FilmExchanges inAmerica’sEarly Movie Industry
1．Motion pictures were exhibited to the public in the late 1800s, though the first device to accomplish this would seem very unfamiliar to today’s movie-going audiences.ThomasEdison’s 1893 Kinetoscope was little more than a wooden box with a small glass window. Intended only for individual viewing, it housed a roll of film, a mechanical device to circulate the film, and a small light to illuminate it.A、person would peer through the window and watch a short moving sequence, usually just a depiction of an everyday event or the performance of an acrobat or dancer. Needless to say, the medium’s ability to serve only one customer at a time severely limited its profitability.
2．Everything changed two years later with the advent of projection, by which a much larger film image could be shown to multiple viewers simultaneously. The Lumière brothers of France were the first to introduce this new technology with a projection machine called a cinematograph.Edison was quick to follow their lead and created his Vitascope projector in late 1895. With the potential to make money by charging admission to movies now within reach, the innovators of the film industry were ready to expand their business ventures.
3．There were two industry models in practice during the early 1900s.A、handful of successful firms, such as the BiographCompany, owned the equipment to make their own films as well as the venues in which to display them. Such companies were rare, however; most films were shown by independent exhibitors. These included traditional theater owners, who added short film presentations to their programs of live-action entertainment, and traveling cinema exhibitors, who moved from town to town to reach new audiences, often following circuits established by rural fairs. They typically purchased films directly from the production companies that made them, paying a set price per foot of film regardless of its content.Because movies of the time were never longer than one or two minutes, it was feasible to buy them outright. However, this system failed to attract significant audiences as the public soon tired of the small stock of films exhibitors had to offer, and the reels of film themselves deteriorated quickly through repeated transport and screening in traveling cinema shows.
4．Things changed again when producers began increasing the length of their films in order to tell more complex stories. Longer films entailed higher prices, and it became difficult for small-scale exhibitors to purchase them. This, in turn, prevented production studios from creating as many movies as they could, since they had no one to sell them to. It was precisely this dilemma that gave rise to the film exchange.An early version of a motion-picture distributor, film exchanges were responsible for bridging the gap between production and exhibition.They financed production studios, giving them the funds they needed to film more movies. Then, they purchased these films and rented them out to exhibitors around the country for a fraction of what it would have cost the exhibitors to purchase the films themselves.
5．The film-exchange system revolutionized the industry, greatly benefiting all parties involveD、
Film rentals allowed exhibitors to show a wide variety of movies and gave them constant access to new films so they could change their programs frequently.
This led to the rise of what we now know as the movie theater, a venue dedicated solely to the public exhibition of films.
Film exchanges made money by taking a percentage of ticket sales, and the production studios were paid by the exchanges,
【单选题】： A B C D

Coming Soon: the Next Great FluEpidemic
The virus first came to officials’ attention in a bag of dead chickens.Early in March 1997, a farmer from Hong Kong’s New Territories carried them into theAgriculture and FisheriesDepartment laboratory. The final state of some birds was a hideous, bloody mush.Cultures of their organs revealed they had died of avian influenza, type H5N1. Influenza of the H5 subtype had never been known to infect humans.But in the next seven months, 18 Hong Kong residents fell ill with H5N1 and six dieD、
In lateDecember 1997, public health officials took a drastic step, ordering the slaughter of every chicken in every farm and marketplace in Hong Kong. The HSN1 virus seemed to disappear but for how long
The specter of the 1918 flu was raised by this new avian flu. The 1918 flu was one of the most changeable and resistant viruses known to man.After we’ve been infected with one strain, it can mutate and infect us again. We are only immune to flu strains our bodies have seen before.
A、flu can also "jump species" to an animal it has never infected before, once such a flu moves into humans, if it can "learn" to pass easily between them, it can spark a pandemic—a global outbreak.
Birds carry the flu virus in their intestines and excrete it in their feces. In all likelihood, shoppers who got sick with H5 touched surfaces contaminated with chicken feces. Humans, however, carry flu in their respiratory tracts and usually spread them in a cough or sneeze. Flu strains that travel this way are highly contagious.
The H5 virus in Hong Kong was different. It sickened very few, but killed a third of those infecteD、Most who got sick with H5 seemed to catch it directly from a bird they bought in a live-poultry market.
After the Hong Kong outbreak, flu experts feared that H5—already deadly to humans—might learn to move between humans as well as between birds. That "raises the specter of 1918", says NancyCox, chief of the InfluenzaBranch of the U. S.Centers forDiseaseControl and PreventionCDCP).
Geographic isolation was no protection during the 1918 pandemiC、In theAlaska Territory, the mortality rate in some villages was as high as 90 percent.All told, at least 500000Americans perisheD、It could happen again.
The virus that became the Spanish flu probably came from a birD、Avian-flu expertDr. Robert Webster of St. JudeChildren’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., believes the virus may have leapt straight from birds to humans, possibly a year to two before the pandemic began. Once lodged in human lungs, it quickly passed from person to person in a simple cough or sneeze. To avoid that grim possibility, here are three measures all nations need to take:
The first step is better surveillance. Most countries, though, don’t start tracking avian flu until after an epidemic kills their chickens. The United States dramatically increased its monitoring after a deadly outbreak in Pennsylvania in the early 1980s. The USDA、(United StatesDepartment ofAgriculture) provides diagnostic support. Some virologists recommend enhancing surveillance of swine flu too. The U. S. National Institutes of Health is beginning to study the issue.
Elsewhere, the coverage is not good enough, saysDr. W. Paul Glezen of theBaylorCollege of Medicine’s Influenza ResearchCenter. He namesAfrica and SouthAmerica as areas where the World Health Organizations net is incomplete.
Another important measure is producing more vaccines and flu shots. Only three of the 15 known influenza subtypes—H1, H2 and H3—have been found in people. Vaccines exist for each, and an H5 vaccine is now being developeD、Some experts believe that we should develop a vaccine for the other known subtypes as well.
Health authorities add that more people need flu shots now. We should manufacture 120 million doses a year

您正在结束答题

请确认是否提交试卷？

继续做题确认提交