Russell Brand talks to Dawn French about comedy, revealing a peculiar and compelling intelligence apparently gleaned from TV and substance abuse. Part 1, 2, 3, 4 [YT]
posted by mhjb on Nov 5, 2009 - 14 comments

Inside Chernobyl Sarcophagus (1996). Deep inside the sarcophagus, a remarkable group of Soviet physicists is at work in levels of radiation that would be considered almost suicidal in the West. [more inside]
posted by Monsters on Oct 4, 2009 - 42 comments

'This is the story of how Factory pioneered Briton's independent pop culture, imagined a new Manchester, and blew a shedload of money:

Factory - Manchester from Joy Division to Happy Mondays'
posted by Item on Aug 1, 2009 - 33 comments

A bad day in the news gallery? Talkback recording of everything going wrong during The One O'Clock News from the BBC in 1986: Part One, Part Two, Part Three. Unless of course, this was a typical day ... "I haven't got any scripts Mike! How am I supposed to run a show?" "Animate quantel or whatever you want to do..." [via]
posted by feelinglistless on Jun 9, 2009 - 12 comments

Australia song - Adam Buxton of the Adam and Joe show gives musical tribute to the epically long Baz Luhrmann movie. [more inside]
posted by Artw on Jan 25, 2009 - 20 comments

Unscrambling an army of colours, reports The Guardian on the BBC's forthcoming screening of a colour-restored episode of the WWII sitcom Dad's Army. Not seen for 40 years and lost in its original PAL video colour format, it existed only as an archive on 16mm b&w film. However, the Colour Recovery Working Group found a way to recover the colour information from "chroma dots": pattern artefacts on the b&w representing unfiltered colour signal. Techie details here and here.
posted by raygirvan on Dec 11, 2008 - 7 comments

Architectural critic and writer Reyner Banham loved Los Angeles. (Last link is a BBC documentary, circa 1972, 52 minutes -- NSFW at 47 minute mark) [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster on Dec 1, 2008 - 2 comments

The Black and White Minstrel Show was a (very cheesy) British variety series that ran Saturday nights on the BBC for twenty years. Hard to believe that it was still on the air as late as 1978. A live show, "Memories of the Minstrels ," toured the UK to packed houses in 2004 and 2005. The show was performed white-faced and featured the stars, medley's and costumes from the original TV series. Previously. [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster on Jun 4, 2008 - 43 comments

The very angry caterpillar is a film made by the previously discussed Lichtfaktor for UK children's television programme Blue Peter. It stitches together light paintings using stop-motion (frame-by-frame) techniques.
posted by nthdegx on May 15, 2008 - 1 comment

Carlos Castaneda And The Shaman. A BBC documentary on the anthropologist, best-selling author, con-artist, drug guru and cult leader: Carlos Castaneda. (google video, 1 hour)
posted by empath on Apr 12, 2008 - 59 comments

BBC launch Flash version of iPlayer The BBC have developed iPlayer as a vehicle for online distribution of its programs. Originally this involved downloading a stand-alone application for windows users only. This application has had a troubled beta launch and has drawn criticism from Linux and Mac users who were unsupported. The Flash version is an attempt to placate these users (though I believe you have to be in the UK)
posted by rongorongo on Dec 14, 2007 - 33 comments

Have a lazy sunday ahead of you? Feed your head with a few hundred downloadable and streamable BBC Documentaries, uploaded by a single usenet user. I've only watched the majestic and sometimes depressing The Planets and can't wait to go watch more.
posted by empath on Jul 1, 2007 - 22 comments

An Islamic History of Europe: (90 minute BBC documentary on Google video.) Rageh Omaar uncovers the hidden story of Europe's Islamic past and looks back to a golden age when European civilisation was enriched by Islamic learning. When the Moors Ruled in Europe:(102 minute BBC documentary on Google video.) A look at the Islamic past of Spain and the influence it has on the present.
posted by Burhanistan on Mar 3, 2007 - 15 comments

Watch BBC's documentary: Iran, the least understood country (Google video | Torrent) Rageh Omaar discovers that Iran is a country that bans women from riding motorcycles but where 60 per cent of the student population is female. There are stories of taxi drivers, wrestlers, business women, people working with drug addicts and the country's leading pop star and his manager - the 'Simon Cowell' of Iran. Read his article in the Sunday Times.
posted by hoder on Feb 19, 2007 - 30 comments

London to Brighton in Two Minutes (2006) [HI Apple Quicktime, LO Adobe Flash] preceeded by London to Brighton in Three-and-a-Half Minutes (1983) [RealMedia, context] preceeded by London to Brighton in Four Minutes (1953) [RealMedia, context]
posted by riotgrrl69 on Oct 1, 2006 - 21 comments

Dan Glickman, president of the MPAA, and John Perry Barlow, Greatful Dead lyricist and co-founder of the EFF, debate movie piracy in this interview (RealVideo) on the BBC's "Click".
posted by Mwongozi on Aug 20, 2006 - 17 comments

Public Information films have a special place in British TV history as they earnestly try to educate the public about how to cross the road safely or survive a nuclear bomb. Over the past few weeks, the BBC has been compiling some of the classics and making them available online (with the sad exception of Reginald Molehusband). Some of the best videos, however, have been made by the public in the traditional style - check out the brilliant special effects of Driving Backwards is Dangerous, the bizarre Pylon Peril, and the topical Stop Look Zombies.
posted by adrianhon on Mar 3, 2006 - 12 comments

Mating Leopard Slugs entwine - one of the untold wonders of the animal kingdom captured on video.... The BBC gets up close and personal with Life in the Undergrowth in their new wildlife documentary. A must see for any animal, insect or David Attenborough fan... (If the main vid link doesn't work for you try it from here - realplayer needed)
posted by 0bvious on Nov 23, 2005 - 32 comments

The riots in Paris have becomes such a popular topic for bloggers that even the BBC have noticed, even going as far to produce a TV news package (H.264 video, AAC audio, in MP4 container) about blogging.
posted by Mwongozi on Nov 14, 2005 - 24 comments

Highlight of the election coverage: George Galloway is the leader of Respect and won a historic and unexpected victory against the Blairite Oona King, on an anti-war ticket. He was then interviewed by Jeremy Paxman, an increasingly controversial interviewer well known for asking questions absurd numbers of times until they get answered - a technique which arguably backfires here. You might want to watch Galloway's acceptance speech first. [Windows Media. My two cents: Paxman is an egregious cock, more interested in getting his eternally righteous indignation across than any issues.]
posted by Pretty_Generic on May 6, 2005 - 75 comments

iPod World [QuickTime]
posted by Pretty_Generic on Jan 15, 2005 - 15 comments

"You love life and we love death" Al Qaeda video found in Spain claims responsibility for Madrid bombings. (NY Times on first link.) How can we tell if a group claiming a terror act actually were the bastards who did it?
posted by zaelic on Mar 14, 2004 - 17 comments

30,000 bombs were dropped on Iraq during the war. This is the story of just one. (RealVideo, 1h14m) While filming at a cross-roads in northern Iraq on April 6, a US Navy jet launched a bomb into a crowd of US and Kurdish soldiers who a BBC team were accompanying. In the seconds that followed, BBC cameraman Fred Scott began to film the disaster as it unfolded, footage which was heavily censored when shown on US news.
posted by Mwongozi on Nov 10, 2003 - 13 comments

What friendly fire looks like. BBC reporter John Simpson barely avoids death during a mistaken bombing run which killed at least 10 others in Iraq on Sunday. The BBC has the dramatic video.
posted by skallas on Apr 6, 2003 - 39 comments

BBC's Newsnight reports on a massive security oversight that makes unencrypted NATO video surveillance available on the Internet "Nato surveillance flights in the Balkans are beaming their pictures over an insecure satellite link - and anyone can tune in and watch their operations live," reports Mark Urban of BBC2's late-night news analysis show. Near-realtime footage of NATO surveillance operations in the Balkans is routinely gathered by spy planes and returned to base as an encrypted signal and then forwarded to intelligence facilities in the US. However, when they are beamed back to Europe for analysis at NATO headquarters, no encryption is used. It is possible to tune into and watch these live video feeds (complete with map references and information about the type of aircraft in use) and so, in theory, an unfriendly agency could use the pictures to see what troops are up to and who they are watching. How long before this loophole is acknowledged and closed? Or should all surveillance data be made ever more available to whoever wants it?
posted by hmgovt on Jun 12, 2002 - 13 comments