Beautiful Planet - free to use space images from Nasa

Whilst making 'How Earth Made Us' I needed to locate a wide range of satellite imagery. Fortunately all the images produced by Nasa are in the public domain and are free to use. They're also quick to access if you know where to look...

Blue Marble

If you want to add some global sparkle to your film then your first stop might be Blue Marble from Nasa. This is an archive of free-to-use extremely high resolution images of the Earth that most TV graphics companies use to generate the 'globes' used in TV programmes.

To view the full sized image of Blue Marble you'd need a monitor as big as your house (1 thousand million mpixels) so I think the quality is high enough for most TV purposes! However, you'll need some real hardware fire-power and photoshop 8 to even stand a chance of opening it. At full resolution you can zoom fairly well into specific regions and countries.

If you have a simple desktop then a safer bet might be to use the lower resolution versions (still 2km and 8km pixels). This resolution would still be good enough for creating wide 'locators' such as entire continents or countries but it will not allow you to zoom in closer.

You can check the resolution at this link (cloudless) and also here (including atmosphere/clouds).

Download the KML file to allow you to view this as a live layer of satellite imagery on Google Earth.

ESDI

Another source for specific regions is the Earth Science data interface. if you have very specific requests then it might be worth contacting the archive staff as they are very helpful.

 The Blue Marble - used by most graphics companies to generate earth shots (Nasa)

Images of natural phenomenon

Modis

The 'Rapid response system' is used to view near-real time satellite imagery which is useful for navigating and downloading more localised and regional images, as well as images of natural phenomenon such as hurricanes, plankton blooms and dust clouds. You can search the Modis archives here.

Visible Earth

Similar to the Modis archive Visible Earth is a catalogue of NASA images and animations.

 Low pressure weather system showing the spin of the coriolis effect (Nasa)

 Plankton Bloom - coast of Patagonia (Nasa)

 Plankton Bloom in the Barents sea (Nasa)

Mount St Helens (Nasa)

 Himalayas (Nasa)

 Iceland (Nasa)

Photographs taken by astronauts

JSC Digital Image Collection has more than 9000 photos spanning the American space program. Although usually much lower resolution that the satellite imagery some of the photographs taken by astronauts can still be useful in creating aerial views of the planet.

I used this image of the Jet Stream in 'How Earth Made Us'. To turn it from a still image into a moving jet stream all I needed was a subtle bit of animation.

Jet Stream (Nasa)

Aurora borealis (Nasa)

Cleveland Volcano, Aleutian Islands (Nasa)

Bringing it to life

All it takes is a little 2D animation to bring some of these images alive, e.g. subtle swirls in a hurricane or plankton bloom. These effects can even be achieved in a simple editing package like final cut pro.

Hurricane Katrina from Visible Earth (Nasa)

Mixing aerials & satellite imagery

Watch the super pull-out from our presenter in the sequence below. To achieve this we used Nasa & EDSI satellite imagery and seamlessly mixed through from heli-gimble aerials.

Timelapse View from Space

Using free images you can create stunning sequences such as this one called a 'Time lapse view from space'. This was created using photographs taken by the crew of expeditions 28 and 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Chris Packham's guide to making wildlife films

Chris Packham: Making your own wildlife films

Here's some tips to wildlife filmmaking from Chris Packham. I've posted a few quotes below that stick out to me but for the full article visit the Warehouse Express website. Chris goes into more detail about scripting, shot sizes and story. I'd also recommend reading 'Go Wild with your camcorder' by Piers Warren of WildEye, it's a bit dated but still full of useful advice, tips and tricks.

"Do it yourself. D.I.Y. carpentry, plumbing, gardening, schooling, aircraft building and archaeology. We can and do them ourselves. It’s an industry, a phenomenon, a state of mind and an attitude which encourages us to take things quite literally into our own hands. But if we can be empowered to it least attempt stonemasonry, bagpipe playing and space rocket design why don’t we get to grips with do it yourself wildlife film-making?"

Preparation

"If you want to save a lot of time, a tremendous amount of effort and frustration then think very hard about realistic ideas before you even pick up the camera and start to shoot any sequences."

"When it comes to preparing a project as ambitious as a wildlife film, research and not expertise is the key element to success."   

Know your subject

"My advice would be to choose a subject which is eminently accessible to you. Of course ‘The Wild Dogs of the Kruger Park’ are very sexy indeed but not generally as available to us all as the ‘The Wild Voles of Marshy Vale‘... Pick a topic where you can miss things or make mistakes and immediately return to put them right, where your part-time hours mean you can chip away at that project until it comes together, a topic which you can financially afford to complete one day."

"... because of the big budget series on the BBC, Discovery and National Geographic, and those on Channel 4 and five for which programmes are made over years, all over the world by large teams of people, it is often presumed that the far more accessible wildlife in your garden, park or county could never compete - that its just not interesting or exotic enough. What rubbish! The absolute essential to good television is viewer involvement, usually through a mix of entertainment and education, and at its absolute core is a good story. We like stories , pure and simple , and there are stories unfolding beneath logs under my shed that are better than some of those I have seen screened from the Serengeti!"

Equipment

"As long as you have kit which is in anyway respectable you can get the results. If your films are good then no-one will be nit-picking over the pixels. A genius could make Gone With The Wind on a mobile phone so there is no reason why you can’t make 101 Badgers, Apocalypse Newt or One Flew over the Dunnocks Nest on a handy cam." 

Read Chris Packham's guide to make your own wildlife films on the Warehouse Express website. 

#W00T Panning timelapse head & egg timer! Nom nom nom... @camarush

#W00T. Another cool gadget for my ever expanding camera bag. The Camalapse - it's not just a cheap and cheerful panning timelapse head but it's also a nifty little egg timer too. Nom, nom, nom...

It's size means that it has limited use for broadcast TV unless you're using a mini-camera like the GoProHD (which just about squeezes through into the list of cameras that we can, and can not, use depending on the situation). For me, it's good fun and another way to play with my iPhone camera.

Gob-smacking Panoramic 360 Video capture with your iPhone

You may use one of the many iphone panoramic apps that almost seamlessly stitch together multiple photographs to reveal a spectacular vista. Have you ever thought how cool it would be to bring these panoramas alive with video? Well, I've just discovered something that will do just that. It's called 'Dot', a little lens attachment for the iphone 4 that will let you capture panoramas in a whole new dimension - 'immersive, fully navigable, panoramic video in real time' i.e. gob-smackingly awesome 360 degree video. Just hold your iphone up, press record and hey presto! It's almost like the dodecacam. Thankfully, Dot is a minute fraction of the cost, and it fits in your pocket.

Imagine using one of these in the middle of a flock of feeding birds, or carefully placed (with some durable armour) amongst a herd of migrating wildebeest?  Look at what was achieved with the Dodecacam during the BBC oceans series. Dot would be so much more portable and easier to use. I can't wait.

You can be first in line to receive one by 'pledging' through the Kickstarter site to assist them with gaining the funds to see Dot through to production.

Incredible floaty-glidey Steadicam shot at Eurovision

This is a phenomenal shot, possibly wasted on Eurovision, but quite remarkable when you see how it was done.

This shot was created using a steadicam. This is a stabilizing camera mount, which mechanically isolates the operator's movement from the camera, allowing a very smooth shot even when the operator is moving quickly over an uneven surface. In other words, it helps create an elegant floaty-glidey feel.

You can now get a steadicam for the iPhone... I'm drooling!

Filming at night - camerawoman, Justine Evans

Camerawoman Justine Evans talks about the challenges of filming wildlife at night.

Night time filming is a relatively unexplored area of wildlife documentary making. As Justine tells us, until recently the night-time filming of animals had to be carried out using lights and loud generators, which disturbs the animals' usual behaviour patterns. Now image intensifying cameras, thermal cameras, and infra red cameras can be used to film without having to put a spotlight on the wildlife.

Justine talks about the learning curve the Planet Earth team experienced when trying to film lions hunting elephants at night. After several attempts and a considerable amount of patience, the crew managed to film a dramatic sequence for the multi-award winning series.

- BBC College of Journalism 

Filming in the Rainforest - camerawoman, Justine Evans

Specialist camerawoman Justine Evans talks about the challenges of filming in the rainforest

 

Working at heights involves intense preparation and meticulous attention to safety concerns, but can produce spectacular results. Justine Evans and the Expedition Borneo team went deep into the heart of the rainforest to find the perfect vantage point from which to film life in the canopy. After scouting for the tallest trees Justine safely climbed to her view point 50-60 metres up in the treetops. She sat for hours on end on a cramped perch and eventually was able to film unique footage of gibbons frolicking in the branches.

- BBC College of Journalism

Frozen Heist - a story told in one single gobsmacking tracking shot

If you're a fan of special effects then watch 'Philip's Carousel' aka 'Frozen Heist'. This is an extraordinary use of a motion controlled tracking system to tell a story in a single, action-packed, gobsmacking, continuous shot. Then watch the 'making-off' to see the wonderful simplicity and genius behind it.

Produced to promote Philips new range of TVs. Watch other films here.

Brian Cox & Dara O Briain are Starstruck: Starlight Camera debuts on Stargazing Live

BBC Two, 3rd, 4th & 5th January, 2011

Professor Brian Cox and Dara O Briain bring the wonders of the night sky to BBC2. Stargazing LIVE reveals stunning images from Earth’s most powerful telescopes - and beyond - during three nights of extraordinary astronomical events. Brian will act as guide, using his infectious enthusiasm for science and his trademark demonstrations to take Dara and the audience on a whistle stop tour of our galaxy, teaching them the basics of how to identify, image and photograph the wonders they see above them.

Mark Thompson, the resident astronomer on the The One Show will join Brian and Dara at Jodrell Bank, whilst Bang Goes The Theory’s Liz Bonnin will report live every day from Hawaii. Together the team will showcase the three biggest astronomical events of the year as Jupiter aligns with Uranus, the sun is partially eclipsed by the moon and meteors rain down across the country.

Prof Brian Cox & Dara O Briain (Photo: BBC)

HD Filming in Lowlight, Moonlight & Starlight

If you're a Wildlife filmmaker you may also be interested to know that Stargazing Live is also the debut of the Lunax Starlight HD Camera. This revolutionary piece of kit has been developed in Bristol by kit design company, TShed and award-winning wildlife film-makers Justine Evans, Ted Giffords & Nick Turner. Not only is the picture quality superb, the kit is so easy to use it is bringing no/low light shooting within every film-maker's reach.

Read more about the Starlight camera
"Inspired by Martin Dohrn's innovative use of image intensifying technology our High Definition image intensifying camera is the first starlight camera in the world to feature both HD resolution and an HD-SDI output in one package. Footage in moonlight and starlight can now be captured at unsurpassed resolution on the move thanks to our camera operator friendly design..."

Prof Brian Cox RTS Lecture: The best TV is relevant, educational, powerful & moving

If you work in TV then this is particularly worth watching...

Professor Brian Cox (of Wonders of the Solar System fame) uses this year's RTS Lecture to grapple with the main challenges in bringing science to television. He tackles the risks in simplifying science for a television audience and the importance of making science on television intellectually and emotionally engaging. He also has an interesting discussion about the perils of abandoning fact in the name of balance.

He concludes that the best TV is  relevant, educational, powerful and profoundly moving.

How do we simplify without patronising?



Is there a place on TV for heavy-weight, pure science documentaries?

 

Watch more clips here

TV Behind the Scenes: An executive producer has a viewing with the producer

This isn't Natural History but if you work in TV you'll probably have had similar things happen to you!
 

Faking it? Wildlife filmmaker Chris Palmer publishes 'Shooting in the Wild' to reveal all

The following is an edited excerpt from an article by Daniel de Vise published in the Washington Post, Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Read the full article here

Environmental Film Maker, Chris Palmer 63, has written a confessional for an entire industry. "Shooting in the Wild," published this year, exposes the unpleasant secrets of environmental filmmaking: manufactured sounds, staged fights, wild animals that aren't quite wild filmed in nature that isn't entirely natural. Nature documentaries "carry the promise of authenticity." Nature filmmakers profess to present animal life as it is lived, untouched by mankind. Yet human fingerprints are everywhere.

Nature is frequently boring. Wild animals prefer not to be seen

Palmer's book underscores the fundamental challenge of wildlife filmmaking: Nature is frequently boring. Wild animals prefer not to be seen."If you sit in the wild and watch wildlife, nothing happens for a very long time," said Maggie Burnette Stogner, an environmental filmmaker who works with Palmer on the American University faculty. "That's mostly what happens in wildlife."

Nature footage is hard-earned. A crew might spend six weeks in discomfort and tedium for a few moments of dramatic cinema. Certain shots -- animal births, or predators seizing prey -- are difficult to capture by chance. So some filmmakers set them up.

The lemmings that plunge to their deaths in the 1958 Disney documentary "White Wilderness" were hurled ingloriously to their doom by members of the crew, as a Canadian documentary revealed. Palmer writes that Marlin Perkins, host of television's "Wild Kingdom," was known to bait animals into combat and to film captive beasts deposited into the wild, and that the avian stars of the 2001 film "Winged Migration" were trained to fly around cameras.

"Sanctimonious smugness"

Erik Nelson, a prolific environmental filmmaker in Los Angeles, finds "a sort of sanctimonious smugness to his book that sets my teeth on edge." Nelson is a glancing target in Palmer's book; the author portrays Nelson's eight-part television series "The Grizzly Man Diaries" as "sensational" and lambastes the animal-attack genre that Nelson helped to create. Nelson, in turn, asserts that Palmer has seldom actually shot a nature film -- most of Palmer's credits have come in the comparatively detached role of executive producer. He terms Palmer's ethics crusade "a giant nothingburger of an issue." (Palmer says he has been "deeply involved" in all of his films.)

"If there is an ethical beacon that guides the wildlife channels, it is the quest for realism."

Programmers say they condone the use of captive animals as stand-ins for wildlife, and contrived meetings between species, as long as all involved are acting naturally and the viewer is seeing things that might actually happen in nature

Palmer disapproves. In his book, he proposes that every nature film might open with a disclaimer on the screen that says something like, "All the scenes in this film are real and not staged," or, more probably, "Some of the scenes depicted in this film were shot with tame, captive animals." Not likely, say industry colleagues. Who wants to watch a tame nature film?

Read the full article from the Washington Post here

Open Music Archive - Music in the Public Domain

Open Music Archive is a collaborative project to source, digitise and distribute out-of-copyright sound recordings. The archive is open for anyone to use and contribute to. A useful resource if you are looking for public domain music for your films. Public Domain means that all intellectual property rights have expired and that the work may be used by anyone for any purpose.

David Attenborough: Bristol and Wildlife TV - more than an accident of History.

From: Made in the UK online essays at the BBC
www.bbc.co.uk/madeintheuk

(Image from Aerial online)

THE NATURAL history unit in Bristol is a rare constant in an evolving broadcast world. Whereas other specialist centres of excellence have come and gone, the NHU has always been there, or so it seems. What happy combination of circumstances and talents made Bristol the ideal habitat for the unit, enabling it to grow into the most enduringly successful out-of- London production department in the history of the BBC?

You might argue that there has always been a strong interest in natural history in the West Country, and a long tradition there of self-educated, amateur naturalists. But the truth is that the NHU would not exist in Bristol, had it not been for the enthusiasm and passion of one man, and his belief in the public service ideals of the BBC. Desmond Hawkins was not himself a trained naturalist, nor a West Countryman. He moved as a radio producer to the BBC in Bristol after WW2 and started natural history production in Bristol with radio programmes such as The Naturalist and Birds In Britain, long before the arrival of television in the area. As a boy, I listened to those programmes, and I dare say my own passion was stoked by them.

Desmond Hawkins interviewing Sir Peter Scott

(Image from WildFilmHistory)

Global reputation In 1952 I began my career with the BBC in London, at the tv talks department in Alexandra Palace. I worked on anything from political broadcasts to archaeological quizzes. But before long I launched Zoo Quest, a series which took me all over the world and helped to determine the future course of my life. Meanwhile, in Bristol, Desmond Hawkins had decided that as soon as it was physically possible to make television programmes in the West Country, his team of natural history specialists would show these upstarts in London how it was really done. Hardly was Zoo Quest on the air in 1954 than Desmond had decided to launch his own series Look, with Peter Scott, whose bird sanctuary at Slimbridge was only 20 miles away. The fact that there was still no actual tv studio in the city, or for that matter any transmitter or tv sets in the region, did not deter him. He brought in an outside broadcast unit, ran cables and cameras into the large radio studio and piped the programme by landline up to London. So natural history tv programmes were being made in Bristol even before anyone in the region could watch them. Enthusiasm is infectious, and Desmond gathered about him a core of people whose passion for natural history equalled his own, so that by 1957 it was officially recognised as a production specialism in Bristol, and he set up the NHU proper there.

When I became controller of BBC Two in 1965, I naturally wanted to indulge my own passion for natural history. When BBC launched colour tv in Britain, I could think of no subject better suited to showing off the new technology. I commissioned from the NHU The World About Us, initially a series of 26x50 minute programmes that turned into a long-running strand, and helped to establish a global reputation for the unit. Bristol also produced Life, a magazine programme that covered natural history news stories. Productions like these, building on the foundation of its existing BBC One output, secured the future of the unit and bound natural history production ever more closely with its Bristol roots.

David Attenborough outside a cave entrance during filming of Life on Earth

(Image from WildFilmHistory)

At BBC Two, I also launched a style of documentary which would now be described as the ‘landmark’ series, taking a big subject and devoting 13 onehour programmes to it. The first of these was Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation, followed by Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man. An obvious contender for the same treatment had to be the history of all life on earth, but that was a subject I hankered after tackling myself. As soon as I resigned from my management job, I suggested the idea to one of the most experienced producers at the NHU, Chris Parsons, who would later himself head the unit. This was without doubt at the time the most ambitious series to be produced in Bristol. We started work on it in the mid-1970s, and the ground-breaking Life on Earth was transmitted in 1979 to huge audiences, selling around the globe so that eventually it was estimated that 500m people watched it. There is a great deal of trial and error in producing natural history programmes, and the people who make them have built up extraordinary levels of knowledge and expertise. Waiting patiently week after week in freezing temperatures for a snow leopard to creep across a mountainside, or understanding precisely when and how to film the annual hatch of turtles on a starlit beach, requires special skills. So too does the post- production of natural history series, and once a commissioning momentum was established, over the years the NHU in Bristol attracted many satellite businesses and freelancers. The city has accumulated a unique set of trades and talents.

Cultural identity At the same time the cultural life of Bristol has benefited from the existence of the NHU. The world’s first wildlife film festival, Wildscreen, was held in the city, attracting visitors from all over the world. The University of Bristol would probably tell you that its zoology department gains greatly from the fact that the best natural history television unit in the world is within walking distance, and a close and symbiotic relationship has sprung up between the two. Producers and academics drink in the same pubs and exchange ideas, and many a promising young graduate has found employment at BBC Bristol. It may have been historical accident that the NHU was founded in Bristol, rather than London, but instinct tells me that when Desmond Hawkins produced the first natural history radio programmes there in 1946, he already saw far further than the wildlife that was on his West Country doorstep. Natural history programme making has become as much a part of Bristol’s cultural identity as seafaring or the wine trade. The skills it takes to make such programmes are now woven into the fabric of the city, and long may it remain so.

Read David Attenborough’s full article and the other Made in the UK online essays at the BBC

www.bbc.co.uk/madeintheuk

10 steps to becoming a Covert Google Earth Surfer

If you are a Natural History film-maker than you will no doubt find Google Earth invaluable. Unfortunately some organizations seem to have put a block on this crucial piece of software - even years after it was first released! As a result they have limited, if not reduced, the 'productivity' of their staff. Here is a guide to Covert Google Earth surfing... use this at your own peril!

1. Visit the Google Earth website and download the 'Google Earth.exe' installation file. You'll need to save this to your computers non-networked drive it might be called the 'D' Drive.

2. The first step in covert Google Earth use is to rename the downloaded file 'Google Earth.exe' to 'decoy.exe'. High-tech I.T.bots sweep through your computer for anything named "Google Earth" and then deploy their digital missiles to obliterate them from your system.
So to avoid this and to prevent a .exe from being an ex .exe - rename 'Google Earth.exe' to 'Decoy.exe'

3. Next - the point of no return - launch the installation of Google Earth by double clicking on 'Decoy.exe'

4. Go to C/ Documents and Setting/ Your Username/ Application Data/ Google/ Google Earth/ and once again change the 'Google Earth.exe' in this folder to 'Decoy2'.

If you've gotton this far without being shot by the I.T.erminators then well done.

5. Under the cover of darkness, right click on 'Decoy2.exe" and select 'send to desktop (shortcut)'.

6. Go to desktop, and while simultaneously looking over your shoulder, right click on the shortcut of "Decoy2" and select properties.

7. In the window that pops up click on "change icon" - try to withhold your excitement - any hint of this may alert the I.T. Bots.

8. Another window will pop up. browse for another icon, or paste this: C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe into the browse box to give you access to a selection of carefully trained decept-icons.

9. Select an alternative icon from this platoon. My favourite decept-icon is the earth icon - very experienced in the field of covert Google Earth access.

10. You should now be ready for a life of secret Earth surfing.

The Earth is in your hands - enjoy, I hope it helps with planning your shoot.

- Matt the Mysterious

Photron SA-2, Phantom, Shimadzu & friends: The fastest cameras in the world

I was playing around with the new high speed Photron SA2 camera (left) at the weekend (the Photron SA-1 was used on Life in Cold Blood to film Chameleon tongues, and Planet Earth to film Great Whites hunting).

The image looked even brighter and sharper than the images I have seen from the Phantom camera (the BBC's high speed flavour of the month) but I could have just been dazzled by the pomp surrounding it.

One thing to note is that there is a 2-stop difference between this and the Phantom HD - so its much more light sensitive (but then I haven't mentioned the Phantom v640 yet). I have been informed that the SA2 has a viewfinder at last and can be run off V-lok batteries but you still need a laptop and a seperate recorder - so it' s still not really as practical for field use as the Phantoms or the smaller Memrecams.

Set-up of the SA-2 as used by cameraman Gavin Thurston to film bears last year.
Image Copyright: Gavin Thurston.

The Photron SA-2 can film at 2,000 fps at Full HD resolution (1,920 x 1080 pixels) while the equivalent camera from Phantom the Phantom v640 records over 2700fps at1920x1080 HD-resolution (The Phantom HD 'only' does 1000fps at 1920 × 1080 or 2K resolution).

You might also want to check out the really compact MotionPro Y5 and the MotionScope N5 9 by Lake image systems both capable of up to 1500 frames per second at a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, Memrecam GX-1 records 2000fps at 1280x1024.

The Fastest camera in the world

Now if you don't care whether its HD or not but you want to film really, really, fast then the fastest camera in the world is the Shimadzu. At a resolution of 312 x 260 it is capable at a pant-wettingly high speed of 1,000,000 fps.

Unfortunately the Shimadzu only records in black and white and so for the very best full colour and high speed/resolution combination you have to drop right down to 300,000 fps for the Photron Fastcam SA5 (256 x 54 pixels) the Phantom V640, mentioned earlier, also records at up to 300,000fps but at a tiny resolution of 128x8.

The Red Cam ups its game

Oh yes, and while I'm on one... if your a fan of the current 'RED One' camera which goes upto120fps at 2k then the first Red EPIC camera (actually Epic is a module which is the brain of the camera) will be released in the Autumn (the S35) and is capable of up to 250fps at 2k. But the big whopper - the Full Format 'Monstro EPIC' comes out this winter which will record at 350fps at 2k - not quite a million frames a second but quite a high speed for such a mega resolution.

If you have has any experience filming with high speed cameras we would love to hear about your experiences. Thanks Matt.

Networks of Nature - stories of natural history film-making from the BBC.

Networks of nature: stories of natural history film-making from the BBC.
A great read for anyone interested in the BBC Natural History Unit and a must for all aspiring BBC NHU researchers...

In May 1953 the first natural history television programme was broadcast from Bristol by naturalist Peter Scott and radio producer Desmond Hawkins. By 1997 the BBC's Natural History Unit has established a global reputation for wildlife films, providing a keystone of the BBC's public service broadcasting charter, playing an important strategic role in television scheduling and occupying a prominent position in a competitive world film market.

The BBC's blue-chip natural history programmes regularly bring images of wildlife from all over the globe to British audiences of over 10 million.

In her PhD thesis Gail Davies traces the changing world of the BBC natural history unit. Using archive material, interviews and through close observation of the film-makers at work she explores the ever changing relationships between broadcasting values and scientific and film-making practices.

This research puts the BBCs popular representations of wildlife within the context of post-war British attitudes to nature and explores the importance of technology, animals and public conceptions as additional factors influencing the relationships between nature and culture.

University College London PhD Eprints

SoundsSnap Sound Archive

Soundsnap

From BBC Click
If you are a music producer and are looking for some interesting new sounds to use in your work, then soundsnap.com will be a goldmine for you.

We love free stuff, especially if it helps us become a little more creative, and here you can download all sorts of sounds for use in music, video and audio productions.

It even has some funky sound effects for your website or presentation.

Once you have registered and confirmed your address, you can start downloading or uploading samples straight away.

Use the buttons on the opening page to jump to the categories. There are animal noises, comic sound effects and classic musical samples such as drum loops and much more.

These sounds are royalty free to use worldwide. But make sure you read the terms and conditions carefully before uploading anything to the site.

From BBC Click

Starting with North America Keith Scholey & Discovery to capture the world in HD

Discovery Channel signs deal with Wild Horizons and Keith Scholey to create the most ambitious documentary series to date starting with 'WILD PLANET: NORTH AMERICA'.

Using the full power of cutting-edge film technology, Discovery Channel is teaming with Wild Horizons, Ltd. and Keith Scholey, formerly head of the BBC's Natural History Unit, in a multiyear production deal to capture the world, continent by continent in high definition, as its never been seen before.

WILD PLANET: NORTH AMERICA (wt), begins filming in 2009, to kick off the project. This ambitious seven-part documentary takes an all-encompassing view of the North American continent from the arctic to Mexico and covers topics including mountains, forests, deserts, plains, coasts and rivers.

North America is one of the most captivating continents on the planet. Stretching from the polar ice caps to the subtropics, it contains diverse habitats and even more varied wildlife. Employing cutting-edge technology formerly reserved for blockbuster Hollywood films, Discovery and Wild Horizons will capture iconic landscapes and enable viewers to experience unforgettable locations for themselves. High-definition cameras will be hoisted to the tops of mammoth sequoias, the largest living things on earth, and lowered down into Carlsbad Cavern, one of the deepest caves on the planet. In addition, the use of high-speed cameras specially designed to move or fly with animals will enable the producers to capture animals in the most dramatic fashion, from leaping humpback whales to flying squirrels soaring through the forests at night.

"WILD PLANET: NORTH AMERICA will highlight the sweeping beauty and majesty of the continent and its rich diversity. Having Keith at the helm is guaranteed to deliver a series that will ignite our viewers' passion for the world around them." said John Ford, president and general manager of Discovery Channel.

Keith Scholey, director of Wild Horizons, Ltd. said "North America has everything; majestic scenery, spectacular wildlife and vast areas of pristine wilderness. Discovery has given us the resources to do this magnificent continent justice, showing it to the American people in the most spectacular fashion. It's a huge privilege to be making such an important series."

Interview with the directors of DisneyNature's Earth

Interview with Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield.