Moving Image Gateway: June news

This Gateway includes over 1,900 websites relating to moving image 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 (020 7393 1500).

Exploring Environmental History
This is a podcast about the history of human societies and their interaction with the environment. The programmes feature interviews with academics and researchers working in the field, reports on conferences and discussions about the use and methods of environmental history. The podcasts, which are accompanied by brief bibliographical list and a textual summary, cover a broad range of subjects including the climatic influence of forests, the problems of rewilding and the environmental history of the River Tyne. The site is also linked to Environmental History Resources, which contains a blog, text essays and links to other environmental history resources on the web.

Institute of Civil Engineers: Educational Resources
This part of the website of the Institute of Civil Engineers features a number of resources including a number of videos aimed at young people who are considering a career in civil engineering. The videos cover a number of different subjects, including people talking about why they chose a particular career path, videos on engineering the London Underground and the Olympic Park.

You Must Remember This
Acclaimed podcast about ‘the secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century.’ Hosted by film critic Karina Longworth, the show blends historical analysis with atmospheric re-enactments, a judicious amount of gossip and scandal, and a narrative-based approach which makes for compelling listening.  Each season of the shows consists of a series of fifteen or so c.fifty minute episodes on a particular subject. So far listeners have been treated to histories of Charles Manson’s Hollywood, MGM Studios, the Hollywood Blacklist, the many loves of Howard Hughes and Star Wars – a history of Hollywood during World War II.  The propaganda film below (‘Der Fuehrer’s Face’) accompanies the episode looking at Disney in the war  which attempts to ‘reconcile the Walt Disney who turned his studio over to the US government and military during World War II for the creation of training films and anti-Nazi propaganda, with the Walt Disney who repeatedly associated himself with anti-Semites and their causes’.

They Shoot Pictures Don’t They?
Film site primarily devoted to a list of the 1,000 greatest films created from an aggregation of nearly seven hundred individual film polls from journals, magazines and websites, including Sight and Sound, Empire, Facets, Positif, and The Village Voice. The site also includes the no less extensive but more narrowly focused list of the 21st century’s most acclaimed films, and a growing set of director profiles. The site’s other resource – 1000 noir films is currently a work in progress: beginning with a list of the most 100 frequently cited film noirs, and then gradually adding a further 900 films noir (or films with prominent noir elements). The enterprise (modestly described as ‘hobby-driven’) is the creation of Bill Georgaris and his partner Vicki Platt, who are based in Adelaide, Australia.

Welcome to the Anthropocene
Visually impressive site with a wide range of information about the Anthropocene – a term coined for Earth’s most recent geologic time period as being human-influenced, or anthropogenic, based on ‘overwhelming global evidence that atmospheric, geologic, hydrologic, biospheric and other earth system processes which are now altered by humans’.

The site features an interactive map and a range of graphically inventive summaries and depictions of the main points around environmental change, such as Tipping Elements, Viable Future and Global Goals. There are a number of short films on the subject, one which provides an overview, the others covering changes to the global water cycle, urbanisation and climate change.

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