title: Pellagra

text: Pellagra was studied mostly in Europe until the late 19th century when it became epidemic especially in the southern United States. In the early 1900s, pellagra reached epidemic proportions in the American South. Between 1906 and 1940 more than 3 million Americans were affected by pellagra with more than 100,000 deaths, yet the epidemic resolved itself right after dietary niacin fortification. Pellagra deaths in South Carolina numbered 1,306 during the first ten months of 1915; 100,000 Southerners were affected in 1916. At this time, the scientific community held that pellagra was probably caused by a germ or some unknown toxin in corn. The Spartanburg Pellagra Hospital in Spartanburg, South Carolina, was the nation's first facility dedicated to discovering the cause of pellagra. It was established in 1914 with a special Congressional appropriation to the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) and set up primarily for research. In 1915, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, assigned to study pellagra by the Surgeon General of the United States, showed it was linked to diet by observing the outbreaks of pellagra in orphanages and mental hospitals. Goldberger noted that children between the ages of 6 and 12 (but not older or younger children at the orphanages) and patients at the mental hospitals (but not doctors or nurses) were the ones who seemed most susceptible to pellagra. Goldberger theorized that a lack of meat, milk, eggs, and legumes made those particular populations susceptible to pellagra. By modifying the diet served in these institutions with "a marked increase in the fresh animal and the leguminous protein foods," Goldberger was able to show that pellagra could be prevented. By 1926, Goldberger established that a diet that included these foods, or a small amount of brewer's yeast, prevented pellagra.


title: Pellagra

text: Goldberger experimented on 11 prisoners (one was dismissed because of prostatitis). Before the experiment, the prisoners were eating the prison fare fed to all inmates at Rankin Prison Farm in Mississippi. Goldberger started feeding them a restricted diet of grits, syrup, mush, biscuits, cabbage, sweet potatoes, rice, collards, and coffee with sugar (no milk). Healthy white male volunteers were selected as the typical skin lesions were easier to see in Caucasians and this population was felt to be those least susceptible to the disease, and thus provide the strongest evidence that the disease was caused by a nutritional deficiency. Subjects experienced mild, but typical cognitive and gastrointestinal symptoms, and within five months of this cereal-based diet, 6 of the 11 subjects broke out in the skin lesions that are necessary for a definitive diagnosis of pellagra. The lesions appeared first on the scrotum. Goldberger was not given the opportunity to experimentally reverse the effects of diet-induced pellagra as the prisoners were released shortly after the diagnoses of pellagra were confirmed. In the 1920s, he connected pellagra to the corn-based diets of rural areas rather than infection as contemporary medical opinion would suggest. Goldberger believed that the root cause of pellagra amongst Southern farmers was limited diet resulting from poverty, and that social and land reform would cure epidemic pellagra. His reform efforts were not realized, but crop diversification in the Southern United States, and the accompanying improvement in diet, dramatically reduced the risk of pellagra. Goldberger is remembered as the "unsung hero of American clinical epidemiology". Though he identified that a missing nutritional element was responsible for pellagra, he did not discover the specific vitamin responsible.


title: Pellagra

text: In 1937, Conrad Elvehjem, a biochemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, showed that the vitamin niacin cured pellagra (manifested as black tongue) in dogs. Later studies by Dr. Tom Spies, Marion Blankenhorn, and Clark Cooper established that niacin also cured pellagra in humans, for which "Time" Magazine dubbed them its 1938 Men of the Year in comprehensive science.


title: Pellagra

text: Research conducted between 1900 and 1950 found the number of cases of women with pellagra was consistently double the number of cases of affected men. This is thought to be due to the inhibitory effect of estrogen on the conversion of the amino acid tryptophan to niacin. Some researchers of the time gave a few explanations regarding the difference.


title: Pellagra

text: Gillman and Gillman related skeletal tissue and pellagra in their research in South Africans. They provide some of the best evidence for skeletal manifestations of pellagra and the reaction of bone in malnutrition. They claimed radiological studies of adult pellagrins demonstrated marked osteoporosis. A negative mineral balance in pellagrins was noted, which indicated active mobilization and excretion of endogenous mineral substances, and undoubtedly impacted the turnover of bone. Extensive dental caries were present in over half of pellagra patients. In most cases, caries were associated with "severe gingival retraction, sepsis, exposure of cementum, and loosening of teeth".


title: Pellagra

text: Pellagra was first reported in 1902 in the United States, and has "caused more deaths than any other nutrition-related disease in American history", reaching epidemic proportions in the American South during the early 1900s. Poverty and consumption of corn were the most frequently observed risk factors, but the exact cause was not known, until groundbreaking work by Joseph Goldberger. A 2017 National Bureau of Economic Research paper explored the role of cotton production in the emergence of disease; one prominent theory is that "widespread cotton production had displaced local production of niacin-rich foods and driven poor Southern farmers and mill workers to consume milled Midwestern corn, which was relatively cheap but also devoid of the niacin necessary to prevent pellagra." The study provided evidence in favor of the theory: there were lower pellagra rates in areas where farmers had been forced to abandon cotton production (a highly profitable crop) in favor of food crops (less profitable crops) due to boll weevil infestation of cotton crops (which occurred randomly).


title: Pellagra

text: The whole dried corn kernel contains a nutritious germ and a thin seed coat that provides some fiber. There are two important considerations for using ground whole-grain corn.


title: Pellagra

text: Most of the niacin in mature cereal grains is present as , which is niacin bound up in a complex with hemicellulose which is nutritionally unavailable. In mature corn this may be up to 90% of the total niacin content. The preparation method of nixtamalization using the whole dried corn kernel made this niacin nutritionally available and reduced the chance of developing pellagra. Niacytin is concentrated in the aleurone and germ layers which are removed by milling. The milling and degerming of corn in the preparation of cornmeal became feasible with the development of the Beall degerminator, which was originally patented in 1901 and was used to separate the grit from the germ in corn processing. However, this process of reduces the niacin content of the cornmeal.


title: Pellagra

text: Casimir Funk, who helped elucidate the role of thiamin in the etiology of beriberi, was an early investigator of the problem of pellagra. Funk suggested that a change in the method of milling corn was responsible for the outbreak of pellagra, but no attention was paid to his article on this subject.


title: Pellagra

text: Pellagra developed especially among the vulnerable populations in institutions such as orphanages and prisons, because of the monotonous and restricted diet. Soon pellagra began to occur in epidemic proportions in states south of the Potomac and Ohio rivers. The pellagra epidemic lasted for nearly four decades beginning in 1906. It was estimated that there were 3 million cases, and 100,000 deaths due to pellagra during the epidemic.


title: Booking Holdings

text: Booking Holdings Inc. is an American travel technology company incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law and based in Norwalk, Connecticut, that owns and operates several travel fare aggregators and travel fare metasearch engines including namesake and flagship Booking.com, Priceline.com, Agoda.com, Kayak.com,


title: Booking Holdings

text: Cheapflights, Rentalcars.com, Momondo, and OpenTable. It operates websites in about 40 languages and 200 countries.


title: Booking Holdings

text: In 2017, 89% of its gross profit was made outside the United States– most of which came from Booking.com.


title: Booking Holdings

text: In 2021, consumers booked 591 million room nights of accommodation, 47 million rental car days, and 15 million airplane tickets using websites owned by Booking Holdings.


title: Booking Holdings

text: In 2017, 93.4% of revenues were derived from commissions and 6.6% of revenues were derived from advertising.


title: Booking Holdings

text: The company ranked 340th on the 2022 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue.


title: Booking Holdings

text: In 1997, Jay S. Walker founded the company in Stamford, Connecticut, which launched Priceline.com, an online travel site, that used a Name Your Own Price bidding model.


title: Booking Holdings

text: In 1999, the company became a public company via an initial public offering, making Walker, who owned a 35% stake in the company, a multi-billionaire.


title: Booking Holdings

text: The company experimented with selling other products and services such as groceries, gasoline, home mortgages, and cars, but these offerings were discontinued in 2000.


title: Booking Holdings

text: On April 1, 2014, the name of the company was changed from priceline.com Incorporated to The Priceline Group Inc.


title: Booking Holdings

text: On February 21, 2018, the name of the company was changed from The Priceline Group Inc. to Booking Holdings. On February 27, 2018, the company changed its ticker symbol from "PCLN" to "BKNG".


title: Booking Holdings

text: In 2021, Booking Holdings acquired Etraveli Group AB, the operator of the website GoToGate, and hotel distributor Getaroom, for €1.63 billion. The Government of the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority has launched an enquiry into the acquisition, and as of November 2022, Booking Holdings is continuing to defend its proposed acquisition.


title: Booking Holdings

text: Jeffery H. Boyd was named chief executive officer in 2002 and remained in that role until becoming chairman of the board for Booking Holdings in 2013.


title: Booking Holdings

text: Effective January 1, 2014, Darren Huston was named chief executive officer of the company, replacing Jeff Boyd. On April 28, 2016, Huston was forced to resign following an undisclosed personal relationship with an employee, and Boyd was named interim CEO.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is a 1986 American science fiction film directed by Leonard Nimoy and based on the television series "". It is the fourth feature installment in the "Star Trek" franchise, and is a sequel to "" (1984); it completes the story arc begun in "" (1982) and continued in "The Search for Spock". Intent on returning home to Earth to face trial for their actions in the previous film, the former crew of the finds the planet in grave danger from an alien probe attempting to contact now-extinct humpback whales. The crew travel to Earth's past to find whales who can answer the probe's call.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: After directing "The Search for Spock", Nimoy was asked to direct the next feature, and given greater freedom regarding the film's content. Nimoy and producer Harve Bennett conceived a story with an environmental message and no clear-cut villain. Dissatisfied with the first screenplay produced by Steve Meerson and Peter Krikes, Paramount hired "The Wrath of Khan" writer and director Nicholas Meyer. Meyer and Bennett divided the story between them and wrote different parts of the script, requiring approval from Nimoy, lead actor William Shatner, and executives at Paramount Pictures. Principal photography commenced on February 24, 1986. Unlike previous "Star Trek" films, "The Voyage Home" was shot extensively on location; many real settings and buildings were used as stand-ins for scenes set around and in the city of San Francisco. Special effects firm Industrial Light & Magic assisted in post-production and the film's special effects. Few of the humpback whales in the film were real: ILM devised full-size animatronics and small motorized models to stand in for the real creatures. The film was dedicated to the crew of the Space Shuttle "Challenger", which broke up 73 seconds after takeoff on the morning of January 28, 1986.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: "The Voyage Home" was released on November 26, 1986, in North America by Paramount Pictures, and became the top-grossing film at the weekend box office. The film's humor, acting, direction, special effects and unconventional story were well received by critics, fans of the series, and the general audience. It was financially successful, grossing $133 million worldwide, and earned several awards and four Oscar nominations for cinematography and sound.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: In 2286, an enormous cylindrical probe moves through space, sending out an indecipherable signal and disabling the power of every ship it passes. As it takes up orbit around Earth, its signal disables the global power grid and generates planetary storms, creating catastrophic, sun-blocking cloud cover. Starfleet Command sends out a planetary distress call and warns all space-faring vessels not to approach Earth.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: On the planet Vulcan, the former officers of the late are living in exile after the events of "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock". Accompanied by the Vulcan Spock, still recovering from his resurrection, the crew take their captured Klingon Bird of Prey (renamed the "Bounty", after the Royal Navy ship) and return to Earth to face trial for their actions. Receiving Starfleet's warning, Spock determines that the probe's signal matches the song of extinct humpback whales, and that the object will continue to wreak havoc until its call is answered. The crew uses their ship to travel back in time via a slingshot maneuver around the Sun, planning to return with a whale to answer the alien signal.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Arriving in 1986, the crew finds their ship's power drained by the time travel maneuver. Hiding the "Bounty" in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park using its cloaking device, the crew split up to accomplish several tasks: Admiral James T. Kirk and Spock attempt to locate humpback whales, while Montgomery Scott, Leonard McCoy, and Hikaru Sulu construct a tank to hold the whales they need for a return to the 23rd century. Uhura and Pavel Chekov are tasked to find a nuclear reactor, whose energy leakage can be collected and used to re-power the Klingon vessel.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Kirk and Spock discover a pair of humpback whales in the care of Dr. Gillian Taylor at a Sausalito aquarium, and learn they will soon be released into the wild. Kirk tells her of his mission and asks for the tracking frequency for the whales, but she refuses to cooperate. Meanwhile, Scott and McCoy trade the formula of transparent aluminium for the materials needed for the whale tank, while Sulu secures the use of a "Huey" helicopter to transport them. Uhura and Chekov locate a nuclear powered ship, the aircraft carrier . They collect the power they need, but are discovered on board. Uhura is beamed out, but Chekov is captured and subsequently severely injured in an escape attempt.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Gillian learns the whales have been released early, and goes to Kirk for assistance. Gillian, Kirk, and McCoy rescue Chekov from a nearby hospital and return to the now recharged Bird of Prey. After saving the whales from whalers and transporting them aboard, the crew returns with Gillian to their own time. On approaching Earth, the "Bounty" loses power due to the alien probe and crash-lands into the waters of San Francisco Bay. Once released from near-drowning, the whales respond to the probe's signal, causing the object to reverse its effects on Earth and return to the depths of space.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Later, the "Enterprise" crew stand judgment before the Federation Council. The Council acknowledges their part in saving the planet and drops all charges, save one against Kirk for disobeying a superior officer. Kirk is demoted to the rank of Captain and returned to the command of a starship. Kirk and Gillian part ways, as she has been assigned to a science vessel by Starfleet, while Spock's father Sarek finally accepts his son's earlier choice to enter Starfleet. The crew discovers they have been awarded the newly christened , and leaves on a shakedown mission.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: William Shatner portrays Admiral James T. Kirk, former captain of the "Enterprise". Shatner was unwilling to reprise the role of Kirk until he received a salary of $2 million and the promise of directing the next film. Shatner described "The Voyage Home"s comic quality as one "that verges on tongue-in-cheek but isn't; it's as though the characters within the play have a great deal of joy about themselves, a joy of living [and] you play it with the reality you would in a kitchen-sink drama written for today's life".


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Leonard Nimoy plays Spock, who was resurrected by the effects of the Genesis planet and had his "living spirit" restored to his body in the previous film. DeForest Kelley portrays Doctor Leonard McCoy, who is given many of the film's comedic lines; Kelley's biographer Terry Lee Rioux wrote that in the film "he seemed to be playing straight man to himself." On Earth McCoy was paired with engineer Montgomery Scott (James Doohan), as producer Harve Bennett felt that Kelley worked well with Doohan's "old vaudeville comic". The other members of the "Enterprise" crew include George Takei as helmsman Hikaru Sulu, Walter Koenig as Commander Pavel Chekov, and Nichelle Nichols as Uhura. Koenig commented that Chekov was a "delight" to play in this film because he worked best in comedic situations.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Catherine Hicks plays Dr. Gillian Taylor, a cetologist on 20th-century Earth. During production a rumor circulated that the part had been created after Shatner demanded a love interest, a regular aspect of the television series that was absent from the first three films. Writer Nicholas Meyer denied this, saying that the inspiration for Taylor came from a biologist featured in a "National Geographic" documentary about whales. Nimoy chose Hicks after inviting her to lunch with Shatner and witnessing a chemistry between the two. The role was originally written for Eddie Murphy as an astrophysicist at Berkeley.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Majel Barrett reprises her role as Christine Chapel, the director of Starfleet Command's medical services. Many of her scenes—some reportedly very large—were omitted in the final cut, angering the actress. Her final role in the film consists of one line of dialogue and a reaction shot. Mark Lenard and Jane Wyatt play Spock's parents, Ambassador Sarek and Amanda Grayson, respectively, with both reprising the roles they had previously played in the 1967 episode "Journey to Babel". Wyatt commented that although she generally disliked working with actors who were directing, she found Nimoy an exception because he could concentrate on being part of the cast as well as setting up the crew. Robin Curtis reprises the role of Saavik, a Starfleet lieutenant. Saavik's role is minimal in the film—originally, she was intended to remain behind on Vulcan because she was pregnant after she had mated with the younger Spock in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock". In the final cut of the film, all references to her condition were dropped.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: The film contains several cameos and smaller roles. Alex Henteloff plays Dr. Nichols, plant manager of Plexicorp. Madge Sinclair makes an uncredited appearance as captain of the USS "Saratoga" (the first female Federation starship captain to appear in "Star Trek"). Musician Jane Wiedlin and tennis player Vijay Amritraj appear as Starfleet officers seen briefly on video screens at Starfleet Command. John Schuck appears as a Klingon ambassador, Robert Ellenstein as the Federation President, Michael Berryman as an alien display officer at Starfleet Command, and Brock Peters as Fleet Admiral Cartwright. Grace Lee Whitney reprises her role as Janice Rand from the original television series.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Before "The Search for Spock" was released, its director Leonard Nimoy was asked to return to direct the next film in the franchise. Whereas Nimoy had been under certain constraints in filming the previous picture, Paramount gave the director greater freedom for the sequel. "[Paramount] said flat out that they wanted my vision," Nimoy recalled. In contrast to the drama-heavy and operatic events of the three previous "Star Trek" features, Nimoy and producer Harve Bennett wanted a lighter movie that did not have a clear-cut villain. As William Shatner was unwilling to return, Nimoy and Bennett spent eight months considering a prequel concept by Ralph Winter about the characters at Starfleet Academy, before Shatner received a pay increase and signed on to star. Nimoy and Shatner each received $2.5 million for the film, less than their original demands, but the film cast's rising salaries caused Paramount to create a new television series, "" (1987), with less-expensive, lesser-known actors.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Despite Shatner's doubts, Nimoy and Bennett selected a time travel story in which the "Enterprise" crew encounters a problem that could only be fixed by something only available in the present day (the "Star Trek" characters' past). They considered ideas about violin makers and oil drillers, or a disease that had its cure destroyed with the rainforests. "But the depiction of thousands of sick and dying people seemed rather gruesome for our light-hearted film, and the thought of our crew taking a 600-year round trip just to bring back a snail darter wasn't all that thrilling," explained Nimoy. The director read a book on extinct animals and conceived the storyline that was eventually adopted. Nimoy hit upon the idea of humpback whales after talking with a friend—their song added mystery to the story, and their size added logistical challenges the heroes would have to overcome.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Nimoy approached "Beverly Hills Cop" writer Daniel Petrie Jr. to write the screenplay when a concept that executive producer Jeffrey Katzenberg described as "either the best or worst idea in the world" arose—"Star Trek" fan Eddie Murphy wanted a starring role. Nimoy and Murphy acknowledged his part would attract non-"Star Trek" fans to the franchise following the rising popularity of Murphy, but it also meant the film might be ridiculed. Steve Meerson and Peter Krikes were hired to write a script with Murphy as a college professor who believes in aliens and likes to play whale songs. Murphy disliked the part, and chose to make "The Golden Child". The character intended for Murphy was combined with those of a marine biologist and a female reporter to become Gillian Taylor.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Paramount was dissatisfied with the script, so its head of production Dawn Steel asked Nicholas Meyer, the writer and director of "", to help rewrite it. Meyer never read the earlier script, reasoning it pointless to do so since the content had no appeal to the studio. He and Bennett split the task of conceiving the plot between them. Bennett wrote the first quarter of the story, up to the point where the crew goes back in time. Meyer wrote the story's middle portion, taking place on 20th-century Earth, and Bennett handled the ending. After 12 days of writing, Meyer and Bennett combined their separate portions. In this version, Gillian Taylor stays on 1986's Earth and vows to ensure the survival of the humpback whale despite the paradox it could create. Meyer preferred this "righter ending" to the film version, explaining "the end in the movie detracts from the importance of people in the present taking the responsibility for the ecology and preventing problems of the future by doing something today, rather than catering to the fantasy desires of being able to be transported in time to the near-utopian future." Meyer and Bennett cut out Krikes and Meerson's idea of having the Klingon Bird-of-Prey fly over the Super Bowl and the hint that Saavik remained on Vulcan because she was pregnant with Spock's child.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Nimoy said Meyer gave the script "the kind of humor and social comment, gadfly attitude I very much wanted". He added that his vision was for "no dying, no fighting, no shooting, no photon torpedoes, no phaser blasts, no stereotypical bad guy. I wanted people to really have a great time watching this film [and] if somewhere in the mix we lobbed a couple of big ideas at them, well, then that would be even better." One of Meyer's earlier films, "Time After Time", was largely based in San Francisco; when he was told by the producers that "The Voyage Home" had to be set in the same city, he took the opportunity to comment upon cultural aspects not covered by his earlier film, such as punk rock—"The Voyage Home"s scene where Kirk and Spock meet an annoying punk rocker was based on a similar scene cut from "Time After Time".


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Meyer found writing the script a smooth process. He would write a few pages, show it to Nimoy and Bennett for consultation, and return to his office to write some more. Once Nimoy, Bennett, and Meyer were happy, they showed the script to Shatner, who offered his own notes for another round of rewrites. The completed script was shown to Paramount executives, who were very pleased.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) was responsible for "The Voyage Home"s model design and optical effects. The alien probe was the responsibility of ILM's model shop, which brought in outside help like illustrator Ralph McQuarrie for concept art. The modelmakers started with art director Nilo Rodis' basic design, a simple cylinder with whalelike qualities. The prototype was covered with barnacles and colored. The ball-shaped antenna that juts out from the bottom of the probe was created out of a piece of irrigation pipe; internal machinery turned the device. Three sizes of the "whale probe" were created; the primary probe model was supplemented by a smaller model for wide shots and a large model that used forced perspective to give the probe the illusion of massive dimensions.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: The effects crew focused on using in-camera tricks to realize the probe; post-production effects were time-consuming, so lighting effects were done on stage while filming. Model shop supervisor Jeff Mann filled the probe's antenna with tube lamps and halogen bulbs that were turned on in sequence for different exposures; three different camera passes for each exposure were combined for the final effect. After watching the first shot, the team found the original, whalelike probe design lacking in menace. The modelmakers repainted the probe a shiny black, pockmarked its surface for greater texture and interest, and re-shot the scene. Although they wanted to avoid post-production effects work, the opticals team had to recolor the antenna ball in a blue hue, as the original orange looked too much like a spinning basketball.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Aside from the probe, "The Voyage Home" required no new starship designs. The USS "Saratoga", the first Federation starship disabled by the probe, was the USS "Reliant" model from "The Wrath of Khan". The Bird-of-Prey model from "The Search for Spock" was reused, but ILM built additional sturdy versions for "The Voyage Home"s action sequences. The inside of the Bird-of-Prey was represented by a different set than "The Search for Spock", but the designers made sure to adhere to a sharp and alien architectural aesthetic. To give the set a smokier, atmospheric look, the designers rigged display and instrumentation lights to be bright enough that they could light the characters, rather than relying on ambient or rigged lighting. While Paramount had instructed ILM to trash the large Spacedock model created for "The Search for Spock", the team had been loath to discard the complicated model and its miles of fiber optic lighting. When "The Voyage Home" called for the return of Spacedock, ILM had only to reassemble the model from storage.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Robert Fletcher served as costume designer for the film. During the Earth-based scenes, Kirk and his crew continue to wear their 23rd-century clothing. Nimoy debated whether the crew should change costumes, but after seeing how people in San Francisco are dressed, he decided they would still fit in.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Nimoy chose Donald Peterman, ASC, as director of photography. Nimoy said he regarded the cinematographer as a fellow artist, and that it was important for them to agree on "a certain look" that Peterman was committed to delivering. Nimoy had seen Peterman's work and felt it was more nuanced than simply lighting a scene and capturing an image.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: The film's opening scenes aboard the starship "Saratoga" were the first to be shot; principal photography commenced on February 24, 1986. The set was a redress of the science vessel "Grissom"s bridge from "The Search for Spock", in turn a redress of the "Enterprise" bridge created for "The Motion Picture". The scenes were filmed first to allow time for the set to be revamped as the bridge of the new "Enterprise"-A at the end of filming.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: As with previous "Star Trek" films, existing props and footage were reused where possible to save money, though "The Voyage Home" required less of this than previous films. The Earth Spacedock interiors and control booth sets were reused from "The Search for Spock", although the computer monitors in these scenes featured new graphics—the old reels had deteriorated in storage. Stock footage of the destruction of the "Enterprise" and the Bird-of-Prey's movement through space were reused. While the Bird-of-Prey bridge was a completely new design, other parts of the craft's interior were also redresses; the computer room was a modification of the reactor room where Spock died in "The Wrath of Khan". After all other Bird-of-Prey bridge scenes were completed, the entire set was painted white for one shot that transitioned into a dream sequence during the time travel.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: "The Voyage Home" was the first "Star Trek" film to extensively film on location—only one day was spent doing so in "The Search for Spock". Much of the production was filmed in and around San Francisco during ten days of shooting. The production wanted to film scenes that were readily identifiable as the city. The use of extensive location shooting caused logistical problems; a scene in which Kirk is nearly run over by an irate cab driver required 12–15 cars to be repositioned if the shot was incorrect, taking a half-hour to reshoot. Other scenes were filmed in the city but used sets rather than real locations, such as an Italian restaurant where Taylor and Kirk eat. In the film, the Bird-of-Prey lands cloaked in Golden Gate Park, surprising trashmen who flee the scene in their truck. The production had planned to film in the real park, where they had filmed scenes for "The Wrath of Khan", but heavy rains before the day of shooting prevented it—the garbage truck would have become bogged down in the mud. Will Rogers Park in western Los Angeles was used instead.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: When Kirk and Spock are traveling on a public bus, they encounter a punk rocker blaring his music on a boom box, to the discomfort of everyone around him. Spock takes matters into his own hands and performs a Vulcan nerve pinch. Part of the inspiration for the scene came from Nimoy's personal experiences with a similar character on the streets of New York; "[I was struck] by the arrogance of it, the aggressiveness of it, and I thought if I was Spock I'd pinch his brains out!" On learning about the scene, Kirk Thatcher, an associate producer on the film, convinced Nimoy to let him play the role; Thatcher shaved his hair into a mohawk and bought clothes to complete the part. Credited as "punk on bus", Thatcher (along with sound designer Mark Mangini) also wrote and recorded "I Hate You", the song in the scene, and it was his idea to have the punk—rendered unconscious by the pinch—hit the stereo and turn it off with his face.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Much of the Cetacean Institute, Taylor's workplace, was created by using the real-life Monterey Bay Aquarium. A holding tank for the whales was added via special effects to the Aquarium's exterior. For close-ups of the characters as they watched the whales in the tank, the Aquarium's walls and railings were measured and replicated for a set on the Paramount parking lot. One scene takes place by a large glass through which observers view the whales—and Spock's initiation of a mind meld—underwater. Footage of the actors shot in front of them as they reacted to a brick wall in the Aquarium was combined with shots taken from their rear as they stood in front of a large blue screen at ILM to produce this scene. The footage of Spock's melding with the whales was shot weeks later in a large water tank used to train astronauts for weightlessness.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: In the film, Uhura and Chekov visit the aircraft carrier USS "Enterprise". The real "Enterprise", out at sea at the time, was unavailable for filming, so the non-nuclear-powered carrier USS "Ranger" (CV-61) was used. Oakland International Airport was used for the foreground element of Starfleet Headquarters. Scenes in the San Francisco Bay were shot at a tank on Paramount's backlot.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: The scene in which Uhura and Chekov question passersby about the location of nuclear vessels was filmed with a hidden camera. However, the people with whom Koenig and Nichols speak were extras hired off the street for that day's shooting and, despite legends to the contrary, knew they were being filmed. In an interview with "StarTrek.com", Layla Sarakalo, the extra who said, "I don't know if I know the answer to that... I think it's across the bay, in Alameda," stated that after her car was impounded because she missed the warnings to move it for the filming, she approached the assistant director about appearing with the other extras, hoping to be paid enough to get her car out of impoundment. She had been told to act naturally, and so she answered them and the filmmakers kept her response in the film, though she had to be inducted into the Screen Actors Guild in order for her lines to be kept.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Vulcan and the Bird-of-Prey exterior was created with a combination of matte paintings and a soundstage. Nimoy had searched for a suitable location for the scene of the "Enterprise" crew's preparations to return to Earth, but various locations did not work, so the scene was instead filmed on a Paramount backlot. The production had to mask the fact that production buildings were away. A wide-angle shot of Spock on the edge of a cliff overlooking the scene was filmed at Vasquez Rocks, a park north of Los Angeles. The Federation council chamber was a large set filled with representatives from many alien races. Production manager Jack T. Collis economized by building the set with only one end; reverse angle shots used the same piece of wall. The positions of the Federation President's podium and the actors on the seats were switched for each shot. Since "The Voyage Home" was the first "Star Trek" film to show the operations at Starfleet Command, Bennett and Nimoy visited NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to learn how a real deep space command center might look and operate. Among the resulting set's features was a large central desk with video monitors that the production team nicknamed "the pool table"; the prop later became a fixture in USS "Enterprise"-D's engine room on the television series "Star Trek: The Next Generation".


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Nimoy approached ILM early in development and helped create storyboards for the optical effects sequences. Many shots used matte paintings to extend backgrounds and create establishing shots without the cost of building a set. Matte supervisor Chris Evans attempted to create paintings that felt less contrived and more real—while the natural instinct of filmmaking is to place important elements in an orderly fashion, Evans said that photographers would "shoot things that [...] are odd in some way" and end up with results that look natural instead. The task of establishing the location and atmosphere at Starfleet Headquarters fell to the matte department, who had to make it feel like a bustling futuristic version of San Francisco. The matte personnel and Ralph McQuarrie provided design input. The designers decided to make actors in the foreground more prominent, and filmed them on a large area of smooth concrete runway at the Oakland Airport. Elements like a shuttlecraft that thirty extras appeared to interact with were also mattes blended to appear as if they were sitting by the actors. Ultimately the artists were not satisfied with how the shot turned out; matte photography supervisor Craig Barron believed that there were too many elements in the scene.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: The scenes of the Bird-of-Prey on Vulcan were combinations of live-action footage—actors on a set in the Paramount parking lot that was covered with clay and used backdrops—and matte paintings for the ship itself and harsh background terrain. The scene of the ship's departure from Vulcan for Earth was more difficult to accomplish; the camera pans behind live-action characters to follow the ship as it leaves the atmosphere, and other items like flaming pillars and a flaring sun had to be integrated into the shot. Rather than try to match and combine camera pans of each element, each component was shot with a static camera and the pan was added to the resulting composite by a motion control camera. The sun (a light bulb focused by a convex lens) was shot in different passes to create realistic light effects on the Bird-of-Prey without having the light bleed around other elements in the shot.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: The script called for the probe to vaporize the Earth's oceans, generating heavy cloud cover. While effects cinematographer Don Dow wanted to go to sea and record plumes of water created by exploding detonating cords in the water, the team decided to create the probe's climatic effect in another way after a government fishing agency voiced concerns for the welfare of marine life in the area. The team used a combination of baking soda and cloud tank effects; the swirling mist created by the water-filled tank was shot on black velvet, and color and dynamic swirls were added by injecting paint into the tank. These shots were composited onto a painting of the Earth along with overlaid lightning effects, created by double-exposing lights as they moved across the screen.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: The Bird-of-Prey's travel through time was one of the most difficult effects sequences of the film. While ILM was experienced in creating the streaking warp effect they used for previous films, the sequence required the camera to trail a sustained warp effect as the Bird-of-Prey rounded the sun. Matching the effect to the model was accomplished through trial-and-error guesswork. The team did not have the time to wait for the animation department to create the sun for this shot. Assistant cameraman Pete Kozachic devised a way of creating the sun on-stage. He placed two sheets of textured plexiglass next to each other and backlit them with a powerful yellow light. The rig was rotated on a circular track and the sheet in front created a moire pattern as its position shifted. Animator John Knoll added solar flare effects to complete the look; Dow recalled that the effect came close to matching footage of the sun taken by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Traveling through time, Kirk and crew experience what author Jody Duncan Shay termed a "dreamlike state". The script's only direction for the effect was "now [they] go through time"; Nimoy and McQuarrie envisioned Kirk's dream as a montage of bizarre images. The filmmakers decided early on that part of the dream sequence would use computer-generated animation to give it an unreal quality divorced from the rest of the film. ILM worked from McQuarrie's storyboards and created a rough mock-up or animatic to show Nimoy and hone the direction of the sequence. For the very beginning of the dream, the inside of the Bird-of-Prey bridge was painted stark white. Part of the final sequence involved morphing the heads of the "Enterprise" crew into one another; ILM digitized the cast members' heads using a 3-D scanning technology developed by Cyberware and used the resulting data for the computer models. Because each head model had the same number of key points of reference, transforming one character into another was simple; more difficult, the animators recalled, was ensuring that the transformation looked "pleasing" and not "grotesque". The resulting thirty seconds of footage took weeks to render; the department used every spare computer they could find to help in the processing chores. ILM's stage, optical, and matte departments collaborated to complete other shots for the dream sequence. The shot of a man's fall to Earth was created by filming a small puppet on bluescreen. Shots of liquid nitrogen composited behind the puppet gave the impression of smoke. The background plate of the planet was a large matte that allowed the camera to zoom in very close. The final shot of marshy terrain was practical and required no effects.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: The filmmakers knew from the beginning of production that the whales were their biggest effects concern; Dow recalled that they were prepared to change to another animal in case creating the whales proved too difficult. When Humphrey the Whale wandered into the San Francisco Bay, Dow and his camera crew attempted to gather usable footage of the humpback but failed to do so. Other footage of real humpbacks either did not exist on 35 mm film or would have been difficult to match to specific actions required by the script. Compositing miniatures shot against bluescreen on top of water backgrounds would not have provided realistic play of light. Creating full-size mechanical whales on tracks would severely limit the types of angles and shots. To solve the whale problem, Rodis hired robotics expert Walt Conti. While Conti was not experienced in film, Rodis believed his background in engineering and design made him well equipped for Rodis' planned solution: the creation of independent and self-contained miniature whale models.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: After watching footage of whale movement, Conti determined that the models could be simplified by making the front of the whale entirely rigid, relying on the tail and fins for movement. Conti showed footage of the operation of a prototype to Paramount executives, who according to Conti, ""loved" it... It really knocked them out." With Paramount's approval, ILM hired marine author, conservationist and illustrator Pieter Folkens to sculpt a realistic whale exterior.> ILM decided on a finished model size of —the size prevented delicate components like the tail from buckling under stress—and fitted it with mechanics and radio equipment required for control and operation. To prevent water from ruining the whale's electronics, the modelmakers sealed every individual mechanical component rather than attempting to waterproof the entire whale. Balloons and lead weights were added to achieve the proper balance and buoyancy. The finished models were put in the swimming pool of Serra High School in San Mateo, California, for two weeks of shooting; the operation of the whales required four handlers and divers with video cameras to help set up the shots. Accurately controlling the whales was difficult because of the murky water—ILM added diatomaceous earth to the water to match realistic ocean visibility. For a few shots, such as the whales' breaching the water towards the end of the film, the creatures were represented by life-size animatronics shot at Paramount.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Models of the starship USS "Enterprise" were destroyed in the previous film partly because visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston wanted to build a "more state-of-the-art ship for the next film", but the filmmakers made the less costly decision to have the crew return to serve on the duplicate USS "Enterprise" A, and six weeks were spent repairing and repainting the old model. A travel pod from "" was also reused for the ending, although the interior set had to be rebuilt. Graphic designer Michael Okuda designed smooth controls with backlit displays for the Federation. Dubbed "Okudagrams", the system was also used for displays on the Klingon ship, though the buttons were larger.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: James Horner, composer for "The Wrath of Khan" and "The Search for Spock", declined to return for "The Voyage Home". Nimoy turned to his friend Leonard Rosenman, who had written the music to "Fantastic Voyage", Ralph Bakshi's "The Lord of the Rings", and two "Planet of the Apes" sequels. Rosenman wrote an arrangement of Alexander Courage's "Star Trek" television theme as the title music for "The Voyage Home", but Nimoy requested an original composition. Music critic Jeff Bond writes, "The final result was one of the most unusual "Star Trek" movie themes," consisting of a six-note theme and variations set against a repetitious four-note brass motif; the theme's bridge borrows content from Rosenman's "Frodo March" for "The Lord of the Rings". The melody is played in the beginning of the film on Vulcan and the scenes of Taylor's search for Kirk to help find her whales.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: The Earth-based setting of the filming gave Rosenman leeway to write a variety of music in different styles. Nimoy intended the crew's introduction to the streets of San Francisco to be accompanied by something reminiscent of George Gershwin, but Rosenman changed the director's mind, and the scene was scored with a contemporary jazz fusion piece by Yellowjackets. When Chekov flees detention aboard the aircraft carrier, Rosenman wrote a bright cue that incorporates classical Russian compositions. The music for the escape from the hospital was done in a baroque style. More familiar Rosenman compositions include the action music for the face off between the Bird-of-Prey and a whaling ship in open water, and the atmospheric music (reminiscent of the composer's work in "Fantastic Voyage") during the probe's communication. After the probe leaves, a Vivaldiesque "whale fugue" begins. The first sighting of the "Enterprise"-A uses the Alexander Courage theme before the end titles.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Mark Mangini served as "The Voyage Home"s sound designer. He described it as different from working on many other films because Nimoy appreciated the role of sound effects and made sure that they were prominent in the film. Since many sounds familiar to "Star Trek" had been established—the Bird-of-Prey's cloaking device, the transporter beam, "et al."—Mangini focused on making only small changes to them. The most important sounds were those of the whales and the probe. Mangini's brother lived near biologist Roger Payne, who had recordings of whale song. Mangini went through the tapes and chose sounds that could be mixed to suggest conversation and language. The probe's screeching calls were the whale song in distorted form. The humpback's communication with the probe at the climax of the film contained no dramatic music, meaning that Mangini's sounds had to stand alone. He recalled that he had difficulty with envisioning how the scene would unfold, leading Bennett to perform a puppet show to explain.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: It was at Bennett's suggestion that Paramount studio heads asked Nimoy to create subtitles for the probe's transmission at the start of the film and for the climactic dialogue with the whales. Both Nimoy and Meyer were adamantly against using any subtitles, and they eventually prevailed.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Nimoy and the other producers were unhappy with Mangini's attempts to create the probe's droning operating noise; after more than a dozen attempts, the sound designer finally asked Nimoy what he thought the probe should sound like. Mangini recorded Nimoy's guttural "wub-wub-wub" response, distorted it with "just the tiniest bit of dressing", and used it as the final sound.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: The punk music during the bus scene was written by Thatcher after he learned that the sound for the scene would be by "Duran Duran, or whoever" and not "raw" and authentic punk. Thatcher collaborated with Mangini and two sound editors who were in punk bands to create their own music. They decided that punk distilled down to the sentiment of "I hate you", and wrote a song centered on the theme. Recording in the sound studio as originally planned produced too clean a sound, so they moved to the outside hallway and recorded the song in one take using cheap microphones to create a distorted sound. The song was also used in Paramount's "Back to the Beach".


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: "The Voyage Home" opened theatrically in North America on Thanksgiving weekend, November 26, 1986. Since "Star Trek" had traditionally performed poorly internationally, the producers created a special trailer for foreign markets that de-emphasized the "Star Trek" part of the title, as well as retelling the events of "The Wrath of Khan" and "The Search for Spock". Winter recalled that the marketing did not seem to make a difference. "The Voyage Home" was the first "Star Trek" film shown in the Soviet Union, screened by the World Wildlife Fund on June 26, 1987, in Moscow to celebrate a ban on whaling. Attending the screening with Nimoy, Bennett was amazed the film proved as entertaining to the Russians as it did with American audiences; he said "the single most rewarding moment of my "Star Trek" life" was when the Moscow audience applauded at McCoy's line, "The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe. We'll get a freighter." Bennett believed it was a clear "messenger of what was to come".


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: Vonda N. McIntyre wrote a novelization that was released at the same time as the film. It was the biggest tie-in novel published by Pocket Books, and spent eight weeks on "The New York Times" bestseller list, peaking at #3. MCA Records released the film's soundtrack November 26, 1986.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: In its first week, "The Voyage Home" ended "Crocodile Dundee"s 8-week reign of the American box office. The "Star Trek" film made $39.6 million in its first five days of release, exceeding "The Search for Spock"s opening by $14 million. Ultimately, the film grossed a global total of $133 million against its $26 million cost. In six weeks, "The Voyage Home" sold $81.3 million in tickets, more than the franchise's second or third film, and almost as much as "Star Trek: The Motion Picture". The film was a major commercial success for Paramount, which released five of the top ten films of the year, and garnered 22 percent of all money taken in at American theaters. Much of the credit for Paramount's success was given to chairman Frank Mancuso Sr., who moved "The Voyage Home"s release from Christmas to Thanksgiving after research showed that the film might draw filmgoers away from "The Golden Child".


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: "The Voyage Home" received mostly positive reviews—Nimoy called it the most well received of all "Star Trek" films made at that point—and it appealed to general audiences in addition to franchise fans. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 82% based on 44 reviews, and an average rating of 6.9/10. The critics' consensus reads, ""Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" is perhaps the lightest and most purely enjoyable entry of the long-running series, emphasizing the eccentricities of the Enterprise's crew." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: The movie was a "loose, jovial, immensely pleasurable Christmas entertainment" for "The Washington Post"s Paul Attanasio, and a retrospective BBC review called the film "one of the series' strongest episodes and proof that the franchise could weather the absence of space-bound action and the iconic USS "Enterprise", and still be highly enjoyable". Although Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" admitted the film's plot was "demented", she wrote that the film "has done a great deal to ensure the series' longevity". Rushworth Kidder of the "Christian Science Monitor" praised the film for giving audiences a view of their modern life from a different perspective (the mooreeffoc effect), while simultaneously proving that a film does not need to have murder, violence, innuendo or even a main villain for dramatic storytelling.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: The film's "fish out of water" comedy and acting were mostly lauded. The "Courier Mail" wrote that the film was funnier than its predecessors, and while not "flippant", a sense of humor was revealed through the efforts of the cast, writers and director. "Newsweek"s David Ansen considered "The Voyage Home" not only the most light-hearted of the movie franchise, but the most true in spirit to the original television series. A more negative review was offered by Liam Lacey of "The Globe and Mail", who wrote that under Nimoy's "choppy" direction there was a lack of comic timing paired with feeble humor. American film critic Pauline Kael commented, "The crewmates are supposed to be technical wizards of the 23rd century, but they deliver their lines as if they were ancient tortoises who had to get their heads out and up before they could say anything. It's a relief to hear two San Francisco garbagemen talk, because there's some energy in their voices, and when Madge Sinclair turns up for a minute, as the captain of the S. S. Saratoga, her crisp, urgent tone is like a handclap."


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: The special effects were generally well received; critics for "The Sydney Morning Herald" and "Courier Mail" noted that the effects played a lesser role in the film compared to the characters and dialogue. Similarly, "USA Today" felt the lack of special effects allowed the cast to "prove themselves more capable actors than ever before". Maslin wrote that Nimoy's technical direction left "much to be desired" (pointing out a special effects scene where the Bird-of-Prey does not cast a shadow on the whaling ship as a mistake), but his "unmistakable" sincerity made up for these issues.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: "The Voyage Home" garnered 11 nominations at the 14th annual Saturn Awards, tying "Aliens" for number of nominations. Nimoy and Shatner were nominated for best actor for their roles, and Catherine Hicks was nominated for best supporting actress. At the 59th Academy Awards, "The Voyage Home" was nominated for Best Cinematography, Sound (Terry Porter, David J. Hudson, Mel Metcalfe and Gene Cantamessa), Sound Effects Editing, and Original Score.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: In 2018, "Popular Mechanics" ranked the scene where Chekov talks about 'nuclear wessels' the 50th-greatest moment in science fiction.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: "The Voyage Home" was first released on VHS home media on September 30, 1987. Paramount Home Video spent $20 million marketing the film's release alongside 10 episodes of "The Original Series". The video sold hundreds of thousands of copies in the United States and Canadian markets, and was in the top ten rankings for sales and rentals in December and January 1988. Paramount re-released the film on March 12, 1992, with "Fatal Attraction" as part of a "Director's Series"; these editions had additional commentary and were presented in a widescreen letterboxed format to preserve the film's original cinematography. Nimoy was interviewed on the Paramount lots and discussed his acting career as well as his favorable opinion of the widescreen format.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: A "bare bones" DVD of the film was released on November 9, 1999. Aside from the film, the contents include the original theatrical trailer and the introduction from the "Director's Series" VHS release. Three-and-a-half years later, a two-disc "Collector's Edition" was released with supplemental material and the same video transfer as the original DVD release. Among other special features, it contains a text commentary by Michael Okuda and an audio commentary from director Leonard Nimoy and star William Shatner.


title: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

text: The film was released on Blu-ray Disc in May 2009 to coincide with the new "Star Trek" feature, along with the other five films that feature the original crew in "Star Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection". "The Voyage Home" was remastered in 1080p high definition. Each film in the set has an additional soundtrack, enhanced to 7.1 Dolby TrueHD standard. The disc features a new commentary track by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, the writers of the 2009 "Star Trek" film. On July 7, 2021, it was announced that a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray boxset containing the first four "Star Trek" films would be released on September 7 of that year to commemorate the franchise's 55th anniversary.


title: Documentary Now!

text: Documentary Now! is an American mockumentary television series, created by Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Seth Meyers, and Rhys Thomas, that premiered on August 20, 2015, on IFC. Armisen and Hader star in many episodes, and Thomas and Alex Buono co-direct most episodes. Hosted by Helen Mirren, the series spoofs celebrated documentary films by parodying the style of each documentary with a similar, but fictitious, subject. The third season premiered on February 20, 2019. On April 8, 2019, the series was renewed for a fourth season, which premiered on October 19, 2022 and will also be released on AMC+.


title: Documentary Now!

text: "Documentary Now!" presents itself as a long-running news magazine for documentaries, initially celebrating its 50th season. Mirren appears at the beginning of each episode to introduce the "classic" documentary that the audience is about to see.


title: Documentary Now!

text: The idea for the series was born out of a pre-tape short film from "Saturday Night Live", where Armisen, Hader and Meyers were former cast members. In 2013, in a season 38 episode with Vince Vaughn, Armisen and Hader portrayed aging British punk rock stars in a sketch titled, "History of Punk: Ian Rubbish and the Bizzaros". Hader has stated the biggest inspirations for the series were Woody Allen's mockumentary films "Take the Money and Run" (1969), and "Zelig" (1983). During the origins of "Documentary Now!" Hader sent DVD copies of the Allen films to Rhys Thomas and co-director Alex Buono. Hader said “I told them, ‘This is the mood of the show: very serious, very dry, but with insane jokes and crazy moments. You don’t want to wink too much at the audience."


title: Documentary Now!

text: On March 20, 2014, it was announced that IFC had given the production, then titled "American Documentary", a series order for a first season consisting of six episodes. Executive producers were set to include Lorne Michaels, Seth Meyers, Fred Armisen, and Bill Hader. Production companies involved with the series were slated to consist of Broadway Video and Rhys Thomas was expected to serve as director. The six-episode order limited the first season of the show, as Seth Meyers revealed in an interview with "Collider", stating that they were not able to spoof Michael Moore documentaries, or the HBO documentary miniseries "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst". Meyers further explained saying, ""The Jinx" happened a little too late for us. We almost tried to pull it off. We talked a lot about that kind of documentary, where the filmmaker sets out to make a documentary, and then, very slowly, it becomes clear the documentary is about himself." The producers also declined to do another "This Is Spinal Tap"–type mockumentary and consciously avoided any similarities in editing or style. Armisen commented, ""Spinal Tap" set such a great precedent that we had to watch out for repeating any of those same beats. It's one of the greatest movies ever."


title: Documentary Now!

text: On July 31, 2015, it was announced at the Television Critics Association's annual summer press tour that Meyers, Hader and Armisen would serve as writers for the series and that additional executive producers would include Thomas and Andrew Singer. On August 18, 2015, it was reported that IFC had renewed the series for a second and third season. It was additionally reported that the series had been co-created by Thomas who was also expected to serve in the role of director along with Alex Buono. John Mulaney was slated to be a consulting producer and Erik Kenward a supervising producer. On August 27, 2015, it was announced that IFC had decided to delay the premiere of the series' second episode "DRONEZ: The Hunt for El Chingon" following the live broadcast of two television news station employees' murders in Virginia the previous day. The episode "Kunuk Uncovered", originally set to air as the series' third episode, was broadcast in its place.


title: Documentary Now!

text: On August 1, 2018, it was announced that the third season would premiere on February 20, 2019. Additionally, it was reported that one of the episodes would be titled "Waiting for the Artist" and parody the documentary film "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present". Later that month, it was announced that another episode, entitled "Original Cast Album: Co-Op", would parody D. A. Pennebaker's 1970 documentary "". On September 6, 2018, two further season three episodes were announced. One episode, titled "Any Given Saturday Afternoon", was described as a parody of the 2006 documentary "A League of Ordinary Gentlemen" and set to feature guest stars including Kevin Dunn, Michael C. Hall, Tim Robinson, and Bobby Moynihan. The other episode, titled "Long Gone", was described as a parody of the 1988 documentary "Let's Get Lost" and was expected to include Natasha Lyonne in a guest starring role. On October 10, 2018, it was announced that the season three premiere episode had been titled "Batsh*t Valley" and that it would be a parody of "Wild Wild Country" and "The Source Family".


title: Documentary Now!

text: Alongside the series order announcement, it was confirmed that Fred Armisen and Bill Hader would star in the series. On August 1, 2018, it was announced that Cate Blanchett would guest star in the third-season episode "Waiting for the Artist" as Barta, a performance artist. Later that month, it was reported that Taran Killam, John Mulaney, James Urbaniak, Alex Brightman, Richard Kind, Paula Pell, and Renée Elise Goldsberry would appear in a third-season episode titled "Original Cast Album: Co-Op". On September 6, 2018, further season three guest stars were announced including Kevin Dunn, Michael C. Hall, Tim Robinson, and Bobby Moynihan in the episode "Any Given Saturday Afternoon" and Natasha Lyonne in the episode "Long Gone". On October 10, 2018, it was announced that Owen Wilson, Michael Keaton, and Necar Zadegan would guest star in the third-season premiere episode "Batsh*t Valley".


title: Documentary Now!

text: In season one, two of the episodes were shot in Iceland and "DRONEZ: The Hunt for El Chingon" was filmed in Tijuana. To film the second-season episode "Final Transmission", the "Documentary Now!" crew staged a real-life concert (attracting around 1,000 people) in which Armisen, Hader, and guest star Maya Rudolph performed as the Talking Heads-inspired band the episode centers around. The season three episode "Waiting for the Artist" was filmed in Budapest, Hungary in mid-2018.


title: Documentary Now!

text: On January 27, 2019, the premiere of the third season was held at the Egyptian Theatre in Park City, Utah during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. The premiere featured screenings of the episodes "Waiting for the Artist" and "Original Cast Album: Co-Op".


title: Documentary Now!

text: In advance of their television broadcast, the episodes "My Monkey Grifter", "Two Hairdressers in Bagglyport" and "Trouver Frisson" were premiered in the Documentary slate at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2022.


title: Documentary Now!

text: The first season was received positively by critics upon its premiere. On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the season holds a 90% approval rating, with an average rating of 7.89 out of 10 based on 29 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Boasting a talented cast and smart writing, "Documentary Now!" is a clever send-up of non-fiction filmmaking, though some may find themselves outside the narrow scope of its humor." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the season a score of 79 out of 100 based on 32 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."


title: Documentary Now!

text: In its year-end roundup, "The New York Times" named "Documentary Now!" as one of "The Best TV Shows of 2015". "This series, introduced in August," wrote "Times" critic Neil Genzlinger, "consists not of actual documentaries but of parodies of actual documentaries. It sure is funny, though."


title: Documentary Now!

text: The second season was met with a positive response from critics upon its premiere. On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the season holds a 93% approval rating, with an average rating of 7.84 out of 10 based on 15 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "With extreme attention to detail, "Documentary Now!" furthers its hilarious tribute to vintage documentaries through showcasing creators Hader and Armisen's multi-talents, topped with brilliantly by earnestly dramatic introductions by Dame Helen Mirren." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the season a score of 74 out of 100 based on 7 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Documentary Now!

text: The third season was met with critical acclaim from critics upon its premiere. On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the season holds a 100% approval rating, with an average rating of 9.29 out of 10 based on 23 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Incisively critical of the genre and equally delighted by its subjects, "Documentary Now!" nails mockumentary under the deft direction of Rhys Thomas and Alex Buono." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the season a score of 88 out of 100 based on 8 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Documentary Now!

text: The first two seasons were released by Mill Creek Entertainment on DVD and Blu-ray on August 14, 2018. The episode "Globesman" was included as a bonus feature in the Criterion Collection Blu-ray release of "Salesman," while "Original Cast Album: Co-Op" was included as a bonus feature in the Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-ray release for "", with a reunion of the cast and crew of the episode included as an additional feature.


title: Documentary Now!

text: The soundtrack for the Season 3 episode "Co-Op" was made available as an actual cast album in 2019 (profits for the album were donated to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS).


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: Roberto Gastone Zeffiro Rossellini (8 May 1906 – 3 June 1977) was an Italian film director, producer, and screenwriter. He was one of the most prominent directors of the Italian neorealist cinema, contributing to the movement with films such as "Rome, Open City" (1945), "Paisan" (1946), and "Germany, Year Zero" (1948).


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: Rossellini was born in Rome. His mother, Elettra (née Bellan), was a housewife born in Rovigo, Veneto, and his father, Angiolo Giuseppe "Peppino" Rossellini, who owned a construction firm, was born in Rome from a family originally from Pisa, Tuscany. His mother was of partial French descent, from immigrants who had arrived in Italy during the Napoleonic Wars. He lived on the Via Ludovisi, where Benito Mussolini had his first Roman hotel in 1922 when Fascism obtained power in Italy.


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: Rossellini's father built the first cinema in Rome, the "Barberini", a theatre where movies could be projected, granting his son an unlimited free pass; the young Rossellini started frequenting the cinema at an early age. When his father died, he worked in film sound-making and for a certain time, he experienced all the ancillary jobs related to the creation of a film, gaining competence in each field. Rossellini had a younger brother, Renzo, who later scored many of his films.


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: Although he wasn't personally religious, he had a strong interest in Christian values in the contemporary world; he appreciated Catholic ethics and religious sentiment—things which he saw as being neglected in the materialist world.


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: In 1937, Rossellini shot his first film, "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune", which was possibly unreleased and later lost. After this film, he was called to work as assistant director on Goffredo Alessandrini's in making "Luciano Serra pilota", one of the most successful Italian films of the first half of the 20th century, and later worked on Francesco De Robertis's 1940 film "Uomini sul Fondo". His close friendship with Vittorio Mussolini, son of Benito Mussolini, has been interpreted as a possible reason for having been preferred to other apprentices.


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: Some writers have described the first part of his career as a sequence of trilogies. His first feature film, "The White Ship" (1941) was sponsored by the audiovisual propaganda centre of Navy Department and is the first work in Rossellini's "Fascist Trilogy", together with "A Pilot Returns" (1942) and "The Man with a Cross" (1943). During this period he developed relationships with Federico Fellini and Aldo Fabrizi. The Fascist regime collapsed in 1943, and two months after the liberation of Rome (4 June 1944), Rossellini began preparing the anti-fascist "Roma città aperta" ("Rome, Open City", 1945), with Fellini assisting on the script. Fabrizi played the role of the priest, while Rossellini self-produced, filming commencing in January 1945. Most of the money came from credits and loans, and film had to be found on the black market. This dramatic film was an immediate success. It has been called the first film of the "Neorealist Trilogy", the second title of which was "Paisà" (1946), produced with non-professional actors, and the third, "Germany, Year Zero" (1948), was sponsored by a French producer and filmed in Berlin's French sector. In Berlin also, Rossellini preferred non-actors, but he was unable to find a face he found "interesting"; he placed his camera in the centre of a town square, as he did for Paisà, but was surprised when nobody came to watch.


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: As he declared in an interview "in order to really create the character that one has in mind, it is necessary for the director to engage in a battle with his actor which usually ends with submitting to the actor's wish. Since I do not have the desire to waste my energy in a battle like this, I only use professional actors occasionally". One of the reasons for success is supposed to be Rossellini's rewriting of the scripts according to the non-professional actors' feelings and histories. Regional accent, dialect, and costumes were shown in the film as they were in real life.


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: After his Neorealist Trilogy, Rossellini produced two films now classified as the 'Transitional films': "L'Amore" (1948) (with Anna Magnani) and "La macchina ammazzacattivi" (1952), on the capability of cinema to portray reality and truth (with recalls of commedia dell'arte). In 1948, Rossellini received a letter from a famous foreign actress proposing a collaboration:


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: With this letter began one of the best-known love stories in film history, with Bergman and Rossellini both at the peak of their careers. Their first collaboration was "Stromboli terra di Dio" (1950) (in the island of Stromboli, and its volcano quite conveniently erupted during filming). This affair caused a great scandal in some countries (Bergman and Rossellini were married to other people); the scandal intensified when Bergman became pregnant with Renato Roberto Ranaldo Giusto Giuseppe ("Robin") Rossellini. Rossellini and Bergman had two more children, Isabella Rossellini (actress & model) and her twin, Ingrid Isotta. "Europa '51" (1952), "Siamo Donne" (1953), "Journey to Italy" (1954), "La paura" (1954) and "Giovanna d'Arco al rogo" (1954) were the other films on which they worked together.


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: In 1957, Jawaharlal Nehru, the prime minister of India at the time, invited him to India to make the documentary "India" and put some life into the floundering Indian Films Division. Though married to Bergman, he had an affair with Sonali Senroy Dasgupta, a screenwriter, herself married to local filmmaker Harisadhan Dasgupta, who was helping develop vignettes for the film. Given the climate of the 1950s, this led to a huge scandal in India as well as in Hollywood. Nehru had to ask Rossellini to leave. Soon after, Bergman and Rossellini separated.


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: In 1971, Rice University in Houston, Texas, invited Rossellini to help establish a Media Center, where in 1970 he had begun planning a film on science with Rice professor Donald D. Clayton. They worked daily for two weeks in Rome in summer 1970, but financing was insufficient for filming to begin. In 1973, he was invited to teach at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where he taught a one-semester course titled "The Essential Image."


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: Rossellini's final project was the documentary "Beaubourg", filmed in 1977 and first premiered in 1983.


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: In 1934, Rossellini married Assia Noris, a Russian actress who worked in Italian films; the marriage was annulled in 1936. On 26 September 1936, he married Marcella De Marchis (17 January 1916, Rome – 25 February 2009, Sarteano), a costume designer with whom he collaborated even after their marriage was over. De Marchis and Rossellini had two sons: Marco Romano (born 3 July 1937 and died of appendicitis in 1946), and Renzo (born 24 August 1941). Rossellini and De Marchis divorced in 1950.


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: While filming "Stromboli", Rossellini had an affair with Ingrid Bergman (who was at the time married to Petter Lindström) in 1949. In the same month the film was released, Bergman gave birth to a boy, Renato Roberto Ranaldo Giusto Giuseppe ("Robin") Rossellini (born 2 February 1950). A week after their son was born, Bergman divorced Lindström and married Rossellini in Mexico. On 18 June 1952, she gave birth to their twin daughters Isotta Ingrid Rossellini and Isabella Rossellini.


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: In 1957, Rossellini had an affair with Bengali screenwriter Sonali Dasgupta (née Senroy), and soon after, Bergman and Rossellini separated. Rossellini eloped with Dasgupta in 1957 when she was 27 years old. He adopted her young son Arjun, renamed Gil Rossellini (23 October 1956 – 3 October 2010), who became a New York-based film producer. Rossellini and Dasgupta had a daughter together, Raffaella Rossellini (born 1958), who is an actress and model.


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: In 1973, Rossellini left Dasgupta for producer Silvia D'Amico Bendicò, but he remained married to Dasgupta until his death of a heart attack at age 71 in 1977.


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: Rossellini's films after his early Neo-Realist films—particularly his films with Ingrid Bergman—were commercially unsuccessful, though "Journey to Italy" is well regarded in some quarters. He was an acknowledged master for the critics of "Cahiers du Cinéma" in general and André Bazin, François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard in particular. Truffaut noted in his 1963 essay, "Roberto Rossellini Prefers Real Life" (available in "The Films In My Life") that Rossellini's influence in France particularly among the directors who became part of the nouvelle vague was so great that he was in every sense "the father of the French New Wave".


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: His posthumous ex-son-in-law Martin Scorsese has acknowledged Rossellini's seminal influence in his documentary "My Voyage to Italy" (the title itself a take on Rossellini's "Voyage to Italy"). An important point to note is that out of Scorsese's selection of Italian films from a select group of directors (Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, Vittorio De Sica, Michelangelo Antonioni) Rossellini's films form at least half of the films discussed and analyzed, highlighting Rossellini's monumental role in Italian and world cinema. The films covered include his Neo-Realist films to his films with Ingrid Bergman as well as "The Flowers of St. Francis", a film about St. Francis of Assisi. Scorsese notes in his documentary that in contrast to directors who often become more restrained and more conservative stylistically as their careers advance, Rossellini became more and more unconventional and was constantly experimenting with new styles and technical challenges. Scorsese particularly highlights the series of biographies Rossellini made in the 60s of historical figures and, although he does not discuss it in detail, singles out "La Prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV" for praise. Certain of Rossellini's film-related material and personal papers are contained in the Wesleyan University Cinema Archives to which scholars and media experts from around the world may have full access. Rossellini's son Renzo is producing the "Audiovisual Encyclopedia of History by Roberto Rossellini", a multi-media support containing all of Rossellini's works, interviews, and other material from the Rossellini archive. The "Encyclopedia" for now exists in prototype form.


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: Following the critical failure of "Anima nera" and his participation in the various artists film "Ro.Go.Pa.G.", Rossellini began directing films for TV in 1966 with "La Prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV", and continued predominately in the medium until the end of his career in 1977.


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: In addition to his TV movies, he was involved with a number of TV series, as either writer or director.


title: Roberto Rossellini

text: Some sources associate Rossellini with the 1961 "Torino nei cent'anni", but the status and completion of the project is unconfirmed.


title: Open Water (film)

text: Open Water is a 2003 American survival horror thriller film. The story concerns an American couple who go scuba diving while on vacation, only to find themselves stranded miles from shore in shark-filled waters when the crew of their boat accidentally leaves them behind.


title: Open Water (film)

text: The film is loosely based on the true story of Tom and Eileen Lonergan, who in 1998 went out with a scuba diving group, Outer Edge Dive Company, on the Great Barrier Reef, and were accidentally left behind because the dive-boat crew failed to take an accurate headcount.


title: Open Water (film)

text: The film was financed by the husband and wife team of writer/director Chris Kentis and producer Laura Lau, both avid scuba divers. It cost $120,000 to make and was bought by Lions Gate Entertainment for $2.5 million after its screening at the Sundance Film Festival. Lions Gate spent a further $8 million on distribution and marketing. The film ultimately grossed $55.5 million worldwide (including $30 million from the North American box office alone).


title: Open Water (film)

text: Before filming began, the Lonergans' experience was re-created for an episode of ABC's "20/20", and the segment was repeated after the release of "Open Water". Clips from the film were also featured on NBC in "Troubled Waters", a "Dateline" episode (July 7, 2008) with Matt Lauer interviewing two professional divers, Richard Neely and Ally Dalton, who were left adrift at the Great Barrier Reef by a dive boat on May 21, 2008.


title: Open Water (film)

text: Daniel Kintner and Susan Watkins are frustrated that their hard-working lives do not allow them to spend much time together. They decide to go on a scuba-diving vacation to help improve their relationship. On their second day, they join a group scuba dive. A head count is taken and the passenger total is recorded as 20. Daniel and Susan decide to separate briefly from the group while underwater. Half an hour later, the group returns to the boat; two members of the group are inadvertently counted twice, so the dive master thinks that everyone is back on board and the boat leaves the site. However, Daniel and Susan are still underwater, unaware that the others have returned to shore. When they resurface, the boat has gone. They believe that the group will soon return to recover them.


title: Open Water (film)

text: Stranded at sea, it slowly dawns on Daniel and Susan that their boat is not coming back for them. They bicker, battle bouts of hunger and mental exhaustion and realize that they have probably drifted far from the dive site. They also realize that sharks have been circling them below the surface. Soon, jellyfish appear, stinging them both, while sharks come in close. Susan receives a small shark bite on the leg, but does not immediately realize it. Daniel goes under and discovers a small fish feeding on the exposed flesh of her bite wound. Later, a shark bites Daniel and the wound begins to bleed profusely. Susan removes her weight belt and uses it to apply pressure to Daniel's wound, but he appears to go into shock. After night falls, sharks return and attack Daniel during a storm, killing him. The next morning, Daniel and Susan's belongings are finally noticed on the boat by a crew member and he realizes that they must have been left at the dive site. A massive search for the couple begins immediately.


title: Open Water (film)

text: Susan realizes that Daniel is dead and releases him into the water, where sharks pull him down in a feeding frenzy. After putting on her mask, she looks beneath the surface and sees several large sharks now circling her. Susan looks around one last time for any sign of coming rescue. Seeing none, she removes her scuba gear and goes underwater to drown before the sharks can attack. Elsewhere, a fishing crew cut open a newly caught shark's stomach, finding a diving camera (apparently that of Daniel and Susan). One of the fishermen asks offhandedly to another, "Wonder if it works?"


title: Open Water (film)

text: The filmmakers used live sharks, as opposed to the mechanical ones used in "Jaws" or the computer-generated fish in "Deep Blue Sea". The film strives for authentic shark behavior, shunning the stereotypical exaggerated shark behavior typical of many films. The movie was shot on digital video. As noted above, the real-life events that inspired this story took place in the southern Pacific Ocean, and this film moves the location to the Atlantic Ocean, being filmed in the Bahamas, the United States Virgin Islands, the Grenadines, and Mexico.


title: Open Water (film)

text: During the audition, Chris Kentis and Laura Lau made it clear to Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis there was going to be nudity in the film and that it was non-negotiable. "So it was odd, you know, I was like 'okay, that's fine' and I hadn't been offered the part or anything yet, and then when I was offered the part, that had already been negotiated," said Blanchard.


title: Open Water (film)

text: "Open Water" received mostly positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 71% based on 196 reviews with an average rating of 6.57/10. The consensus reads: "A low budget thriller with some intense moments." On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 63 out of 100, based on reviews from 38 critics' reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Open Water (film)

text: Most critics praised the film for its intensity and minimalist filmmaking, while it was not well received by the audience. Writing in the "Chicago Sun-Times", Roger Ebert praised the film highly: "Rarely, but sometimes, a movie can have an actual physical effect on you. It gets under your defenses and sidesteps the 'it's only a movie' reflex and creates a visceral feeling that might as well be real". In a much less favorable review, A. O. Scott in "The New York Times" lamented that it "succeeds in mobilizing the audience's dread, but it fails to make us care as much as we should about the fate of its heroes".


title: Open Water (film)

text: "Open Water" was made for a budget recorded by Box Office Mojo as $120,000, grossed $1 million in 47 theaters on its opening weekend and made a lifetime gross of $55 million.


title: Open Water (film)

text: In 2006, a film marketed as a sequel titled "" was released, although its plot is unrelated to "Open Water". A third film in the series titled, "" was released in 2017, following the first film's plot of being a survival shark film, although unrelated in continuity.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Chinese Democracy is the sixth studio album by American hard rock band Guns N' Roses, released on November 23, 2008, by Black Frog and Geffen Records. It was the first Guns N' Roses studio album since the 1993 covers album ""The Spaghetti Incident?"", and their first album of original studio material since "Use Your Illusion I" and "II" (1991). It was the first Guns N' Roses album without their longtime producer Mike Clink; instead, it was produced by singer Axl Rose and Caram Costanzo. It underwent a protracted recording process, delayed by personnel and legal problems, label interference and Rose's perfectionism.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: From 1994 to 1997, amid creative and personal differences, guitarists Gilby Clarke and Slash, drummer Matt Sorum, and bassist Duff McKagan left Guns N' Roses, leaving only Rose, keyboardist Dizzy Reed, and guitarist Paul Tobias. In 1997, Rose, Reed, and Tobias began work with guitarist Robin Finck and drummer Josh Freese, and in 1998 bassist Tommy Stinson and multi-instrumentalist Chris Pitman joined them. The lineup shifted several times, incorporating guitarists Buckethead, Richard Fortus and Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal and drummers Brain and Frank Ferrer. Guitarist Brian May, vocalist Sebastian Bach, orchestrators Marco Beltrami and Paul Buckmaster, engineer Eric Caudieux, and producers including Sean Beavan, Roy Thomas Baker, and Caram Costanzo worked on the album across 14 studios. The band recorded dozens of songs and suggested they could release them across multiple albums.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: "Chinese Democracy" languished in development hell for eight years. Geffen originally planned to release it in 1999, but it was delayed and largely rerecorded in 2000. With costs reportedly exceeding $13 million, it became the most expensive rock album ever produced, and Geffen pulled their funding in early 2004. After missing a release date of March 2007, it was finally released in November 2008, dogged by leaks and legal disputes.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Preceded by the title track as a lead single, "Chinese Democracy" debuted at number three on the "Billboard" 200, and was certified platinum. However, it did not meet sales expectations in the United States. It received divisive but generally favorable reviews, achieved international chart success, and has sold over one million copies in Europe.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In September 1991, Guns N' Roses released the albums "Use Your Illusion I" and "Use Your Illusion II", which have sold a combined 35 million copies. In November 1991, during the Use Your Illusion Tour, rhythm guitarist and founding member Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band, citing touring exhaustion and conflicts with his bandmates. He was replaced by Gilby Clarke. In November 1993, Guns N' Roses released ""The Spaghetti Incident?"", an album of covers of mostly glam rock and punk rock songs. Though it was certified platinum in 1994, it sold significantly less than their previous releases.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Guns N' Roses began writing and recording new music sporadically in 1994. However, bassist Duff McKagan said the band "was so stoned at that point that nothing got finished". Guitarist Slash accused singer Axl Rose of running the band "like a dictatorship". Rose said the material was scrapped because the band was unable to collaborate.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In 1994, Clarke was replaced by Rose's childhood friend and Hollywood Rose collaborator Paul Tobias. Around this time, Rose became "obsessed" with electronica and industrial rock, particularly the work of Nine Inch Nails, and wanted Guns N' Roses to move towards a more contemporary musical direction. Other members did not agree, causing a rift. Slash left in 1996 following creative differences with Rose and personal problems with Tobias. New band members auditioned, including guitarist Zakk Wylde and drummers Dave Abbruzzese and Michael Bland, with Reed's friend and roommate Sean Riggs working as a session drummer sporadically during the mid 90s. Slash was replaced in January 1997 by former Nine Inch Nails touring guitarist Robin Finck.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In February 1997, electronic producer Moby entered talks to produce; he said: "They're writing with a lot of loops, and believe it or not, they're doing it better than anybody I've heard lately." Moby pulled out to focus on his solo work. Longtime Guns N' Roses producer Mike Clink is also reported to have been in talks to work on the album that year. Billy Howerdel worked as Pro Tools engineer during the album's early development. He said: "I came in, to start, making sounds for Robin Finck, and that kind of turned into this two-and-a-half-year gig with the band."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In April 1997, following drummer Matt Sorum's firing after an argument with Rose about Tobias's inclusion, the tentative lineup comprised Rose, McKagan, Tobias, Finck, keyboardist Dizzy Reed, and Nine Inch Nails touring drummer Chris Vrenna. After Vrenna left, Josh Freese was hired as full-time drummer in mid-1997. McKagan, who had recently become a father, left in August 1997. According to McKagan, "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now—from 1994 to 1997—and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: According to manager Doug Goldstein, Scott Litt, Steve Lillywhite, and Mark Bell were considered as producers. Chris Pitman joined as second keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist in early 1998. Shortly afterwards, at the recommendation of Freese, former Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson joined. By spring of 1998, Guns N' Roses comprised Rose on vocals, Stinson on bass, Freese on drums, Finck on lead guitar, Tobias on rhythm guitar, and Reed and Pitman on keyboards. They began recording at Rumbo Recorders, a studio in the San Fernando Valley where Guns N' Roses had recorded parts of "Appetite for Destruction". Around this time, Geffen paid Rose $1 million to finish the album and offered a further $1 million if he submitted it by March 1, 1999.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In the summer of 1998, Youth, who had produced U2 and the Verve, was brought in to work on demos and help Rose focus. Youth felt that Rose was not ready to record a new album: "He kind of pulled out ... He was quite isolated. There weren't very many people I think he could trust. It was very difficult to penetrate the walls he'd built up." Frustrated, Youth left the project. Rose later told "USA Today" he had stopped writing for years in the mid-1990s because of criticism from Slash and McKagan and his ex-fiancée Stephanie Seymour.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: The band worked with producer Sean Beavan from autumn 1998 to spring 2000. Stinson said that "most of the songs on the album started and ended with what [Beavan] did". Beavan worked with the band when Rose recorded most of the vocal tracks that appear on the final album in 1999. Rose's vocal parts were recorded in less than a week. Beavan claimed to have worked on 35 songs during his time with the band. By the summer of 1999, Guns N' Roses had recorded over 30 songs and the album was tentatively titled "2000 Intentions".


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In May 1999, Queen guitarist Brian May recorded lead guitar for the song "Catcher in the Rye" and other unreleased songs, but his performances were removed. May was not informed and wrote on his website in 2008: "I did put quite a lot of work in, and was proud of it. But I could understand if Axl wants to have an album which reflects the work of the members of the band as it is, right now."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Rose ordered the studio engineers to continue recording ideas the band came up with in his absence. He was sent several CDs and DATs a week, featuring different mixes of possible songs. Eventually, he accumulated over 1000 CDs. In 1999, Rose temporarily abandoned the album so the new lineup could rerecord Guns N' Roses' debut album "Appetite For Destruction" (1987), with the intent of using newer recording techniques to "spruce up" "Appetite". According to Rose, this forced the new members to "get up to the quality they needed to be at" and helped the writing and recording process.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: During a 1999 interview, Rose announced the title "Chinese Democracy", saying: "There's a lot of Chinese democracy movements, and it's something that there's a lot of talk about, and it's something that will be nice to see. It could also just be like an ironic statement. I don't know, I just like the sound of it." Rose also said the album would feature a "melting pot" of varied sounds, including several heavy and aggressive songs. In late November 1999, Rose played several tracks for "Rolling Stone", who likened the new sound to "Led Zeppelin's "Physical Graffiti" remixed by Beck and Trent Reznor". In 1997 and 1998, sources had described the album as different from previous Guns N' Roses records, with an electronic influence. Chris Vrenna said that Rose wanted to create an album similar to U2 and Brian Eno's collaboration "Original Soundtracks 1". Though it was often reported as an industrial rock album, in 2001 Rose said: "It is not industrial ... There will be all kinds of styles, many influences as blues, mixed in the songs."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Rose said in 1999 that the band had recorded enough material for at least two albums, including the potential for an album more industrial and electronic than "Chinese Democracy". Sources said the band's initial plans were to record two albums, release "Chinese Democracy", tour for a year or two, then release the second album without having to return to the studio.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In November 1999, Guns N' Roses released their first new track in five years and the first original song in eight years, the industrial metal song "Oh My God", featured in the film "End of Days" and released on the soundtrack. The song features Rose, Tobias, Stinson, Reed, Pitman, Finck, and Freese, along with guitarists Dave Navarro (of Jane's Addiction) and Gary Sunshine. "Oh My God" received mixed reviews; AllMusic described it as "a less than satisfying comeback". "Rolling Stone" suggested the release was a stopgap to pacify fans and offset the mounting recording costs. Beavan, who produced the track, said it was included on soundtrack at the request of Jimmy Iovine, the head of Geffen, who had picked it for the film after listening to several work-in-progress songs.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In January 2000, band manager Doug Goldstein said the album was "99% done" and was set "for a summer 2000 release". In a February 2000 "Rolling Stone" interview, Rose said the album had been delayed partially because he was learning how to use new recording technology: "It's like from scratch, learning how to work with something, and not wanting it just to be something you did on a computer."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In March 2000, Rose hired guitarist Buckethead to replace Finck. According to "Classic Rock", Buckethead's eccentric stage persona – he wore a blank white mask and a KFC bucket on his head – made him the "negative image of top-hatted, easygoing Slash", and rumors spread that Buckethead was Slash in disguise. Shortly afterwards, Josh Freese left to join A Perfect Circle, a band recently formed by Howerdel, who had left the project several months earlier. At the recommendation of Buckethead, frequent collaborator Brain was brought in as drummer.