IN: Nobuo Uematsu (Zhi Song  Shen Fu , Uematsu Nobuo, born March 21, 1959) is a Japanese video game composer, best known for scoring most of the titles in the Final Fantasy series by Square Enix. He is considered to be one of the most well known composers in the video game industry. Sometimes referred to as the "Beethoven of video games music", he appeared five times in the top 20 of the annual Classic FM Hall of Fame. Uematsu, a self-taught musician, began playing the piano at the age of twelve, with English singer-songwriter Elton John as his biggest influence.

Uematsu left Square Enix in 2004 and formed his own production company, Smile Please. He later founded the music production company and record label Dog Ear Records in 2006. The reason for Uematsu's departure was that the company moved their office from Meguro to Shinjuku, Tokyo, and he was not comfortable with the new location. Also, he cites the fact that he had reached an age where he should gradually take his life into his own hands. He does, however, continue to compose music as a freelancer for Square Enix. In 2005, Uematsu and several members of The Black Mages created the score for the CGI film Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. Uematsu composed only the main theme for Final Fantasy XII (2006); he was originally offered the job of creating the full score, but Sakimoto was eventually assigned as the main composer instead. Uematsu was also initially going to create the theme song for Final Fantasy XIII (2010). However, after being assigned the task of creating the entire score of Final Fantasy XIV, Uematsu decided to hand the job over to the main Final Fantasy XIII composer, Hamauzu.  Uematsu also works closely with Sakaguchi's development studio Mistwalker, and has composed for Blue Dragon (2006), Lost Odyssey (2007), Away: Shuffle Dungeon (2008); The Last Story (2011); and Terra Battle (2014). He also wrote music for the cancelled game Cry On.  Uematsu created the main theme for the multi-composer game Super Smash Bros. Brawl in 2008. He then composed the music for the 2009 anime Guin Saga; this marked the first time he provided a full score for an animated series. Uematsu recently contributed music and storyline to an e-book titled called "Blik-0 1946". He is currently working on soundtracks for multiple games, including Project Phoenix.  Uematsu appeared five times in the top 20 of the annual Classic FM Hall of Fame. In 2012, "Aerith's Theme", written by Uematsu for Final Fantasy VII, was voted into the number 16 position in the annual Classic FM (UK) "Hall of Fame" top 300 chart. It was the first time that a piece of music written for a video game had appeared in the chart. In 2013, music from the Final Fantasy series received even greater support and was voted into the third position on the Classic FM Hall of Fame. Uematsu and his Final Fantasy music subsequently appeared at number seven in 2014, number nine in 2015, and number 17 in 2016.

What other work does he do as a freelancer?

OUT: He is currently working on soundtracks for multiple games, including Project Phoenix.


IN: Dr. Hannibal Lecter is a character in a series of suspense novels by Thomas Harris. Lecter was introduced in the 1981 thriller novel Red Dragon as a forensic psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer. The novel and its sequel, The Silence of the Lambs, feature Lecter as one of the primary antagonists after the two serial killers in both novels. In the third novel, Hannibal, Lecter becomes a protagonist.

Red Dragon firmly states that Lecter does not fit any known psychological profile. In The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter's keeper, Dr. Frederick Chilton, claims that Lecter is a "pure sociopath" ("pure psychopath" in the film adaptation). In the novel Red Dragon, protagonist Will Graham says that Lecter has no conscience and tortured animals as a child, but does not exhibit any other of the criteria traditionally associated with psychopathy; Graham explains that psychiatrists refer to Lecter as a sociopath because "they don't know what else to call him". In the film adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs, protagonist Clarice Starling says of Lecter, "They don't have a name for what he is." In the novel The Silence of the Lambs, Barney Matthews, an orderly at the facility where Lecter is imprisoned, claims that the only thing Lecter fears is boredom.  Lecter's pathology is explored in greater detail in Hannibal and Hannibal Rising, which explains that he was traumatized as a child in Lithuania in 1944 when he witnessed the murder and cannibalism of his beloved sister, Mischa, by a group of deserting Lithuanian Hilfswillige, one of whom claimed that Lecter unwillingly ate his sister as well.  All media in which Lecter appears portray him as intellectually brilliant, cultured and sophisticated, with refined tastes in art, music and cuisine. He is frequently depicted preparing gourmet meals from his victims' flesh, the most famous example being his admission that he once ate a census taker's liver "with some fava beans and a nice Chianti" (a "big Amarone" in the novel). He is well-educated in Anatomy, Chemistry and Physics and also speaks several languages, including Italian, German, Russian, Polish, French, Spanish, and, to some extent, Japanese. He is deeply offended by rudeness, and frequently kills people who have bad manners. Prior to his capture and imprisonment, he was a member of Baltimore, Maryland's social elite, and a sitting member of the Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra's board of directors.  In The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter is described through Starling's eyes: "small, sleek, and in his hands and arms she saw wiry strength like her own". The novel also reveals that Lecter's left hand has a condition called mid ray duplication polydactyly, i.e. a duplicated middle finger. In Hannibal, he performs plastic surgery on his own face on several occasions, and removes his extra digit. Lecter's eyes are a shade of maroon, and reflect the light in "pinpoints of red". He has small white teeth and dark, slicked-back hair with a widow's peak. He also has a keen sense of smell; in The Silence of the Lambs, he is able to identify through a plexiglass window with small holes the brand of perfume that Starling wore the day before. At one point, when Hannibal points out Clarice must have gotten a bruise lately, she suddenly remembers she has a band-aid on her covered leg, so she assumes he must have smelled it. He has an eidetic memory with which he has constructed in his mind an elaborate "memory palace" with which he relives memories and sensations in rich detail.

What does he do with his finger?

OUT: