British Universities Film & Video Council

moving image and sound, knowledge and access

Latest additions to the Moving Image Gateway

The BUFVC Moving Image Gateway includes over 1,300 websites relating to video, multimedia and sound materials. These have been subdivided into over 40 subject areas. To suggest new entries or amendments, please contact us by email or telephone or visit the Gateway at http://bufvc.ac.uk/gateway/

BBC Dimensions
This site is built on a simple but effective idea: to juxtapose the size of historical events and places with locations familiar to people in order to convey a proper sense of scale and significance. The tool works by overlaying a map outline from history over a location familiar to the user, chosen by typing in a location on Google Map. There are currently nine different types of event to choose from, including Environmental Disasters, Ancient Worlds and Cities in History.

Filmhíradók Online
In 2009 the contents of 597 Hungarian newsreels, spanning the years 1931 to 1945, were made available online in their entirety to the public by the Hungarian National Audivisual Archive (NAVA). In addition to this a smaller collection of 26 pieces consisting of silent newsreels from between 1914 and 1924 was added to the site in 2010. The quality of the digitised film is extremely high, even for the earlier material, as in this clip from November 1919 showing Admiral Horthy entering Budapest. The collection has an introduction in English, as well as a News in English section, but the rest of the resource is in Hungarian. Nonetheless, given the quality of the digitised images, together with a stylish design, a clear layout, and dropdown menus which give a list of search terms, covering personalities, locations and themes, the determined researcher will find his or her time spent browsing this resource well rewarded.

Gifford Lectures Series
The Gifford Lectures were established in 1898 “to contribute to the advancement of theological and philosophical thought”. The lectures take place over the course of the academic year in four Scottish universities: St Andrews, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh. The contents of the series from 2009 onwards are freely available as video and audio podcasts. Recent speakers include Diarmaid MacCulloch on the history of silence in the Christian church, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown on The Future of Jobs and Justice and Terry Eagleton on the God Debate.

Philosophy Bites
This podcast, which was started in 2007, features philosophers being interviewed on specific subjects. Each interview lasts around fifteen to twenty minutes. The design of the site is rudimentary and cluttered with links to Amazon, but the content is worth exploring. In this example, Ray Monk talks about the link between Philosophy and Biography, drawing on his experience as biographer of Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

The Scale of the Universe
This interactive site allows you to scroll in and out to see the relative size of objects from the smallest – quantum foam and string – to the largest – the universe – and plenty of examples in between. Each of the items are clickable to show interesting facts or give more information about the item. For example, it tells us that ‘Rhode Island at 75 kilometres is the smallest state in the USA. However, it could still fit the world’s population on it.’ The site was created for fun by a fourteen year old boy from California, with help from his twin brother. The site is also available in several world languages including even Esperanto.

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