Friday, September 4, 2020

International Accounting and Finance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Global Accounting and Finance - Essay Example Despite the worries and partialities, there has been noticed an expanding pattern towards appropriation of universal bookkeeping gauges as a favored monetary revealing system. Among the worries expressed by the partners to embracing worldwide bookkeeping gauges, many are identified with the effect of receiving them on capital markets activities and effectiveness and on the clients of budget summaries. The International Financial Reporting Standards are unique in relation to the national measures created by nations for monetary announcing inside their particular purviews. These distinctions bring about huge movements in their money related revealing practices for business substances, when they settle on their own or because of obligatory prerequisites to embrace International Financial Reporting Standards as their monetary detailing structure. Because of the distinctions in the particular necessities of various monetary revealing systems, there are shifting effects of each on capital markets and clients of money related data. ... Effect of Adopting International Accounting Standards on Capital Markets The effect of receiving worldwide bookkeeping norms as a budgetary detailing structure can be controlled by understanding the effect of embracing the universal bookkeeping principles on the effectiveness of capital markets. Keeping in see the huge distinction in announcing prerequisites under International Financial Reporting Standards and other national bookkeeping guidelines, for example, U.S. GAAP or other bookkeeping systems, a general desire can be built up that with the receiving of International Financial Reporting Standards, there will be a huge effect on the effectiveness of capital markets. Scientists have examined whether the effect brought about by receiving International Financial Reporting Standards on proficiency in capital markets is certain or negative. A few analysts have noticed that the effect of appropriation of International Financial Reporting Standards on market can be estimated through v arieties in the market liquidity and the expense of capital for business substances. In such manner, Daske et al (2008) have noticed that with the appropriation of worldwide bookkeeping gauges, advertise liquidity is impacted decidedly, that is it increments. Correspondingly, another significant finding of their exploration work is that by receiving universal bookkeeping norms the expense of capital for firms are diminished, while the estimation of their value expands (Daske et al., 2008). Daske et al. (2011) have additionally noticed that those organizations which are resolved to give profoundly straightforward budgetary revealing and in this way receive International Financial Reporting Standards as their money related detailing structure, such firms experience a noteworthy improvement in their individual

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Autobiography Of A Little Girl Essays

Self-portrayal Of A Little Girl Essays Self-portrayal Of A Little Girl Essay Self-portrayal Of A Little Girl Essay Exposition Topic: Self-portrayal of My Mother The main kiss-story was Bryan and the young lady were cohorts in their nursery class and the little begun disclosing to her that he enjoyed her and he needed to kiss her. The kid was continually pursuing her, actually, until he at last arrived at the young lady and kissed her. After that episode, nothing uncommon happened to her until she turned 6 and was contemplating Kindergarten at Bay Central Elementary School. Jane met another young man named Bret who turned into her first pulverize. Bret was the primary person who gave her an adoration letter saying l love you. This infatuation between trim turned into the motivation behind why their moms met and their families turned out to be dear companions. A valentine occasion on their school that the members would be going in a procession. Since, her and Berets guardians were steady guardians, hello made them joined the opposition and matched them up. She was wearing a white outfit while Bret was wearing a checkered long sleeves and a cre am pants. They looked so adorable together in those days. Walk 31, 2001 was her graduation day. She waked up ahead of schedule and arranged for the graduation function with not all that much make on her little face. She got grants which were Best in Filipino and Best in Mathematics. Rudimentary Days Elementary days for her was not all that uncommon. She was in third grade when she initially had an enormous pound to an exceptionally attractive person named Arena. This kid was her cohort since Kindergarten however she possibly saw him when they were 9 years of age since they turned out to be closest companions including a young lady named Roseanne. Them three were so close with one another. Be that as it may, their fellowship began to fall when Arena and Roseanne became in a relationship and this happened when they were in the fifth grade. Out of nowhere, they separated ND Jane was so cheerful yet following scarcely any months another of her dear companions named Christine became Arenas sweetheart. This made her cry no doubt. She cried before the mirror wondering why didnt he cherished her she significantly more lovely than Christine and her elbows are much more white that Crestings. Been grieved made her investigation more and joined diverse co-curricular exercises. She joined news-casting challenge in New Writing Category in Filipino and fortunately, she arrived at division level. Jane likewise played Chess in the area level and eve won third spot. She exceeded expectations in Hashes that is the reason she got one of the delegates of their school in Hashes Quiz Bee and their group won Fourth Place. Precisely 6 years after her Kindergarten graduation, Canes basic graduation occurred. She was granted as the sixth decent notice among the 1 99 understudies who graduated in their school. Her folks turned out to be pleased with her and this caused her to understand that she as opposed to suspecting AIBO her adoration life she should simply concentrate on her examinations and satisfy her folks more. Secondary School Days High School was truly important for her. Jane was taken on Little Peoples School Incorporated in Bay, Laguna as a transferee in the main year class. June 2007 when she met her 19 young men and 10 young ladies cohorts. July in that year they had an undertaking in Earth Science a portion of her proxies Were Mica, Victoria, and Resound. They traded numbers with the goal that they can reach one another. They went to Victorians house and did the task. Investing energy in that brief timeframe Jane got the chance to perceive how brilliant Resound was and that made her begin to look all starry eyed at him. They got bore witness to and get to turned out to be close however in messages just not face to face. August 1 7, 2007 they had a little battle and to ND their battle Resound disclosed to her that Baste significant Toyota an. furthermore, Jane was so stunned she disclosed to him that she didnt know and got some information about it. Following fourteen days which August 31, around pm she at last educated him concerning her choice and it was a yes. Being seeing someone her a stand-out Of satisfaction. Resonate caused her to feel unique. He gave her teddy bears, blossoms, chocolates, and different things that demonstrated how she was adored by him. She got love and care from him which came about to adoring him all the more however they were distinctive as far as their investigations. They were really matches. He used to be the primary respect and really graduated as valedictorian while she was a reliable second respect and graduated as salutatorian oftener class. Their folks permitted their relationship since they couldnt see negative impact. They chose to both take the PACT and cheerfully the two of them passed. Jane went with BBS Mathematics as her course while BBS Electrical Engineering for Resound. Additionally, Jane applied for nomination for SKI Councilor of their Barraging, in view of trying sincerely and continually asking she won. Groups of the two gatherings were cheerful of ha add to them. School Days Before the beginning of classes in the University of the Philippines Los Bassos in 201 1, she was first enlisted in the Summer Bridge Program in English class of the college. This was a one month program that will assist the understudies with lacks in English and Mathematics. Jane was exceptionally glad to be one of these understudies since it assisted her to have companions as of now, with being acquainted with the structures in the grounds, and to adjust in an alternate sort of learning she would confront. Educator Remold was their instructor, he looked blunder and unusual however as the days passed she acknowledged as of now Sir Removals insight and generosity. Maries, Rule, Cathy, Yankee, Lieu, Knife, Carlo, Marc, they were only a portion of her cohorts that she turned out to be truly close. Maries turned into her dearest companion she even became eighteenth flame during her introduction. They had a graduation function after the great one month of learning with cool Professor and entertaining cohorts. The understudies arranged an introduction they moved and sang. Sir Remold was extremely contacted to the tune that his understudies sang for him, he even cried. In the wake of having an excursion for one month, reality came, the beginning of school life. Jane entered in the college as BBS Mathematics understudy under Bloc CLC . Her first semester in the college was still simple yet the following semesters became increasingly hard particularly when she took Mammoth under Professor Jean Loyola as Lecturer and Sir Ryan Bellman as Laboratory Instructor. This subject caused her to understand that she was not for BBS Math so she chose to move to BBS Applied Mathematics. During this occasions she was still with Resound and they are going solid very following scarcely any months things changed. He got cold to her until they separated on March 24, 2013. Moving was difficult it requires some investment and exertion. Along these lines, Jane chose to apply as Student Assistant while having her Summer Class to abstain from having time alone and consider how harmed she was. She additionally chose to join an association and to make herself occupied with the goal that she can completely proceeded onward. She turned out to be near Joshua since he was the main that time that she can conversed with and to open up the entirety of her torments. Jane had a few admirers after their separation yet she just engaged the person named Jay. Jay is my colleagues cousin. He was irritating in Italy and he pursued me when he returned home for his get-away. Truly, Jane just utilized him to proceed onward. It was August 2013 when she understood that it wasn't right so she disclosed to Jay that he should stop since she simply needed to concentrate on her examinations. Jane contemplated more earnestly yet unfortunately, she got this sickness called Consanguine. She was missing for right around 3 weeks and missed a ton exercises. She chose to drop one of her subjects with the goal that she could give more opportunity to her other progressively significant subjects yet shockingly she flopped in one her subjects which is the most significant among she taken that semester. It made her cry and vowed to herself that it will be the first and last subject that she can have in her transcript of records. She did great in her subjects and never bombed again. Another person from a similar course as Canes attempted to court her yet in addition it didnt worked out. She wouldn't have another admirer since she imagined that she cannot deal with it as a result of her scholastics. Numerous things happen to her as of now throughout the previous two years of her life being single however tragically, she is still enamored with her first beau, Resound. At the present time, she is simply trusting that some time or another she can overlook him and love another person.

Saturday, August 22, 2020

Comparing Heart of Darkness and Wuthering Heights Essay -- Comparison

Likenesses between Heart of Darkness and Wuthering Heights  In spite of the fact that Joseph Conrad's epic, Heart of Darkness, and Emily Bronte's, Wuthering Heights, were written in various time, they do in reality share a couple of likenesses.  As a matter of first importance, Heart of Darkness and Wuthering Heights analyze in the way that the two books draw on their separate writer's very own encounters. Emily Bronte, who wrote in the last Romantic Period yet additionally had attributes of Victorian authors, was left motherless at two years old and went through the vast majority of her time on earth with her dad and kin in Haworth, England. It was in this area that Emily originally encountered the fields that assume a basic job of her novel connecting Wuthering Heights with Thushcross Grange. The fields was the region Heathcliff and Catherine would get away to when things were troublesome. Haworth was a town that was secluded and encircled by moors a lot of like the setting of Wuthering Heights is portrayed. Additionally, Emily Bronte matches her own life in the way wherein she makes motherless characters. For instance, Catherine and Hindley lose their mom at a youthful age just as Catherine in the long run passes on leavi ng her young little girl, Catherine motherless. Joseph Conrad draws on his own individual  al encounters in his novel, Heart of Darkness. Joseph Conrad had consistently been captivated with the open seas, maps, and strange regions of the African mainland. He was employed by a British Company to work a little steamship on the African Congo. He went on this excursion and keeping in mind that there started keeping diaries that would later turn into the reason for this novel.  Furthermore, the writers of Wuthering Heights and Heart of Darkness both compose their books in the account fr... ...brilliant and energetic inclination. It is valid for the two books, for each great there is a malevolence. In Wuthering Heights, the characters are combined. For example, two inverse family units and the difference of characters in Heathcliff versus Linton. We see the alliance of good sections terrible in Heart of Darkness, in the recognizable way wherein Conrad composes o  f the dark and the white. The fundamental tone of Heart of Darkness is the mistreatment of the British over the African locals in the Congo.  Taking everything into account, numerous years separate Wuthering Heights and Heart of Darkness. The current issues confronting these two writers were extraordinary, anyway they do have comparative methods of communicating to their perusers the message they would like to pass on.  Works Cited Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness Gersh, Marianna. Heart of Darkness

Film Auterism essays

Film Auterism papers Auter is characterized as a French expression for the movie chief who puts an individual style on their movies. It was first begat by Francois Truffaut to portray the characteristic of a movie executive on his movies. An executive can be viewed as an auteur if around five of his movies portray a specific style that is unquestionably his own. At the end of the day, much like one can take a gander at a composition and tell on the off chance that it is a Monet, a Renoir, or a Degas, if a movie chief is an auteur, one can see his movie and tell by style and repeating subjects that it was made by a specific executive. In auteur films, the chief is ordinarily what carries a group of people to the theater, rather than the on-screen characters or storyline. Frequently celebrated executives are more profoundly charged in ads than the entertainers that the film stars. To additionally demonstrate the significance of executives styles on films three chiefs and their movies will be broke down. Th ree such auteurs are Frederico Fellini, Satyajit Ray, and Alfred Hitchcock, and it will be viable to talk about these specific executives work. The Master of Suspense, Hitchcock, mixes the customary spine chiller with parody and a fanciful angle. About all of Hitchcocks motion pictures contain a few subjects and perspectives which advance the watchers delight in the film. Apparently feeling is the most significant inclination he is attempting to get over. His mise-en-scene is maybe the most unmistakable of his counterparts. They all incorporate an exceptionally tense inclination all through the vast majority of the film which is fortified through his camera edges, zooms, and the soundtrack. Take for instance the fantasy grouping in Vertigo. The hues and music during his fantasy keep the crowd as eager and anxious as ever and it at last finishes in a long close up of an exceptionally terrified Scotty played by Jimmy Stewart. The score is spooky frequenting, the kind of music ideal for a Hitchcock spine chiller. The greater part of his movies likewise incorporate dread dispensed upon the ... <!

Friday, August 21, 2020

Age and Youth by William Shakespeare Essay

The sonnet â€Å"age and youth†, by William Shakespeare (conceived April 26th 1564 ? kicked the bucket April 23rd 1616) is one of his significant sonnets which was distributed in 1588. It is separated of an assortment of various sonnets in â€Å"The Passionate Pilgrim†, ? Age and Youth being numeral XII. These different sonnets community on the thoughts of the early and late stages throughout everyday life. All the more strikingly anyway his uneven observation on the two subjects. â€Å"Youth† is given a role as being the more good and a few lines all through the sonnet show this predisposition. â€Å"Youth is hot and striking, age is frail and cold†. â€Å"Youth like summer bold, age like winter bare† In reality the entire sonnet bases on the previously mentioned point (youth) being the more lovely and tastefully satisfying than desolate and cold â€Å"old age†. Shakespeare’s subjects in this specific sonnet are similar to a considerable lot of the others in â€Å"The energetic pilgrim†, the arrangement of sonnets from which â€Å"age and youth† begins, with regular topics, for example, love and excellence and the related themes of time and changeability. Being a â€Å"continuation† of the past sonnets in â€Å"The Passionate Pilgrim† it interfaces with his subject of tending to love and acclaim not to a lady however rather to a youngster brimming with youth and essentialness. â€Å"Venus, with youthful Adonis sitting by her Under a myrtle conceal, started to charm him† The energetic pioneer XI â€Å"My better blessed messenger is a man right fair† The enthusiastic traveler II However â€Å"youth and age† is centered principally around the themes recently expressed (youth and age) yet as for the youngster in the past sonnets of â€Å"The Passionate Pilgrim†. As a result the youngster is deified by the sonnet in this manner opposing the damaging tendency of time. This is one reason behind this sonnet, to show how time wrecks youth and excellence. â€Å"Youth is brimming with sport, age’s breath is short†. Various wonderful gadgets, for example, the juxtaposition of two direct inverses, the redundancy of subjects, the express symbolism, figurative language and analogies, just to give some examples, have been utilized to pass on these topics. â€Å"Youth like summer morne, age like winter weather†. A genuine case of the juxtaposition old enough and youth as summer and winter, utilized deliberately to make a symbolism of youth as being ripe, brimming with life and charming (as we would picture summer) and age being chilly, dull and connected with death. Shakespeare has utilized this as if he is depicting the lifecycle from birth (summer, youth) to death (winter, mature age). What's more likenesses have been utilized as another strategy demonstrating the similitudes among summer and youth and mature age and winter. â€Å"Youth is agile, age is lame†. By and by shows the effortlessness of the sonnet and the subject Shakespeare is passing on to the peruser. Allegorical language is utilized here to characterize youth and age, it gives it a practically human quality as if youth and age can be envisioned as two unique individuals (I. e. representation). It is a compelling method of giving symbolism to the peruser. Different lines follow a comparable example, â€Å"Youth is loaded with sport, age’s breath is short† again demonstrating the imperativeness of youth and the slightness and certainty of mature age. The utilization of overstatement as a strategy is apparent all through the sonnet. A large portion of the lines have some type of metaphor by utilizing to incredibly overstated limits. â€Å"hot and cold†, â€Å"wild and tame,† â€Å"summer and winter,† â€Å"age and youth can't live together†. These statements overstate the qualities of both age and youth and are significant so there are no ambiguities between the two. They are as inverse as â€Å"hot and cold†. The utilization of manly rhyme is available in the sonnet anyway it isn't predictable all through the entire sonnet. â€Å"Youth is brimming with sport, Ages breath is short, Youth is agile, Age is faltering Youth is hot and striking, Age is weake and cold. Youth is wild, and Age I s tame. † The reiteration of youth and age gives it streaming musicality and in this manner rhyme isn't fundamental. Similar sounding word usage is utilized sparingly and not a solid strategy in the sonnet. It is just utilized as a pun, to hilariously stress the underlying consonants of the lines being perused. â€Å"Age, I do severely dislike thee; youth, I do revere thee†. It is elevating and gives the mind-set a fairly enhance because of the similar sounding word usage being utilized. In a nutshell the most central and steady subject in the sonnet is the reluctance to become old and the negative parts of mature age. â€Å"Age, I do severely dislike thee; youth, I do worship thee†. Youth is so energetic and vivacious, a distinct correlation with mature age, a thought which Shakespeare obstinately clutches. â€Å"Age, I do challenge thee: O, sweet shepherd, hie thee†. The melancholic state of mind of the sonnet communicates Shakespeare’s insightful pity on developing old and the certainty life and passing. The graceful procedures successfully differentiate how magnificent youth is and how dreary and disheartening we become as we get more seasoned. â€Å"Youth† is reliably portrayed just like that of a youngster with â€Å"age† being that of an old â€Å"lame† about passing on man,† ages breath is short†.

Monday, August 3, 2020

eRepublik

eRepublik In Madrid we meet Alexis Bonte, the CEO and co-founder of eRepublik labs. ERepublik labs develops and distributes massively multiplayer online games (MMOG).Alexis shares some insights on his professional background and why he founded eRepublic. Furthermore, he describes the business model and uniqueness of the game and his plans for rolling out different mobile MMOGs in the future. Lastly, Alexis shares some advice for first time entrepreneurs.Interviewer: Hi. Today we are in Madrid with eRepublik. Alexis, who are you and what do you do?Alexis: My name is Alexis Bonte and I am the co-founder and CEO of eRepublik labs.Interviewer: What did you do before you started this company?Alexis: That is a complicated thing. I started my first company when I was 21, straight out of business school, it was called Tradeok.com. I tried to do eBay in Europe, but at the same time as OLX, this was 1998, it was a complete failure, didn’t work out. I actually raised some funds and all that, but it did n’t work out. I was very lucky because then a friend of mine was raising funds in Argentina for another company, and I told him South America is a bit risky and all that sort of stuff, I’ve an idea, let me come and see your investors, convince to contribute more money, and I’ll give you what I’ve got left of my company, then you’ll have an office in Europe as well. And he said, okay, let’s try and do that. So I had 500,000 left, so I took a flight to Argentina, convinced his investors to raise a million dollars instead of $800,000, I got 5% of his company. I lost my company, I lost everything, but I traded for some of his company, I didn’t go bust. And five years afterward the irony is that the European office of that company saved that company, and, then the company was bought and it was a huge exit. So that’s how I got started.And then I worked in Lastminute.com, which is a big travel company, I met a wonderful person called Brent Hoberman who asked me to help me o ut to basically found and start Lastminute.com. I was not the founder but I was part of the team in the beginning. And that was a crazy story for six year with the IPO, and then the company went down really badly, then we managed to rebuild it and we sold the company in 2005 for $1.1 billion to Sabre.Interviewer: When did you start with this gaming industry?Alexis: When I was 16 years old my friends used to make fun of me because I would write business plans about the games company I would have one day. So I would write down the games and all this stuff I wanted to do, at the time I think it was Formula One management game, something like that. So after Lastminute.com I did a bit of angel investing. My wife is Spanish, she wanted us to move to Spain, so I moved here. I started with new things in Romania and all that, and found some developers for different things. I’ve always liked a game that was called Civilization, which is a famous PC game, and I thought it would be great if w e could have Civilization on the PC but online, with everything on the internet, with user-generated content and all that, and I found somebody in Romania who was a programmer and he said that could be interesting as well. So we started like that. We didn’t know what we were doing really.Interviewer: How long did it take until the company kept growing a little bit faster.Alexis: For six months the company was just six people. I basically put the money for it to get it started and we built the product. I designed the game and that sort of stuff. After six months I was like, This is pretty good. It wasn’t really ready but we launched it anyway, and I remember it was in the beginnings of Twitter and I was one of the first people on Twitter â€" thanks to Loic le Meur who showed it to me â€" so I tweeted, hey, I’ve just released this social strategy game called eRepublic.com where you can be a real citizen in a real country. And I thought let’s see what happens. Within a week the re were 30,000 people playing from all over the world. That’s how we started. One month afterward we competed on the web, we presented in on the web, we won the special jury prize in the web and things just got started up.Interviewer: So was it more PR driven?Alexis: I think when you’re starting and when you’re an entrepreneur â€" I was lucky because at Lastminute.com I wasn’t the founder, so I didn’t have the gravitas that the founder had, but I did have the contacts, I did know a lot of people, so that gave me access to different influencers. Also I was very lucky when I moved to Madrid here to meet a wonderful man called Martin Varsavsky, who very kingly invited me to â€" he used to do an event called Menorca Tech Talk â€" and he invited me to that event and I went. So I showing the game to people who were influential. And then I got those people to retweet my tweet and start talking about the game, I got Julio  Alonso, who is a Spanish guy here who has the biggest blog s, to start playing the game so that people who like Julio  Alonso will also play. So it’s not PR, I would call it more social networking and then making that work. We didn’t get a lot of press in the beginning, almost no press, then when we started having millions of users and all that we got the press.Interviewer: So basically focus on the key influencers and then just having them disseminate the message?Alexis: Yeah.Interviewer: The business model of eRepublik, how does it work right now?Alexis: At the beginning it had no business model, because the game was free, we didn’t know how we were going to make, we thought we would do the advertising. But no, we wanted to first put it free to play. This was seven years ago. Actually the Germans were the ones who were doing this in the beginning. I think it was only game free to play, so we looked at what they were doing, and we decide to introduce a currency in the game that you could purchase. With that currency you could basical ly buy advantages in the game and all that, and that’s become our business.Interviewer: How many users do you have currently at eRepublik?Alexis: In the past seven years we’ve had five million user who’ve registered to play the game. And that’s the official number that we disclose, but it’s a smaller number of players that are actually active on a monthly basis, but we don’t disclose that number.Interviewer: By which channels do you acquire the customers or users today?Alexis: Today we only rely on organic, reality still. There was a time when we did some marketing campaigns like AdWords and all that, but those became quite expensive. So we stopped doing it and we put more viral elements to the game and all that. And that’s what we do. Also what we’ve realized is the organic traffic is usually a lot better than the acquired traffic.Interviewer: The conversion rates of signing upAlexis: The conversion rates, the second day return, the three day retention rate, the mar ketization is much much stronger. So we try and rely on organic as much as possible. But there were times when we were spending a lot of money on marketing.Interviewer: Can you give us some more insights on the KPIs you’re tracking and how they help you perform better?Alexis: One KPI we look at is if you’re looking at the marketing channel of course you look at the acquisition cost per registration or per install, if you’re talking about mobiles that’s the first thing you look at. We never never pay non-performance advertising, we never do that. Then what we do get is the percentage of people who complete what we called the on-boarding, the tutorial. So if you’re below 60% you’re in trouble, that means that is a warning you should change it. Then we look at the percentage of people who come back on the second day. So that’s what we call the second day retention. So clearly you want to be at 50%, not lower than 40%. And then we look at seven day retention and three day retention, and ideally you want to be around 20-25%. So 100 players that install or register in your game after a month if you have about 20-25 still playing. For core games, most core games are actually around 10, but if you’re below 10 you’re really in trouble. And then obviously monetization, how much revenue can you get? And that really depends on the game. A game like ours, eRepublik, monetizes quite late because it’s very hardcore. But mobile games will monetize in the first week, so it really depends on the game.Interviewer: Because you have the purchases of the app or in-app purchases that they monetize better?Alexis: Because you have in-app purchases and because on mobile the lifetime of a user will be shorter, it will be two months, three months, four months, six months if you’re very lucky. In games like iRepublik.com you can actually have a much longer lifetime, so we have an average lifetime of close to two years, which is very long by the way, it’s probably o ne of the longest in the industry.Interviewer: And in terms of the revenue model can you split this via desktop and mobile and how you’re earning money on both of these devices?Alexis: Right now for eRepublik it’s quite bizarre we did a web mobile version within the application of eRepublik, because eRepublik is a browser game, and what we’re seeing right now is that about 15-20% of our traffic is mobile, which is very low, it should be higher. It will be much higher when we do an app, but right now what we’ve decided to do â€" because eRepublik is such a complex game, it is a seven year old game, we’re adding things every month â€" is to do new games, so we are launching ‘Tactical Heroes’, that’s the next game we’re doing. We are self-launching on 26th of June in Spain, and we’ll have the global launch sometime in September. I’m very happy because we’ve had that first review today. Some journalist managed to find our self-launch in New Zealand, indeed he did a review of the unfinished game and we got 8/10 for a game that’s not finished yet. So we’re very excited about that. And then we’re doing another game called ‘Age of Lords’ which we will launch sometime next year.Interviewer: Can you tell us a little bit more about your future plans for these games, because as you said you’ve got one game now, you’re planning to release two further games. Can you tell us a little bit more about the strategy behind it, whether you’re expanding it into different kind of games segments or different platforms or geographic regions?Alexis: The game eRepublik is played all over the world, it’s very strong everywhere in the world, except in Asia. We actually decided to continue focusing on strategy games, because it’s working now and that’s what we love. But what we’ve decided to do is actually to pivot the company towards mobile games, because this is where all the growth is right now. In browser games they’re declining about 1 5-20% year on year, mobile games are boom! Also there is a lot more competition with mobile games, so you need to know what you’re doing. So this is the reason.Actually we have two game studios in the company. We have a game studio with about 35 people in Romania, and that game studio is divided into two game teams, one game team that covers eRepublik.com, and another game team that takes care of the new game ‘Age of Lords’. And we actually had to open a new studio here in Spain, which is where I live, to do ‘Tactical Heroes’. And we needed to have a mobile games team for that, and that was the hardest part to do, so we had to acquire a company. So we made a small acquisition of a company called ‘Alien Flow’ which had a team of people who were experienced in doing mobile games.And another thing we’ve done is we’ve spent almost a year just building the team up. Getting people from Gameloft and companies like that that really have experience. So we now have a very st rong team, about 27 people, here is Spain that allows us to compete here, to compete in games. It’s all about the team.Interviewer: How do you convert the users from eRepublik to the new games given that the hard fact that it’s a different kind of genre and different kind of platform that you use. And also in terms of marketing channels, it’s different way of acquiring customers for a mobile application as opposed to the desktop?Alexis: The one thing that we’ve in common is that it’s a strategy game, it’s multi-player, and it’s competitive gameplay. We know that we have players who like that, we have a database of five million core gamers who like those kinds of games that we can market to, because we regularly market to all these people. And so we’ll be able to cross-promote. But we know that when we cross-promotion from email to iPhone install it’s not usually the best one. So we’ve tested it now with our Indonesian community, because we’ve self-launched in I ndonesia, and that has given us I think about 200,000 players in Indonesia, and that’s given us a few thousand installs. So we know that from five millions users we should get a decent amount of installs which clearly won’t be sufficient.So what we’re doing, a very good thing, is to basically learn what marketing channels work on mobile, is it Facebook, test them. And even if it is with 50 Euros, 100 Euros, very little, start testing them, start having the matrix, start measuring everything. So we’ve been running campaigns in Indonesia for two months with 20 to 30 viewers a day, but we’re learning. And the other important thing is, if you can, try and get Apple to support you. Apple will never promise anything but you should definitely try.Interviewer: In terms of corporate strategy what do you need to do now in order to remain relevant and grow the business? What is the competitive advantage in the online gaming industry?Alexis: I would say probably now three or four year s eRepublic.com was at the forefront, and then we missed the boat, we missed the whole Facebook games boat, because we were so focused on eRepublik. It was growing, we were on the rocket ship, and we were just trying to keep the rocket ship going, and when you do that sometimes you miss opportunities. And I remember we actually knew about the whole Facebook program and all that from the moment they launched, and we were like we don’t have time for that. And we missed the whole Facebook thing. So we decided we don’t want to miss anymore. So from a strategic point of view what we’ve done is although what is easy for us is to keep investing in eRepublik and keep going along with that, we said of both the teams we have we are going to reduce the team that is focusing on the eRepublic.com, we’re going to do that acquisition, we need to be good at mobile, we need to understand mobile. And so that’s the big strategic decision that we’ve done. ERepublik.com was a profitable comp any for the past few years and we said now the train is leaving the station, it’s going fast, we we’re going to invest, it doesn’t matter, we don’t need to be profitable for one or two years, we have accumulated reserves, and we’re going to just invest to make sure that we get on the new rocket ship.Interviewer: This is a very good bridge for talking about the market development. As you said there seems to be some shift over the past few years from normal browser games to more social related games, using Facebook for virality, and now mobiles. Can you tell us a bit more of what you think the future will be in terms of gaming? Obviously desktop will not die but maybe the proportions will change or the type of games that are played on different devices will maybe change?Alexis: That’s a very good question. By the way, Facebook is a good platform, and I think there will still be social games being played on Facebook, there have been very good successes on Facebook recently, so that’s a really good platform and one that we’re looking at and talking to. Then basically the desktop games our team is doing very well, and I think this is the really really core games on PC. I would think e-sports is really happening on the PC. So the ones I will be more concerned about is the consoles, the consoles are struggling, even the new generation and consoles but the PC games I think will still be there.I think browser games are going to continue to decline. But two games that are in my opinion are still going to go well especially the tablets. I think phones and all that is going to be strong, but the tablets are going to be very strong. But the types of games have to be slightly different, the biggest difference is the time of the session, how much time you spend playing that game. For example on PC you could have a game that is designed to be played for hours and hours, same thing on the console, on the mobile phone it’s a few minutes, it’s what you call t he snack, the snack experience. On the tablet it’s between both.Interviewer: Because you’re coming from this core gaming industry and seeing Diablo III for example, it’s a core game which is distributed online and making quite a lot of revenue, have you ever thought about going into this kind of subscription based core games?Alexis: We don’t believe in subscription.Interviewer: Interesting. Why?Alexis: Free to play is much stronger, because free to play is more fair, you get to try the game for free and if you like it you pay. Subscription is the same thing they usually give you 15 days, but I just don’t believe in the subscription model. I think different games have different values for different people. I might use Diablo III five or six hours a day, and you might use it half an hour a day, why should we pay the same price?Interviewer: With Entrepreneurial Insights we always try to teach or give advice to first-time entrepreneurs. And I think you’ve learnt some quiet c ool lessons over the last 10 to 15 years being an entrepreneur. Maybe I can ask you to share one or two stories.Alexis: When they first start a company, the one thing I tell them is the first three years of your life as an entrepreneur are going to be hell. It’s going to be horrible. You’re going to learn tons, you’re going to think nothing goes right, it’s going to be very very tough, and don’t expect to have profits in the first three years. And people need to understand that. It’s not like people see this glamorous entrepreneur because people only write about successes and successful entrepreneurs. Very rarely do we speak about failure. And the first three years you’re just going to fail over and over and over and over. It’s how you fail, how quickly you fail, and then building up on those failures that eventually will make you reach success. But the most likely fact is that it is going to take like three years. So that’s the first.The second things is actually looking to the first thing. It’s about persistence. You have to be super damn persistent. I’ll tell you Lasminute.com, which was the first company I was part of where I wasn’t the founder, but I remember it was about selling flight tickets in the beginning. And if you’re going to sell flight tickets you need have a deal with the airlines, and the first deal they tried to get was with Alitalia, it took 35 phone calls for Alitalia to answer. And then we started selling Alitalia and Lastminute.com was then the biggest travel company here.More recently in our case we are moving to mobile. Although we are an established company in browser games, nobody knew us in mobile, and it is very hard to do well in mobile if Apple doesn’t look at you, doesn’t talk to you, Google doesn’t look at you, doesn’t talk to you. And I remember at the beginning six months ago I’ll go to conferences, and I know all those people because I’ve been an entrepreneur for a long time, and I knew nobody at Apple that could help. The people at Google I knew had nothing to do with the Google people. I was completely stuck. So I started asking friends, calling, it took me three months, three months of really finding out who the right people are. The people with who have the connections they don’t give you the connections. And now we’re in a situation where we are talking with these people, they’ve notice us, they know we’re serious, they’ve seen the game, they realize they’re getting a lot, but it’s months and months and months, and it’s not something I gave to the marketing people, it’s not the marketing people that make it happen, you’ve got to make it happen.Interviewer: Thank you very much Alexis.Alexis: You’re welcome. Thank you.

Thursday, June 25, 2020

Romeo and Juliet A Film Study - Literature Essay Samples

Romeo and Juliet as characters, as symbols of love, and as symbols of innocence torn apart by a hardheaded society are cultural icons so ingrained in society that they are often synonymous with the very concepts they represent. After centuries of study and countless productions around the globe, Romeo and Juliet remains, line by line, exactly as it was recorded in the quartos and folios of Shakespeares players themselves. Although the text itself is unchanging, different visions of the work offer a wealth of interpretations of this single, 3006-line play. This study will focus on two cinematic representations of the play: Franco Zeffirellis 1968 work, and Baz Luhrmanns 1996 production. In each of these films, the final scene of the play serves as the ultimate expression of each filmmakers intended message. Zeffirelli, holding true to the text, reveals that despite their attempts to ignore it, the lovers in their final scene remain a part of the suffocating society that rules th e rest of their lives, as revealed by the omnipresence of the outside world in their most intimate moments. Luhrmanns adaptation of the final scene, however, suggests that Romeo and Juliet have created an idealized world inhabited by themselves alone. By studying both directors presentations of the events prior to, during, and after the lovers encounter in Act Five, scene three, their respective visions come to light. In the final scene of their renditions of William Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet, both Zeffirelli and Luhrmann take artistic liberties in adapting the scene: Zeffirelli in his somewhat selective modification of the script, and Luhrmann in his striking alteration of the original sequence. INTRO Although Zeffirelli has openly admitted to altering Romeo and Juliet in an effort to make it more palatable to younger generations, thus allowing the plays to be enjoyed by ordinary people, he does so in a manner that has not succumbed to the too-easy updating that can come wit h modern dress and the latest teenage fad (Hapgood 80, 84). Throughout the film, Zeffirelli remains remarkably loyal to the Shakespearean text, making necessary sacrifices and compromises only where perceived non-essentials are concerned (Hapgood 82). BEFORE JULIETInitially, the most striking aspect of the film is its setting. Throughout the film, the city of Verona is depicted using a somewhat subdued, prevalently brown, color scheme. There is an emphasis on a realistic atmosphere, with restrained colors and a dusty feel (Hapgood 86). Balthasar and Romeos journey from Mantua to Verona maintains this air; there is no notable difference in the environment as they travel from the region of exile, to Verona itself, and even to the interior of the tomb. Upon arriving at the tomb, Romeo leaves Balthasar outside of the building, hurriedly bidding him farewell (Shakespeare V.III.42). Despite this dismissal, Balthasar awaits Romeos return outside the Capulet tomb, thus revealing that the outside world continues to exist of its own accord and without regard to Romeos desires. According to the sequential entrances in the play, Paris would be the next character to enter the Capulet tomb in fact, Shakespeare emphasizes this fact by giving the young bachelor over 30 lines of praise for his lifeless fiancÃÆ'Â ©e before Romeo cuts his lament short by slaying the prince. The Zeffirelli version, however, finds Paris to be a necessary sacrifice at the altar of the directors vision. Although this fight sequence was initially shot, it was finally cut because if Romeo was a murderer, the wave of emotion that makes Romeos suicide acceptablewouldnt have worked (Hapgood 82). In essence, the director made the decision to purge this aspect of Romeos actions in order to make his death more digestible to audiences, rather than leaving them with the bitter aftertaste of Paris violent death. In Zefirrellis film, Romeo wanders without conflict into the Capulet family tomb. A s he enters the dusty and unwelcoming tomb, he passes Juliets deceased family members, each at different stages of decomposition. These grim and foreboding images of death confront Romeo with the imminent future of his beloved she too, in flesh and memory, will decay into nonexistence. Furthermore, by displaying the other deceased Capulets, Zeffirelli suggests that Romeo and Juliet are never fully freed from the society that ultimately leads to their demise all are destined to die. JULIETAfter having made his way past the corpses, Romeo comes upon Juliet, lying on a cold stone altar and covered in a thin cloth similar to those adorning the dead bodies he has just passed. After dedicating a mere 6 lines of his soliloquy to his love and wife, Romeo too quickly shifts focus to Juliets slain cousin Tybalt (Romeo and Juliet V.III.92). Although Zeffirellis screenplay holds true to Shakespeares text in this instance, this action detracts from the final special moments that the lover s share, and again suggests the intrusion of outside influences. As Romeo drinks his vial of poison, he thrashes about in obvious agony and kisses Juliets hand. In death, Romeo lies not alongside Juliet, but rather alone on the stone floor of the mausoleum. Upon encountering Balthasar outside the tomb, Friar Laurence rushes inside, only to find Romeo dead and Juliet awakening. Although this is again true to Shakespeares text, Zeffirelli reveals that society intrudes on the lovers even during this intensely private moment his is the first face Juliet sees as she awakens. After Laurences hurried abandonment of Juliet in the tomb, the sound of voices outside indicates that the night watch will also interrupt the scene momentarily. The discovery of Romeos body evokes a shrill cry from Zeffirellis young Juliet, and she rashly chooses to kill herself rather than be seized by the trespassers. The lovers death ultimately breeds a sense of irretrievable loss caused by the outside wor ld and the standards it enforces (Hapgood 84).POST MORTEMRather than unnecessarily unveiling the details behind their deaths, Zeffirelli closes the scene immediately after Juliets death in the same manner as all other scenes in the film: with a fade into the next scene. The lovers are carried out of the tombs together on platforms, with their families following behind. The Prince stands before the congregation in the open plaza, proclaiming, all are punished for the pettiness that led to the loss of the youths (Shakespeare V.III.290). The funeral march proceeds, focusing at first on the faces of the deceased lovers, and then on those attending the funeral. Their families come together in their sorrow and mourning as the narrator speaks of a glooming peace this morning with it brings; the sun, for sorrow, will not show his head: For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo (Shakespeare V.III.301-302, 305-306). Lady Capulet and Lady Montague embrace as they walk together in grief, a scenario impossible in the context of Shakespeares version. CONCLUSIONThe final scene of Zeffirellis rendition of Romeo and Juliet suggests that the lovers are deeply entwined with the other members of society. With the continual interference and involvement of the outside world, Romeo and Juliet are constantly pulled back into the world that society dictates for them regardless of their attempts to escape it.INTROWhile Zeffirelli makes minimal adjustments to Shakespeares original text, Luhrmann takes dramatic artistic liberties in his interpretation. Luhrmann holds that this film pays homage to Shakespeare and his play and at the same time a popularization that sacrifices Shakespeares otherness in order to appeal to a contemporary audience (Burt 8). In eliminating many of the other characters in the final scene (as well as minimizing their presence throughout the rest of the film), this film version provides a poignant insight into the private world of the lovers, untarnished by the influence of society. Although they are very much victims of the outside world, that other world dissolves when they are together, if only momentarily.BEFORE JULIETIn this modernization of Shakespeares work, Verona takes on the air of a bustling metropolis, complete with gas stations, litter on the streets, corporation billboards and graffiti. The chaos and violence of life in Verona city and on Verona Beach push Romeo into an isolated life of self-reflection and force Juliet into a sheltered life of isolation. When the two come together, however, a unique blend of innocence and passion causes the rest of the world to disappear, or at least lose its relevance (as revealed in the Capulet Ball sequence). Beyond the setting, the director makes adjustments in the script itself. The Luhrmann interpretation does without several members of the cast in this final sequence, discovering them to be part of Shakespeares literariness that has often been reg arded as a theatrical handicap because they exhibit either rhetorical excess or violations of decorum-or both at once (Anderegg 61, 62). After an extensive, high-speed chase sequence upon Romeos return to Verona from Mantua, Balthasar serves as a decoy to the authorities so that Romeo may approach the Church wherein Juliet lies. Because Balthasar does not await Romeos exit from the tomb, and in actuality serves to further distract the police from the whereabouts of the young lover, he is the first element that indicates Luhrmanns desire to convey that Romeo and Juliet exist in an entirely separate world during their last moments together. The background noise of the car chase, police helicopters, and megaphones coupled with the jagged camera shots mirror Romeos irrational behavior and feeling of panic. Suddenly, Romeo seeks refuge in the entryway of a church; the scene is silent and nearly black, symbolizing the fact that Romeo has shut out the chaos of the outside world. In Lu hrmanns postmodern retelling, this church in the center of Verona serves as the Capulet tomb (Anderegg 56). Similar to Zeffirellis edition, Paris is not present in this final scene; unlike Zeffirellis film, however, Luhrmann is hoping not to heighten Romeos purity, but rather to focus on the isolated sphere that the two lovers exist within. Paris presence would bring back images of his and Juliets pending marriage, and would intrude on a very intimate moment intended only for the lovers to share. Juliet alone inhabits the chapel. Without the rotting corpses lining the path to Juliet, the focus is moved away from the other Capulets and from death itself; the death of the physical body is less important that the death of the love between Romeo and Juliet. As Romeo hesitantly opens to doors into the heart of the chapel, he sees dozens of neon crosses gaudily lining the aisle that leads to Juliet (Anderegg 60). As he approaches his love, the chaotic, artificial light fades to pure candle glow, light sources, tender and appropriate (Donaldson 79). These striking contrasts between chaos and silence, and artificial and pure light, sever Romeos ties to the society that lies just beyond the walls. Here, within the church, only Romeo and Juliet exist.JULIETUpon reaching Juliets bier, Romeo chokes back his tears as he brushes the hair from her eyes, revealing a very poignant intimacy. Because Luhrmann concentrates on creating a universe for the lovers alone, Tybalt is not present in this scene, thereby eliminating Romeos speech and discussion of his murder. Without Tybalt, Romeo and Juliet alone are the sole focus not death, not family, not society. Throughout his soliloquy, Romeo fawns over his love, kissing her and placing a ring on her finger. Soon thereafter, Romeo removes his vial of poison and drinks it. Intriguingly unique to Luhrmanns interpretation, Friar Laurence does not appear to comfort Juliet. Juliet, in fact, awakens right as Romeo finishes the last drop of poison. Romeos subsequent pains of death appear not stem from the pain of physically dying, but rather in the fact that he is registering consciousness of imminent death (Donaldson 77). Romeo dies in Juliets embrace, lying with her on the bed of satin. Overcome with grief, Juliets 45-line potion soliloquy is pared down to two lines that she recites to Romeo as if he were still alive. Slowly, she reaches for his gun, places it to her temple, and pulls the trigger (Anderegg 62). They lie in death upon Juliets burial altar, appearing more as if they have fallen asleep together on a soft and inviting bed. The focus is not on their violent deaths, but in their peaceful afterlife together.POST MORTEMAs the camera angle slowly rises from the lovers below, a video montage of their courtship plays, revealing scenes from their first encounter at the ball, to the soft smiles exchanged at their wedding, to the playfulness shared in Juliets bedroom the morning after their wedding night (Donaldson 79). The following morning sharply contrasts the golden glow of the church with a cold blue-gray hue. In the form of a grainy news video, the lovers become merely another lurid image for a media-besotted culture (Anderegg 63). Quick and unsteady camera angles reveal the cold expressions on the faces of Capulet and Montague. Yet again, the outside world interferes with the lovers wishes, because although they are brought together they are not reunited (Donaldson 77). They are each carried offscreen on gurneys in separate body bags that are loaded into separate ambulances (Donaldson 77). The sacredness of their time alone is thus emphasized because, in the moments that they are removed from societys glare, Romeo and Juliet are able to find pure happiness and fulfillment together. Once the desires and demands of the outside world are projected onto them, they are torn apart once again.CONCLUSIONAs revealed in this analysis of the final scene, Luhrmann ma kes great strides in creating a world in which only Romeo and Juliet exist. Because of the striking differences in the setting, omission of characters, and poignant revelation of their love, Luhrmann depicts a vision of Romeo and Juliet in which it appears that the lovers were never and will never be a part of that society that propelled such hate. In life, they strive for love against all odds. In dying, they strive to (re)unite themselves. In death, however, they are driven apart by the society they sought to escape.Franco Zeffirelli said of Luhrmanns adaptation: The film didnt update the play, it just made a big joke out of it. But apparently the pseudo-culture of young people today wouldnt have digested the play unless you dressed it up that way, with all those fun and games (Donaldson 61). Michael Anderegg responded to this criticism by writing, At first glance, Baz Luhrmanns William Shakespeares Romeo + Juliet could be mistaken for yet another (mis)appropriation of Shakes peares play for purposes of parody or even burlesque, a hip (hop?) retelling aimed at an irredeemably low-brow audience of clueless teenagers inhabiting an intellectually bankrupt culture. In fact, however, Luhrmann is not an iconoclast or vulgarian but rather is a conserver or restorer intent on breaking down the cultural encrustations that have made Shakespeare highbrow, rarefied, effeminate, and boring (Anderegg 70). Jonathan Bate, King Alfred Professor of Literature at the University of Liverpool, endorsed Luhrmanns work, writing, The best Shakespeare is always Shakespeare made contemporary, which is why one of the greatest achievements of our time is Baz Luhrmanns Romeo and Juliet film (Anderegg 70).