Description
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In this project, we aimed to develop a pipeline to automatically recognize, extract, categorize, and display illustrations from the selected tabloid newspaper. We tried to explore tools from academic Computer Vision repository, business OCR service, and opensource library and framework. Hopefully, in the future, we might be able to apply the streamlined process to another newspaper or other digitized collections. Amusement News《娛樂之音》is selected for its theme in entertainment, especially movie and Cantonese Opera oriented content, and its richness in printed illustrations. Cantonese Opera, often known as daai hei(great theatre), represents one of the traditional xiqu genres derived from Guangdong. It is a recognized traditional culture which has been inscribed on The National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of China and UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Cantonese Opera also represents the long-standing popular entertainment enjoyed by the locals in Hong Kong. During festivals and temple fairs, like Luna New Year and Birthday of Tin Hau or Guanyin, people go and watch Cantonese Opera performed at ad-hoc theatre in dai daai dei (flea market). Since the late 1940s where Shanghai film companies moved to Hong Kong, movie and cinema started to thrive. With the inflow of capital and talent, Hong Kong soon turned into a movie-making hub and started gaining international recognition gradually. As more and more cinemas with affordable pricing established, movie watching became one of the most popular entertainment among the masses. The Cantonese Opera industry caught on to the flourishing movie-watching culture and transformed Cantonese Opera performance into films. During the 1950s, Cantonese Opera was one of the most prolific generas in cinemas where over 500 Cantonese opera movies were produced. Later, Cantonese opera also turned into videotapes, fanzines, and CDs. Among the many tabloid newspapers, the Amusement News reported extensively about cinemas, theatres, and Cantonese Opera, covering topics about the industry, the scripts, and the stars. On each issue, there were photos captured from live performance, movie, and behind the scenes. The Amusement News also involved in influencing the popularity of movie and Cantonese Opera. For years, they organized the "Three Champions of the Opera World" contest for audience to vote for the King of Wudan (male lead), the Queen of Huadan (female lead), and the King of Chousheng (comic male) in Cantonese Opera of the year. Our Amusement News data set covered issues from 1952 to 1959 which captured the development of movie and Cantonese opera at the time. (2022-12-13)
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