HOW EDDIE REDMAYNE BECAME TRANSGENDER PIONEER LILI ELBE IN 'THE DANISH GIRL'

"The Danish Girl" starring Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander has barely hit theaters — it debuts on Friday in the U.S. — but the Oscar buzz has been steadily building for both actors since the film's premiere at the Venice Film Festival this past summer. Redmayne, who won an Oscar for his ability to convey a life-changing transformation in last year's "The Theory of Everything," plays a Danish painter named Einar Elbe who realizes he is a woman trapped in a man's body and becomes one of the very first people in history to undergo sex reassignment surgery. Vikander plays Eble's wife, Gerda Wegener, a successful painter, who struggles to understand the changes in her husband but remains steadfast in her support of Einar's true personhood — Lili Elbe. 

The film takes place in Copenhagen and Paris between 1926 and 1931, a time when women's fashion underwent its own liberation thanks to the work of designers Jeanne Lanvin, Coco Chanel and Paul Poiret — all of whom the film's costume designer Paco Delgado researched and referenced for Lili and Gerda's dresses. 
We started the movie looking very Edwardian, with a lot of the costumes being... more oppressive for the body," said Delgado, who worked previously with both Redmayne and director Tom Hooper on 2012's "Les Misérables." "We wanted to see a progression in Lili's life and also we wanted to show that she was being liberated from the restraints of the body she was living in."

"The Danish Girl" opens in the a conservative, Edwardian-era Copenhagen for which Delgado chose heavy wools and tailored, thick materials in blues, grays and blacks. Meanwhile, hair and makeup designer Jan Sewell, who also worked on "Les Misérables" and "The Theory of Everything," highlighted the actor's masculine features and designed a period-appropriate men's wig. "Eddie is, of course, a beautiful looking man, so very much in the beginning when Lili is presenting as Einar I had to sort of slightly emphasize Eddie’s masculinity so that's when I did a lot of my shading and highlighting," she said. 

Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe in Tom Hooper’s "The Danish Girl." Photo: Focus Features.
Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe in Tom Hooper’s "The Danish Girl." Photo: Focus Features.
Sewell also embraced the liberating trends of the decade, especially when it came to the three custom-made wigs Redmayne wears in the film. "I tried longer wigs on Eddie and they weren't quite as successful as the shorter ones," said Sewell. "I also very much wanted to pay homage to the fact that in the '20s, it was a brave time for young women then, they were cutting their hair off." Sewell said that Redmayne's fine features also freed her up to expose his neck.

Sewell said her greatest challenge was the high-definition camera used to shoot the film. "I also knew that Tom would be shooting close for some of the very heavy emotional scenes, and I did not want it to look like Eddie was wearing makeup," said Sewell. To that end, she used a beeswax makeup base that sinks into the skin and also worked directly with a makeup factory to mix period-appropriate color palettes.

Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegener and Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe in Tom Hooper’s "The Danish Girl." Photo: Focus Features.
Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegener and Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe in Tom Hooper’s "The Danish Girl." Photo: Focus Features.
When Lili first experiments with makeup in the film, she is a bit heavy-handed, said Sewell. "[Redmayne] was one the one who informed me that quite often when people transition, they over-feminize," she said. "So that's where we came in with the very auburn wig... [and a] very strong lip color came in. I completely changed his lip shape when he was Lili because I took the corners away of his mouth and pushed the emphasis towards the front of his mouth, so he mad much more of a pout."

For his research, Delgado traveled to Copenhagen with Hooper and Stewart before shooting began to observe the city's architecture and climate. "We went to the national library in Copenhagen and they showed us real pictures of Lili, Gerda and their friends," he said. Delgado also consulted films, books, Elbe's autobiography "Man Into Woman" and looked at Gerda's paintings, from which he faithfully reproduced the first fluffy white dress Lili wears to sit for Gerda (see image below). "Obviously Eddie's dimensions are different to anything we could find already made of the period," he said. "The problem with the '20s is that most of the fine silks and really special materials haven't survived very well." He bought a lot of antique garments to either piece together or source for material, and ultimately made 95 percent of Redmayne and Vikander's costumes.

Eddie Redmayne as Einar Wegener and Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegener in Tom Hooper’s "The Danish Girl." Screenshot: "The Danish Girl" trailer
Eddie Redmayne as Einar Wegener and Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegener in Tom Hooper’s "The Danish Girl." Screenshot: "The Danish Girl" trailer
A pivotal scene in the film is Lili's first dressed public outing, when the couple attends a ball and Lili wears a dress borrowed from the opera house's costume department. "We always thought it had to be slightly theatrical somehow but also it had to reflect the color palette we wanted to show," said Delgado, who had a Lanvin dress in mind.

When Lili and Gerda move to the more bohemian Paris, their costumes reflect the shift in atmosphere. "We opened the palette to warm colors and the fabric had more movement," said Delgado. But for Gerda, and for Lili's later scenes, he said Coco Chanel was a primary inspiration. "She was the first designer that thought of the modern woman, really the new woman at the time," he said. "She was the first one to introduce knitwear because that allows them to have movement."

The fact that the costumes paralleled the contrast between Copenhagen's cold light and Paris's vibrant southern tones was very important to Delgado, who said Hooper explained the film to him as first and foremost a love story and secondly the journey of Lili Elbe — "how she became who she was." Indeed, in "The Danish Girl," freedom of identity jumps off the screen, not only in Redmayne and Vikander's performances, but also in the fabric, makeup and set of of every scene. 

Halting the spread of Zika into theUnited States By Elizabeth Cohen, CNN

At a lab in Texas, a scientist pipettes 3 milliliters of sheep's blood into a tiny bowl, heats it to 98.6 to replicate the temperature of human blood, and spikes it with the dreaded Zika virus.

After covering the dish with a thin plastic film to simulate human skin, he unleashes dozens of mosquitoes and lets the bugs have at it.

And have at it they do. They eat until they're full, their bellies engorged with blood.

Projects such as this one at the Galveston National Laboratory aim to determine how much damage Zika, a virus spread by mosquitoes, might do in the United States and what can be done to try to stop it. "There's a lot of work gearing up very fast," said Scott Weaver, scientific director of the lab.

According to the Brazil Ministry of Health, during an approximately 11-week period from November to January, 270 babies were born with a birth defect called microcephaly. In all of 2014, 147 babies were born with this defect, which is associated with a small head and abnormal brain growth.

Among the 270 recent cases, six of the babies were confirmed to have Zika. In addition, authorities are investigating more than 3,000 suspected cases of microcephaly to see if the babies really do have the defect and if Zika is the cause.

"It really is an unprecedented event," said Dr. Lyle Petersen, director of the division of vector-borne diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "You're dealing with children with a severe neurological disease they'll carry with them for the rest of their lives. That's a devastating outcome."

The concern is not just for babies. Zika has also been linked in Brazil to Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a neurological disorder that causes paralysis.

Zika likely not as devastating in the U.S.

As concerned as public health officials are about Zika, they highly doubt the virus will be as devastating in the United States as it has been in Brazil.

"You never say never, but I'm fairly sure we're not going to have a problem of great magnitude in this country," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institutes for Allergies and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. "There will be some unfortunate cases, but nothing of the magnitude that the poor Brazilians are going through," he added.

So far, there have been about 20 cases in the continental United States, according to Fauci. All of those patients had traveled abroad to Brazil or other affected areas. The disease has not spread beyond those travelers, according to the CDC. Earlier this month, a baby in Hawaii was born with microcephaly. The mother had spent part of her pregnancy in Brazil.

Experts have several reasons for believing the spread of Zika in the United States will be much more limited than in Brazil. First, a similar virus,dengue, has never spread much in the United States. Over the years, nearly all cases have been among travelers, with transmission within the United States happening only rarely.

Experts believe cooler weather is a big part of the reason, as the mosquitoes that spread viruses such as dengue and Zika prefer hotter climates. "I'm very worried about tropical areas of the United States, such as American Samoa, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands," Petersen added.

The experts believe living conditions in the United States will also slow the spread of the disease, which occurs when a mosquito bites an infected human and then bites someone else.

Americans tend to live farther apart than people do in Brazil, Petersen noted. Also, air conditioning is much more common in the United States, and the mosquitos dislike cool air. And mosquito control measures in warm places such as Texas and Florida are very effective, Weaver added.

5 things you need to know about Zika

Getting to know Zika

Infectious disease experts are still working to contain the virus as much as possible in the United States.

That's why Weaver's team feeds mosquitoes their virus-laden blood meals. Afterward, his team will measure how long it takes Zika to go from the bugs' bellies to their salivary glands, which marks the time they can bite and infect humans. Learning more about this process will help devise new strategies for mosquito control, he said.

Other teams of researchers halfway across the country have been traveling to Brazil to learn more about Zika. These epidemiologists from the CDC in Atlanta are looking at, among other questions, whether babies are more likely to develop microcephaly if their mothers were infected at a certain point during pregnancy.

They'll also try to determine how likely it is that an infected pregnant woman will pass the virus on to her baby, and that the baby will then develop Zika. "What's the nature of the risk?" Petersen asked. "Is it one in 10? One in a 100?"

Back in the United States, other teams are trying to design a test that can be widely used for Zika, Fauci said. Right now, only the CDC and a handful of state health departments can test for the virus, which is inefficient and time-consuming.

Other teams have been working in various countries to develop a vaccine against Zika.

Fauci said it helps that labs have made good early-stage progress on vaccines for similar viruses, such as chikungunya and West Nile virus. But developing a vaccine would involve gaining the interest of a pharmaceutical company and could take years to develop.

Opinion: How to cut off the spread of theZika virus

Documentary ‘Beyond Beauty’ Captures Taiwan From Above

A highway runs along Chingshui Cliff in eastern Taiwan’s Hualien County. Click to see more photos.

It has been said that when the early Portuguese explorers first laid eyes on Taiwan in the 1500s, they were so impressed with the island’s lush green mountains and pristine turquoise shorelines that they decided to name the place “Ilha Formosa” — beautiful island — on the spot.

More than 500 years later, as Taiwan transforms from an agrarian society to a high-tech-dominated economy, many of the majestic peaks that took the settlers’ breath away have been sullied by residential blocks, tea plantations, and high-end hotels. The once clear waters off its beaches are also discolored by the massive amount of chemical waste discharged by factories each year.

In a way, what happened in Taiwan is a reflection of what’s happening in many parts of the world,” said Chi Po-lin, the director of this year’s Golden Horse Awards winner for best documentary, “Beyond Beauty, Taiwan from Above.”

The 48-year-old aerial photographer-turned-filmmaker used to work for the government’s National Highway Engineering Bureau, taking tens of thousands images of the island during helicopter trips over the past two decades.

Sitting in his small Taipei office, lined with books on Taiwan’s landscape and geography, he said he had long wanted to make a movie based on his photographs, but for years it seemed like a far-fetched dream. That changed in 2009, when French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand released his aerial documentary “Home” on climate change and global warming.

Mr. Chi said his motivation for making “Beyond” was not to point a finger at a certain industry or even the government, but to present a realistic view of Taiwan’s growing environmental problems. His hope is to make people think twice the next time they throw out the garbage or turn on the faucet.

In his 93-minute film, audiences are taken on a bird’s-eye journey by helicopter across Taiwan’s various landscapes, with background music by award-winning composer Ricky Ho. While the movie documents Taiwan’s rich biodiversity, it also bears witness to the worsening devastation wrought by humans.

The documentary opens with images of the island’s unspoiled natural beauty as the camera pans from the unbroken mountains ranges of Yangmingshan National Park in the north, to the sapphire-hued alpine Jiaming Lake in the east and the roaming indigenous wildlife of the south. Then, the spell is broken as the film detours to locations that are being destroyed as a result of Taiwan’s rapid industrialization.

One of the most unsettling images is of a traditionally scenic spot in the Alishan Mountains, visited by millions of tourists each year. The view from above shows a popular sunrise viewing point at a train station, which sits at the edge of a precipice in danger of landslides each time a typhoon or earthquake hits.

The documentary also shows the waters near many Taiwan’s industrial parks tainted with toxic hues of green, crimson and fluorescent orange, as factories continue to pump out waste into rivers that feed water sources for the residents and marine life nearby.

Though scenes like this are alarming, Mr. Chi said he views of himself more as a storyteller or record-keeper than an environmental activist. His goal, he insisted, is to tell the tale of Taiwan and let the audience decide what changes they can make in their lives to decelerate the island’s demise.

“I am not here to judge, because I understand there is a price to pay to live the way to we do right now,” said the director. “But each of us must stop pretending that all this destruction is not happening.”

He added, “Just because we refuse to see it or pretend it is not there, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

pristine 質樸

turquoise shorelines 綠松石海岸線

Ilha Formosa 福爾摩沙

agrarian society 農業社會

high-tech-dominated economy 高科技為主導的經濟

residential blocks 高樓大廈

high-end hotels 高檔酒店

Chi Po-lin 齊柏林

Beyond Beauty 看見台灣

aerial 空中的

far-fetched 遙不可及的

faucet 水龍頭

 Ricky Ho 何國杰，"看見台灣"電影配樂作曲人

documents 記錄

devastation毀壞

unspoiled 未受汙染的

Yangmingshan 陽明山

sapphire-hued 寶藍色調的

alpine 高山

Jiaming Lake 嘉明湖

roaming 漫遊;遨遊

Alishan Mountains 阿里山

fluorescent 螢光的

pump out 泵出

marine 海洋

NEWS FROM:SCENE ASIA

http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/2013/11/27/documentary-beyond-beauty-captures-taiwan-from-above/

Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2015is…

That’s right – for the first time ever, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year is a pictograph: 😂, officially called the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji, though you may know it by other names. There were other strong contenders from a range of fields, outlined below, but 😂 was chosen as the ‘word’ that best reflected the ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015.

Why was this chosen?

Emojis (the plural can be either emoji or emojis) have been around since the late 1990s, but 2015 saw their use, and use of the word emoji, increase hugely. This year Oxford University Press have partnered with leading mobile technology business SwiftKey to explore frequency and usage statistics for some of the most popular emoji across the world, and 😂 was chosen because it was the most used emoji globally in 2015. SwiftKey identified that 😂 made up 20% of all the emojis used in the UK in 2015, and 17% of those in the US: a sharp rise from 4% and 9% respectively in 2014. The word emoji has seen a similar surge: although it has been found in English since 1997, usage more than tripled in 2015 over the previous year according to data from the Oxford Dictionaries Corpus.


 

A brief history of emoji

An emoji is ‘a small digital image or icon used to express an idea or emotion in electronic communication’; the term emoji is a loanword from Japanese, and comes from e ‘picture’ + moji ‘letter, character’. The similarity to the English word emoticon has helped its memorability and rise in use, though the resemblance is actually entirely coincidental: emoticon (a facial expression composed of keyboard characters, such as ;), rather than a stylized image) comes from the English words emotion and icon. Emojis are no longer the preserve of texting teens – instead, they have been embraced as a nuanced form of expression, and one which can cross language barriers. Even Hillary Clinton solicited feedback in the form of emojis, and 😂 has had notable use from celebrities and brands alongside everyone else – and even appeared as the caption to the Vine which apparently kicked off the popularity of the term on fleek, which appears on our WOTY shortlist.
 Now that we’re all used to emojis being a shorthand method of communicating our thoughts, emotions, and responses, it made us wonder: what would it look like if you used emojis in real life? Our video imagines what exactly would happen.

 pictograph 象形:型符
SwiftKey 手機輸入鍵盤app
Oxford Dictionaries Corpus 牛津字典語料庫

NEWS FROM:http: Oxford Dictionaries 
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/11/word-of-the-year-2015-emoji/#quiz