British Universities Film & Video Council

moving image and sound, knowledge and access

New on the BUFVC Gateway

The BUFVC Moving Image Gateway includes over 1,250 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/

365 Days of Astronomy
This website has been publishing one podcast per day for all 365 days of 2009, 2010, 2011 and will continue to the end of 2012. The podcasts are between five and ten minutes long and are available to listen to or download from the site or via RSS and iTunes. Each podcast is accompanied by a summary, transcript and details of the podcasters, plus relevant links. Archived podcasts, which are arranged in date order, are not otherwise indexed or classified, but a free text search field can help users narrow their results. A simple idea, elegantly executed.

Out of the Past: Investigating Film Noir
Each episode from this archive of podcasts features film noir experts Shannon Clute and Richard Edwards discussing a single film, offering their views on familiar classics such as The Maltese Falcon, as well as interesting reappraisals of less well-known examples like Force of Evil.

They also consider films which play with the genre’s conventions like Godard’s Bande à Part, and look at neo-noir movies such as Stephen Frears’ The Grifters, as well as films outside the genre which are indebted to noir style and thematics, such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and It’s a Wonderful Life. Clute and Edwards’ scholarly but accessible approach, based on close readings of the films, informed by an in-depth knowledge of the film industry and the history of the period, makes this a rewarding site and an essential port of call for anyone with an interest in film noir.

Slate V
The video channel of the US-based online culture and current affairs magazine Slate divides its content into four main channels: Arts & Life, News & Politics, Business and Technology & Science. The magazine has a left-leaning bias and its tone is witty and irreverent. The Podcasts cover similar ground.

Sound and Music
A site which promotes contemporary and experimental music and also focuses on the use of music and sound in art and film. Arranged in three broad categories – Projects, Features and Resources, the site’s content includes information about events and conferences, interviews, podcasts, artist profiles and much else besides. The Sound on Film section features a number of stimulating essays on how sound, music and film inform one another, including this look at Herbert Ponting’s film The Great White Silence which features an interview with composer Simon Fisher Turner.

Weed to Wonder
This e-book uses text, images, maps, animations, interviews and time-lapse video to tell the story of how a common weed – teosinte – was transformed into maize via domestication and cross-breeding and traces the crop’s history from ancient Mexico up to the present day, covering everything from genome sequencing and transposons to genetic modification and biofortification of modern maize, culminating in the Maize Genome Sequencing Project in 2009. Also available via iTunes.

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