The diverse and innovative articles which appear on this page have either previously been published by the British Universities Film & Video Council or complement the work of the BUFVC. All articles are available for download as a PDF file, which requires the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

If you are interested in placing an article on this page please contact Sergio Angelini , Publications and Communications Officer, BUFVC.

A Life Rewound

A Life Rewound is the memoir of pioneering film and television producer, Peter Morley. His first job, aged 16, was as a rewind-boy in London’s Dominion Cinema. His rise to editing, and then writing and directing, documentary films was interrupted by the Second World War and four years in a tank. In 1955, as ITV was about to go on the air, Morley took the plunge and joined Associated-Rediffusion as a freelance director/producer. He was responsible for an eclectic mix of programmes, ranging from ITV’s first opera, THE TURN OF THE SCREW, to major outside broadcasts such as the state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill, and the memorable KITTY – RETURN TO AUSCHWITZ.

Morley also made a host of single documentaries and long-running series, including THE LIFE AND TIMES OF LORD MOUNTBATTEN, THIS WEEK and WOMEN OF COURAGE. He is credited with over 200 titles. In later years he pioneered the first interactive videodiscs, the forerunners of CDs and DVDs. Morley is an RTS Fellow and Silver Medallist and was appointed OBE in 1969. He has a formidable list of national and international television awards to his name. The richly illustrated memoirs have now been published by Bank House Books and can be ordered from their website here. In addition the Royal Television Society has published a brief illustrated summary of his memoirs, which is available as a downloadable file on their site: A Life Rewound

Film and the Festival of Britain 1951

by Sarah Easen, Cataloguer, BUFVC and Curator of the NFT Festival of Britain Season (May 2001) & Exhibition. From British cinema in the 1950s: an art of peacetime, Edited by Ian MacKillop and Neil Sinyard (Manchester University Press, 2002), 272 pages, hbk & pbk.
This article highlights the spectrum of films made specifically for the Festival of Britain celebrations in 1951. Over twenty films were produced including a biopic on the life of William Friese-Greene, documentaries by Humphrey Jennings and Basil Wright as well as several Norman McLaren experimental 3-D films.

Download Film and the Festival of Britain 1951 (536Kb PDF)

A Short History of Film Archiving

By Luke McKernan, Head of Information, BUFVC
This article was first given as a paper on the study day, ‘Film Archives and Collections: Exploring the Sector’ held at Birkbeck College for the AHRB Centre for British Film & Television Studies.

Download A Short History of Film Arching (643Kb PDF)

The opinions expressed in articles are strictly those of individual authors and do not necessarily represent views or policy of the British Universities Film & Video Council.