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G.P.O. Film Unit
The GPO Film Unit was a subdivision of the UK General Post Office. The unit was established in 1933, taking on responsibilities of the Empire Marketing Board Film Unit. Headed by John Grierson, it was set up to produce sponsored documentary films mainly related to the activities of the GPO. Among the films it produced were Harry Watt's and Basil Wright's ''Night Mail'' (1936), featuring music by Benjamin Britten and poetry by W. H. Auden, which is the best known. Directors who worked for the unit included Humphrey Jennings, Alberto Cavalcanti, Paul Rotha, Harry Watt, Basil Wright and a young Norman McLaren. Poet and memoirist Laurie Lee also worked as a scriptwriter in the unit from 1939–1940. In 1940 the GPO Film Unit became the Crown Film Unit, under the control of the Ministry of Information. In Autumn 2008 the British Film Institute issued a first collection of selected films from the Unit. Titled ''Addressing The Nation'', it comprises fifteen titles from the years 1933 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is , with an estimated 2020 population of more than 67 million people. The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England (which included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of Scotland in 170 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Can Take It!
''London Can Take It!'' is a short British propaganda film from 1940, which shows the effects of eighteen hours of the German blitz on London and its people. Intended to sway the US population in favour of Britain's plight, it was produced by the GPO Film Unit for the British Ministry of Information and distributed throughout the United States by Warner Bros.Kevin Jackson ''Humphrey Jennings'', 2004, London: Picador, p429. The film was directed by Humphrey Jennings and Harry Watt, and narrated by US war correspondent Quentin Reynolds. Plot The film opens with shots of the London streets in late afternoon, as people begin their commute home. The narrator reminds the audience that these people are part of the greatest civilian army the world has ever known, and are going to join their respective service before London's "nightly visitor" arrives. Listening posts are stationed as far away as the coastline and the "white fingers" of searchlights touch the sky. Soon the Luftwaff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tschierva Hut
The Tschierva Hut (German: ''Tschiervahütte'', Romansh: ''Chamanna da Tschierva'') is a mountain hut located in the Swiss canton of Graubünden at the foot of Piz Bernina, Piz Tschierva and Piz Morteratsch at the end of Val Roseg. The hut lies at 2,584 metres above sea level near the Tschierva Glacier and can be accessed from Pontresina Pontresina ( rm, Puntraschigna) is a municipality in the Maloja Region in the canton of Graubünden in Switzerland. History and name Pontresina was first mentioned in medieval Latin documents as ''ad Pontem Sarisinam'' in 1137 and ''de Ponte Sar ... via a trail. The hut is the starting point of the ''Biancograt'', the serpentine north ridge of Piz Bernina. The hut is owned by the Swiss Alpine Club. External linksChamanna da Tschierva CASsac-cas.ch Mountain huts in Switzerland Mountain huts in the Alps Pontresina {{switzerland-struct-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evelyn Cherry
Evelyn Spice Cherry (née Evelyn Spice) was a Canadian documentary filmmaker, director, and producer. She is best known for her work as the head of the Agricultural Films Unit at the National Film Board of Canada and as a member of the British Documentary Film Movement. Early life Evelyn Spice was born in 1904 in Yorkton, Saskatchewan.Ho, Vanessa. "NFB pioneer may yet be famous." ''Regina Leader-Post'', March 23, 2002. She began her career teaching public school.Ramsay, Christine"Cherry, Evelyn Spice (1906–90)."''The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan''. In 1929, she graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in journalism and started working at the ''Regina Leader-Post'' as the society columnist. Spice moved to London, England in 1931, where she began working at the Government Post Film Unit. She worked under John Grierson, whom she would later go on to work with at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) in Canada. While working at the GPO, Spice met and worked ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Sea (1938 Film)
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Sea in the north. It is more than long and wide, covering . It hosts key north European shipping lanes and is a major fishery. The coast is a popular destination for recreation and tourism in bordering countries, and a rich source of energy resources, including wind and wave power. The North Sea has featured prominently in geopolitical and military affairs, particularly in Northern Europe, from the Middle Ages to the modern era. It was also important globally through the power northern Europeans projected worldwide during much of the Middle Ages and into the modern era. The North Sea was the centre of the Vikings' rise. The Hanseatic League, the Dutch Republic, and the British each sought to gain command of the North Sea and access to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lotte Reiniger
Charlotte "Lotte" Reiniger (2 June 1899 – 19 June 1981) was a German film director and the foremost pioneer of silhouette animation. Her best known films are ''The Adventures of Prince Achmed'', from 1926, the first feature-length animated film, and ''Papageno'' (1935). Reiniger is also noted for having devised, from 1923 to 1926, the first form of a multiplane camera. (an extract from ) Reiniger worked on more than 40 films throughout her career. Biography Early life Lotte Reiniger was born in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin on 2 June 1899 to Carl Reiniger and Eleonore Lina Wilhelmine Rakette. Here, she studied at Charlottenburger Waldschule, the first open-air school, where she learned the art of scherenschnitte, the German art of silhouette, inspired by the ancient Chinese art of paper cutting and silhouette puppetry. As a child, she became fascinated with this Chinese art of paper cutting of silhouette puppetry, and even built her own puppet theatre so that she ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Len Lye
Leonard Charles Huia Lye (; 5 July 1901 – 15 May 1980) was a New Zealand artist known primarily for his experimental films and kinetic sculpture. His films are held in archives including the New Zealand Film Archive, British Film Institute, Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Pacific Film Archive at University of California, Berkeley. Lye's sculptures are found in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the Berkeley Art Museum. Although he became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1950, much of his work went to New Zealand after his death, where it is housed at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth. Career As a student, Lye became convinced that motion could be part of the language of art, leading him to early (and now lost) experiments with kinetic sculpture, as well as a desire to make film. Lye was also one of the first Pākehā artists to appreciate the art of Māo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Massingham
Richard Massingham (31 January 1898 in Sleaford, Lincolnshire – 1 April 1953 in Biddenden, Kent) was a British medical doctor who is principally known for starring in public information films made in the 1940s and early 1950s. Life After working in medicine and making amateur films, Massingham set up Public Relationship Films Ltd in 1938 when he noticed that there was no specialist agency making short educational films for the public. In the films he typically played a bumbling character who was slightly more stupid than average, and often explained the message of the film through demonstrating the risks if it was ignored. Films' topics included postal deliveries, how to cross the road, how to prevent the spread of diseases, how to swim and how to drive without causing the road to be unsafe for other users. Family Massingham's father was H. W. Massingham, H.W. Massingham (1860–1924) the journalist, and his siblings included writer Harold John Massingham (1888–1952), wr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Squadron 992
''Squadron 992'' is a 23-minute 1940 British propaganda film produced by the General Post Office GPO Film Unit of the British Ministry of Information and re-distributed by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) as part of their wartime ''Canada Carries On'' series. The film was directed by Harry Watt and produced by Alberto Cavalcanti. ''Squadron 992'' describes the training and operations in 1940 of No. 992 (Barrage Balloon) Squadron RAF, a Royal Air Force (RAF) barrage balloon unit stationed in the United Kingdom. The film's French version title was ''Escadrille 992''. Synopsis By 1940, in the Second World War, 40,000 RAF personnel are in the RAF Balloon Command, created to protect urban centres and key targets such as industrial areas, ports and harbours. Balloons were intended to defend against Luftwaffe dive bombers attacking from heights up to 5,000 feet (1,500 m). The balloons forced the bombers to fly higher and into the range of concentrated anti-aircraft fire. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spare Time (film)
Leisure has often been defined as a quality of experience or as free time. Free time is time spent away from business, work, job hunting, domestic chores, and education, as well as necessary activities such as eating and sleeping. Leisure as an experience usually emphasizes dimensions of perceived freedom and choice. It is done for "its own sake", for the quality of experience and involvement. Other classic definitions include Thorsten Veblen's (1899) of "nonproductive consumption of time." Free time is not easy to define due to the multiplicity of approaches used to determine its essence. Different disciplines have definitions reflecting their common issues: for example, sociology on social forces and contexts and psychology as mental and emotional states and conditions. From a research perspective, these approaches have an advantage of being quantifiable and comparable over time and place. Leisure studies and sociology of leisure are the academic disciplines concerned wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralph Richardson
Sir Ralph David Richardson (19 December 1902 – 10 October 1983) was an English actor who, with John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, was one of the trinity of male actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. He worked in films throughout most of his career, and played more than sixty cinema roles. From an artistic but not theatrical background, Richardson had no thought of a stage career until a production of ''Hamlet'' in Brighton inspired him to become an actor. He learned his craft in the 1920s with a touring company and later the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. In 1931 he joined the Old Vic, playing mostly Shakespearean roles. He led the company the following season, succeeding Gielgud, who had taught him much about stage technique. After he left the company, a series of leading roles took him to stardom in the West End and on Broadway. In the 1940s, together with Olivier and John Burrell, Richardson was the co-director of the Old Vic company. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Bressey
Sir Charles Herbert Bressey, Order of the Bath, CB, Order of the British Empire, CBE (3 January 1874 – 14 April 1951) was an English civil engineer and Chartered Surveyor, surveyor who specialised in road design. Bressey was Chief Engineer for Roads at the Department for Transport, Ministry of Transport from 1921 to 1938. Between 1935 and 1938 he carried out research on road planning and motorway design in preparation for his ''Highway Development Survey, 1937'' for Greater London published in 1938. He served as President of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Institution of Chartered Surveyors in 1938–9. Early life Bressey was born in Wanstead, Essex (now in the London Borough of Redbridge), the son of architect John Thomas Bressey and Elizabeth Bressey (née Farrow). He was educated at Forest School (Walthamstow), Forest School, Walthamstow and in France and Germany before starting work in his father's practice in the City of London, becoming a partner in 1896. Whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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