Welcome to the first Transit blog post of 2015!  We thought we'd start the year off casually with a light-hearted quiz that combines two very different modes of storytelling ... the emoji and the feature film.

Originating in Japan, emoji are those cute little pictograms found on most smartphones.  They've also become very popular with chat, email and social media users.  If you've yet to enable emoji on your mobile phone, here are two great articles from Mashable that can help you with that:  How to Enable Emoji on Android and How to Enable Emoji on iOS.

Fun Facts:  

• The word emoji comes from the Japanese 絵 (e ≅ picture) 文 (mo  ≅  writing) 字 (ji ≅ character).  [Unicode FAQ]

• According to the Global Language Monitor's annual survey of the English language, the Heart ❤ Emoji (for love) is the Top Word of 2014.  This is the first time an ideograph has captured GLM's Word of the Year honours.

• In 2013, Emoji Dick, an emoji translation of Herman Melville's Moby Dick, was acquired by the US Library of Congress for their collection.

Our quiz consists of 20 emoji interpretations of New Zealand movie titles or plots.  All you have to do is name the movie.  However, if you have trouble remembering the many fabulous Kiwi films, help can be found via Wikipedia's List of New Zealand Films.  We've given you the answer to the first question to start you off.

Start Quiz: 

1.

Answer:  Love Birds

2.

3.

4.  (Plot)

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.  (Plot)

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.  (Plot)

17.

18.

19.  (Plot)

20.  (Plot)

End of Quiz.  Thanks for playing! 

The answers can be found at the end of this blog post, right after these two great examples of emoji creativity.

Beyoncé (feat. Jay-Z) "Drunk in Love" Unofficial Emoji Video

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Emoji Among Us: The Documentary

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Answers:

1.  Love Birds

2.  Bread and Roses

3.  Sleeping Dogs

4.  Heavenly Creatures

5.  Show of Hands

6.  The Vintner's Luck

7.  Smash Palace

8.  The End of the Golden Weather

9.  Goodbye Pork Pie

10. Home by Christmas

11. Topless Women Talk About Their Lives

12. The Red House

13. Whale Rider

14. Rain

15. The Quiet Earth

16. My Wedding and Other Secrets

17. The Strength of Water

18. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

19. The Most Fun You Can Have Dying

20. The Piano