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Art Political aspects Drama 16th century Drama 17th century Mass media and culture Mass media Political aspects Mass media Social aspects Motion pictures Appreciation Motion pictures Production and direction Vocational guidance United States Popular culture History and criticism Sound Recording and reproducingSummary: Gary Hill's transformative films, performances, and video installations offer resonant philosophic and poetic insights as he explores the tensions that reverberate among electronic media, language, the senses, and the self. In this program, Hill uses a number of his pieces to investigate otherness and ambiguity, dislocation of the senses, the boundary between words and comprehension, the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: With the five-part Cremaster Cycle of films, multi-award-winning artist Matthew Barney invented a densely layered and interconnected sculptural world that surreally combines sports, biology, sexuality, history, and mythology as it organically evolves. In this program, Barney, Guggenheim curator Nancy Spector, and others deconstruct the Cycle's filming and subsequent translation into sculptural...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: No storytelling medium is more powerful than the modern movie-but the ability to inspire and entertain by combining words and pictures is hardly a recent phenomenon. This program reveals the age-old roots of the cinematic narrative form and their evolution over the centuries. Beginning in the ancient Mesopotamian city of Nineveh, the film points to the Epic of Gilgamesh as one of the earliest...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: Hitler's invasion of Russia and Germany's post-WWII partition inspired a great deal of animated Soviet propaganda. This program presents short films that disparage fascist aggression and America's supposed continuation of it. Fascist Boots and Cinema Circus vilify Hitler and the Nazi invaders; A Lesson Not Learned plays on Russian fears of a reunited, vengeful, and American-supported Germany;...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Racism, unemployment, aggression, excess-the USSR's animation studios frequently took aim at these aspects of American culture. Representing five decades of animated Soviet propaganda, this program features short films that blast the United States and its perceived evils. Black and White and Mister Twister extol the absence of bigotry in Soviet society, while Someone Else's Voice portrays jazz...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Just as America envisioned Communist threats during much of the 20th century, the specter of capitalism loomed large in the Soviet Cold War psyche. This program surveys Soviet animated propaganda embodying that fiercely anti-capitalist spirit. Foreshadowing the space race, Interplanetary Revolution depicts a Communist triumph over free-market forces on Mars; China in Flames warns against...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: No other totalitarian regime is as closely associated with an artistic movement as Nazi Germany. From the towering architecture of Albert Speer to the grandiose films of Leni Riefenstahl, art fed into and shaped Nazi ideals, reflecting back a world where Aryan strength triumphs over all enemies. Through art on a monumental scale, Hitler created a world-and a worldview-as enticing as it was...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: This award-winning documentary explores portrayals of Asian men in American cinema, chronicling the experience of actors who have struggled against Hollywood's ethnic stereotyping and discriminatory practices. The Slanted Screen covers the practice of using Caucasian actors in yellowface makeup, drawing upon a wealth of materials, including 50 rare film clips spanning a century. The program,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: In what many see as Hollywood's Golden Age, the offices of William Hays and Joseph Breen worked overtime to combat sexuality and subversion in American movies. This program examines the products of that era-films that danced around the standards of the Production Code and paved the way for increasingly daring storytelling and images. From the modesty of It Happened One Night to the shocking and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: In 1965, the Catholic Legion of Decency closed its doors; the following year, the Hays Code was scrapped. This program looks at the cinematic milestones which prompted these events and the age of freewheeling film artistry that ensued, despite attempts at censorship issuing from the highest political level. Shedding light on the release of The Pawnbroker and director Sidney Lumet's historic...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: After World War II, the wholesomeness of American movies faced a tidal wave of change-from outside, as a growing number of provocative foreign films made their way to the U.S., and from within, as car culture flowered and drive-in theaters sprang up across the country. This program documents the period, from the birth of art house cinema to the ascent of boundary-busting American actors and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: In this program, Channel 4 commissioning editor John Richmond, producer Rachel Gesua, director Tim Supple, screenwriter Andrew Bannerman, and members of the cast and crew talk about the business of making a modest TV adaptation of Twelfth Night. Step by step, they walk viewers through scripting; budgeting for talent, crew, cameras, sound, sets, blue screen, lighting, and costuming; casting...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: When Tim Supple directed the filming of Twelfth Night, he was a stickler for sticking to the words as the Bard penned them. Everything else, though, was up for grabs as he and screenwriter Andrew Bannerman shifted and intercut scenes and in general translated the play into the all-encompassing language of film. In this program, members of the cast and crew use snippets of the screenplay to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North created the very genre of film documentary, with its documentation of Nanook the Inuit and the Eskimo traditions which were even then being threatened by the influences of whites. This program revisits the site of Flaherty's filming, and learns that he staged much of what he filmed, sired children to whose future he paid no heed, and is himself now part of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program studies the art that underlies the craft of filmmaking-a painstaking process that culminates in the take, that shared moment of concentration when everything comes together. Twelfth Night director Tim Supple and his first assistant director, production designer, director of photography, costume designer, stunt coordinator, and others offer their insights into set design, the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Beginning with the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927, this program provides a detailed look inside that most distinctly American of film traditions, the musical comedy. Interviews with dancer Cyd Charisse, famous for her starring roles in MGM musicals, and Hermes Pan, renowned choreographer and collaborator with Fred Astaire, help to illuminate the advent and evolution of the genre. Excerpts...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Effortlessly making the leap from stage to cinema, the plays of William Shakespeare have enjoyed decades of popularity in theaters on both sides of the Atlantic. This program combines clips from significant movie productions with an eclectic group of interviews to demonstrate the Bard's uncanny ability to fire the modern imagination-especially through the medium of film. Excerpts from Julie...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Computers are changing everything, including filmmaking. This program illustrates the digital postproduction process through numerous editing examples taken from Twelfth Night. Key crew members-a film editor, sound designer, sound recording engineer, digital effects artist, and others-share their expertise with setting the film's pace and rhythm, constructing sequences with different types of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: There's a fine art to selling earlobe lifts, inflatable massage boots, and mini-staircases for arthritic dogs. This ABC News program enters the strange world of A. J. Kubani and his New Jersey-based company, Telebrands-a purveyor of quirky household products showcased in late-night TV infomercials. In a one-on-one interview, Kubani discusses his main strategy: identifying a mundane, irksome...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: The more digital technology becomes inseparable from our daily lives, the more chances corporate and political media have to manipulate young people-unless students are taught how to dissect and defend against that manipulation. This program helps educators instill media literacy through an exploration of its basic concepts as well as examples drawn from film and television. Defining media...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: While the earliest motion pictures were admired simply for their novelty, viewers soon demanded more than raw footage of trains, sneezes, and other random subjects. This program describes the discovery of sex as a surefire cinematic attraction and the outrages it provoked among religious and civic authorities during Hollywood's formative years. Documenting the rise of William Hays as the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Soviet film studios worked hard to portray their government's system as idyllic and forward-looking. This program showcases animated films designed to promote that utopian vision. Soviet Toys, the earliest known example of Soviet animation, condemns Lenin's New Economic Policy; The Victorious Destination celebrates the achievements of Stalin's first five-year plan; Samoyed Boy praises the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: What is it like to work in one of the world's most exciting communications industries? Going behind the scenes on the set of the TV show Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, this program provides an inside look at careers in television and film. Interviews with industry professionals provide a clear picture of the training, duties, and job opportunities offered by the positions of producer, assistant...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Fascinated with comic books as a boy, Chris Columbus set his sights on working for Marvel or DC-until he realized that making movies provided the same thrill, only more so. This program allows viewers to sit down with the director and hear his recollections of breaking into Hollywood, making hit films, and working with high-caliber talent. Columbus talks about his early screenwriting efforts...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010