British Universities Film & Video Council

moving image and sound, knowledge and access

Friday Fun on the Moving Image Gateway

Here are 5 more BUFVC Moving Image Gateway entries that we entered or edited in the last week, with two of them focusing on colonial archive film and the others on dance, veterinary science, and a useful source of information on commercial DVD releases from around the world.

Colonial Film Archive
Funded by the AHRC, the Colonial Film: Moving Images of the British Empire resource holds detailed information on over 6000 films showing images of life in the British colonies. Over 150 films are available for viewing online. Users can search or browse for films by country, date, topic, production company, genre and keyword. Over 350 of the films in the catalogue are presented with extensive critical notes. In the future it aims to offer teachers detailed lesson plans for use in secondary schools.

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Cambridge Centre of South Asian Studies
The Centre of South Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge holds a sizable archive of films – approximately 50 individual collections totalling in the region of 80 hours of footage. Most of the material was taken between 1911 and 1956, which gives a unique perspective of life in South Asia towards the end of the British Empire and in the first years of independence. The film collection is now available for free online viewing and work is progressing on the catalogue which will, very shortly, add an improved list of their contents and a search function.
The Centre also holds a collection of oral history and other sound recordings which are currently being digitised, but many of them are already available online with excellent indexing and cataloguing.

Rosemary Butcher
For nearly three decades Rosemary Butcher has been a consistently radical and innovative choreographer and has forged her own place within the European contemporary dance scene. Alongside this she has always worked in education, initially in schools and more recently in the university sector. This stylish website provides a timeline of her artistic and academic achievements as well as photographs and downloadable video files of all of her productions arranged chronologically, with accompanying notes and credits.

British Veterinary Association: Vets.tv
A web TV service from the British Veterinary Association, streaming videos on demand. Launched initially as a pilot service to test the level of response, Vets.tv has now been integrated into the BVA website and supplies titles for CPD on a pay-per-view basis. Most titles, with the exception of those in the ‘news’ section dealing with topical issues, are available only to BVA members. The programmes featured have been produced by various veterinary schools, associations and companies including the Royal Veterinary College, University of Liverpool and the British Small Animals Veterinary Association.

logodbDVD Beaver
This fascinating resource is dedicated to reviewing international classic and cult movies on DVD, staying for the most part well clear of mainstream English-language films. Apart from essays and reviews and information on forthcoming releases, its most prominent feature is its evaluation of the technical audio and visual content of various DVD versions of films from around the world. The site looks at thousands of feature films and provides high resolution frame grabs to compare the visual quality of titles released in different territories, as well as comments on the audio presentation and the extras included. A dedicated Blu-ray microsite is particularly valuable.

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