Other settlements are farther north, but are populated only by rotating groups of researchers.

 

The Cinematographer

THE CINEMATOGRAPHER
[By Charles G. Clarke, ASC] As some confusion exists about the title director of photography, perhaps a brief summary at this time would be in order. Since the inception of the movies, there have been cameramen. Then, as the peculiar technique of cinema was developed, the cameraman became the cinematographer. As the industry progressed, cinematography took on specialized fields. The cinematographer now devoted more of his talents to composition and lighting and left the mechanics of the camera to members of his staff. Today he directs and supervises the efforts of a large crew of workers, and is known as the director of photography. He selects the composition, sets the exposure, conceives the lighting, and designates the filters or other photographic controls to be employed.

Filming in New Orleans

Sequences – A major line of action that incorporates many scenes. For example, in the beginning of a movie you could have a “character introduction sequence” that starts with a breakfast-with-family scene, moves to a missing-the-bus-and-walking-to-work scene, and closes with a you-are-fired scene. Sequences, like scenes, also have a beginning, middle, and end, as well as a goal. But the difference is that sequences span different locations and times. Most narrative films will have anywhere from 10 to 20 sequences.

Shopping

Alkmaar is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Alkmaar is well known for its traditional cheese market. For tourists, it is a popular cultural destination.

The earliest mention of the name Alkmaar is in a 10th-century document. As the village grew into a town, it was granted city rights in 1254. The oldest part of Alkmaar lies on an ancient sand bank that afforded some protection from inundation during medieval times. Even so, it is only a couple of metres above the surrounding region, which consists of some of the oldest polders in existence.

David Lynch about Creativity

David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American director, screenwriter, visual artist, musician, actor, and author. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed a unique cinematic style. The surreal and, in many cases, violent elements contained within his films have been known to "disturb, offend or mystify" audiences.

Amsterdam Holiday

Films
Holiday (1930 film), an adaptation of the play, starring Ann Harding and Mary Astor

Holiday (1938 film), an adaptation of the play, starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant
Jour de fête or Holiday (1949), a French comedy film by Jacques Tati
Holiday (2006 film), a Bollywood film by Pooja Bhatt
The Holiday (2006), a film starring Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet
Holiday (2010 film), a 2010 French crime comedy
Holidays (2010 film), a Malayalam film directed by M M Ramachandran
Holidays (2016 film), an anthology film
Holiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty (2014), a Bollywood film by A. R. Murugadoss starring Akshay Kumar

 

North by North-east

North by Northwest is a 1959 American action thriller film, made in VistaVision, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. The screenplay was by Ernest Lehman, who wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures".

North by Northwest is a tale of mistaken identity, with an innocent man pursued across the United States by agents of a mysterious organization trying to prevent him from blocking their plan to smuggle out microfilm that contains government secrets.

This is one of several Hitchcock films that features a music score by Bernard Herrmann and a memorable opening title sequence by graphic designer Saul Bass. This film is generally cited as the first to feature extended use of kinetic typography in its opening credits.

North by Northwest is now regarded among the essential Hitchcock pictures and is often listed as one of the greatest films of all time. It was selected in 1995 for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress, as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Cultural Market

Since the late 1970s, cult films have become increasingly popular. Films that once would have been limited to obscure cult followings are now capable of breaking into the mainstream, and showings of cult films have proved to be a profitable business venture. Overbroad usage of the term has resulted in controversy, as purists state it has become a meaningless descriptor applied to any film that is the slightest bit weird or unconventional; others accuse Hollywood studios of trying to artificially create cult films or use the term as a marketing tactic. Films are frequently stated to be an "instant cult classic" now, occasionally before they are released. Fickle fans on the Internet have latched on to unreleased films only to abandon them later on release. At the same time, other films have acquired massive, quick cult followings, thanks to spreading virally through social media. Easy access to cult films via video on demand and peer-to-peer file sharing has led some critics to pronounce the death of cult films.

Foret d'Orient Aube

A montage sequence conveys ideas visually by putting them in a specific order in the film. Narrative montages involve the planning of sequence of shots used to indicate changes in time and place within a film. Ideational montages link actions with words, and are often used in documentaries.

A different positioning of shots conveys different ideas to the viewer. For example, a montage containing a negative theme followed by a positive theme may give the viewer the idea that the positive theme is the main theme of the montage.

Montages in documentaries are usually linked with words that characters say. This visual representation of the characters thoughts helps position the viewer in the story, and helps the viewer better understand what the character is saying. It visually presents a progression of ideas on a screen.

Gate to gate

A professional video camera (often called a television camera even though the use has spread beyond television) is a high-end device for creating electronic moving images (as opposed to a movie camera, that earlier recorded the images on film). Originally developed for use in television studios, they are now also used for music videos, direct-to-video movies, corporate and educational videos, marriage videos etc.

These cameras earlier used vacuum tubes and later electronic sensors.

 

 

Selfmade city

Current usage of the term "visual arts" includes fine art as well as the applied, decorative arts and crafts, but this was not always the case. Before the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and elsewhere at the turn of the 20th century, the term 'artist' was often restricted to a person working in the fine arts (such as painting, sculpture, or printmaking) and not the handicraft, craft, or applied art media. The distinction was emphasized by artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement, who valued vernacular art forms as much as high forms. Art schools made a distinction between the fine arts and the crafts, maintaining that a craftsperson could not be considered a practitioner of the arts.

Marriage

>Wedding videography can trace its roots back to before the advent of the modern video camera through 8mm and 16mm films. When film was the only way to capture moving pictures, a few enterprising individuals would take the family 8mm camera and film the weddings of friends and family. These film cameras had a major limitation in the form of 4-minute load times. After exposing 4 minutes of film, the operator would have to load a new film cartridge. The high cost of processing and the fact the majority of them could not record sound to the film further limited the industry. However, there were still a few individuals who were able to turn the documentation of weddings into a business.

The old shipyard

Poetic documentaries, which first appeared in the 1920s, were a sort of reaction against both the content and the rapidly crystallizing grammar of the early fiction film. The poetic mode moved away from continuity editing and instead organized images of the material world by means of associations and patterns, both in terms of time and space. Well-rounded characters—"lifelike people"—were absent; instead, people appeared in these films as entities, just like any other, that are found in the material world. The films were fragmentary, impressionistic, lyrical. Their disruption of the coherence of time and space—a coherence favored by the fiction films of the day—can also be seen as an element of the modernist counter-model of cinematic narrative. The "real world"—Nichols calls it the "historical world"—was broken up into fragments and aesthetically reconstituted using film form.

 

City of light Eindhoven

High-key lighting is a style of lighting for film, television, or photography that aims to reduce the lighting ratio present in the scene. This was originally done partly for technological reasons, since early film and television did not deal well with high contrast ratios, but now is used to suggest an upbeat mood. It is often used in sitcoms and comedies. High-key lighting is usually quite homogeneous and free from dark shadows. The terminology comes from the key light (main light).

In the 1950s and 1960s, high-key lighting was achieved through multiple light sources lighting a scene—usually using three fixtures per person (left, right, and central) —which resulted in a uniform lighting pattern with very little modeling. Nowadays, multiple hot light sources are substituted by much more efficient fluorescent soft lights which provide a similar effect.

ALWEIWEI

Ai Weiwei (born 28 August 1957 in Beijing) is a Chinese Contemporary artist and activist. His father's side's original surname is 蔣 Jiang. Ai collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics. As a political activist, he has been highly and openly critical of the Chinese Government's stance on democracy and human rights. He has investigated government corruption and cover-ups, in particular the Sichuan schools corruption scandal following the collapse of so-called "tofu-dreg schools" in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. In 2011, following his arrest at Beijing Capital International Airport on 3 April, he was held for 81 days without any official charges being filed; officials alluded to their allegations of "economic crimes".