Summary: Versailles, 1919: French banker Albert Kahn and his camera team are among the few photographers allowed inside the Hall of Mirrors for the treaty signing-an example of Kahn's uncanny talent for documenting change. This program focuses on Kahn's pictorial record of the war's aftermath and the challenges of securing a true peace across Europe. Zeppelin-borne aerial footage conveys the scope of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: Until the 17th century, the building blocks of the natural world were a mystery. Of elements there were believed to be four - air, earth, fire, and water - and the science of chemistry had yet to be born. This program identifies some of the first chemical elements to be discovered by spotlighting the work of Hennig Brandt, Robert Boyle, Henry Cavendish, Joseph Priestly, Antoine Lavoisier, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: Foreign Correspondent goes inside "Gitmo" - Guantanamo Bay - in Cuba to investigate why this notorious prison remains open and who remains inside. Why won't officials open up Camp 7 which holds the most "high value" prisoners, some of whom are accused of being conspirators in the 9/11 attacks? A special report by U.S Correspondent Lisa Millar, who returns to Gitmo 12 years after her first visit.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2014
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Summary: Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says our beliefs about what will make us happy are often wrong - a premise he supports with intriguing research and explains in his lucid, approachable book Stumbling on Happiness. In this TEDTalk, Gilbert pursues that idea through a discussion that touches upon brain architecture, experience simulation, impact bias, our "psychological immune system," synthetic...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Imagine a summer that would never end; imagine a boy who would never group up; imagine a small town, the kind you just don’t find anymore… Enter a mysterious stranger. A man who calls himself Charles Dickens (Fred Gwynne), a writer by trade and a spinner of stories, whirls through town, and somewhere in the wide-eyed imagination of a 12-year-old boy and the loving eyes of a lady who would...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 1981
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Summary: Are the results of scientific experiments affected by the desired outcome of the researcher conducting the trials? In this TEDTalk, psychologist Dan Ariely tells two personal stories that explore a subtle and perhaps subconscious bias that can lead to a scientific conflict of interest. "The most difficult thing," Ariely says, "is to recognize that sometimes we, too, are blinded by our own...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: After the Chinese Nationalist Government fled to Taiwan, Soong Mei-ling remained in the public eye as the distant and mysterious "Madame Chiang." She continued the role she had played during her years in mainland China, remaining prominent in foreign affairs and devoted to her work with women and charitable causes. This program examines the second half of Madame Chiang's life: her...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Born into a prominent family in China, Soong Mei-ling was nonetheless thoroughly Western in thought and philosophy, having studied in America-one of the first Chinese women to do so. After marrying Chiang Kai-shek, the couple led a China embroiled in years of war and political intrigue. During World War II, she became the first Chinese national ever to address a joint session of the U.S....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: From the day that 14-year-old Ansel Adams first saw the transcendent beauty of the Yosemite Valley, his life was, in his words, "colored and modulated by the great earth-gesture of the Sierra.” Few American photographers have reached a wider audience than Adams, and none has had more impact on how Americans grasp the majesty of their continent. Ansel Adams, from the PBS American Experience...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2002
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Summary: Beginning in 1935, a group of New Deal-sponsored photographers roamed the American landscape, capturing the human face of the Great Depression. This film tells the story of the mammoth project, supervised by Roy Stryker of the Farm Security Administration and later made part of the Office of War Information. Viewers will encounter the poignant, iconic images and personal challenges of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: In photography, you have to keep in the same line of sight your head, your eye, and your heart. After a lifetime of taking pictures of others, in 1994 Henri Cartier-Bresson finally agreed to step from behind the lens to be filmed. This landmark documentary about one of the 20th century's finest photographers brings viewers face-to-face with both the artist and the man as he touches upon topics...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Following the fast-paced world of Hollywood might seem like a dream job, but for Max Vadukul, photography doesn't end there. He also holds a top spot at the New Yorker and takes regular assignments from Conde Nast, GQ, and Mademoiselle, among others. This program evokes the honesty, vitality, and worldliness present in Vadukul's work, whether he's photographing a politician, movie star, or...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Since the Civil War, portrait and snapshot photography have provided a visual history of life-and transformed society. This program explores how professional and amateur photographers capture the essence of people while considering the intensely personal nature of portraits and snapshots, their use as means of self-exploration and cultural narrative, and concerns involving their commodification...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: As World War I engulfed his country, Albert Kahn struck a deal with the French army: his team of photographers would capture images and footage that helped the war effort in exchange for direct access to militarized zones. A century later, this program presents the results-revealing the life and environment of the French soldier as recorded in Kahn's Archive of the Planet. The visual details of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Roy E. Stryker headed the Historical Division of the Farm Security Administration from 1935 to 1943. This program tells the story of how Stryker, a low-level federal bureaucrat with integrity and vision, managed a massive New Deal project to document the Great Depression. These photos-nearly 200,000 by both established and aspiring photographers, including Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, Arthur...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: For years, photographer Steve McCurry has traveled to war zones and captured the human face of conflict. He is perhaps best known for his striking photographs in National Geographic, especially the haunting image of a young Afghan refugee in a red shawl. Yet, he says, his previous experiences have no parallel in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, which he witnessed and photographed just...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: From 1914 through much of the 1920s, Albert Kahn's photographic team was hard at work in Asia, amassing culturally and historically vital images for the Archive of the Planet. This program recounts journeys through Indochina and greater Asia in which the Kahn team opened up a world most Europeans had never dreamed of. Viewers discover Vietnam through its beggars, Tet celebrants, and elegantly...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: The career of one of Britain's greatest painters tells us as much about his skill with a camera as his facility with a brush. In this program, David Hockney invites viewers on a journey of discovery that traces the evolution of his photographic work-from his initial experiments in the 1970s through the high point of his photo collage period, exemplified in Nude, featuring Theresa Russell, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: The stark, deceptively simple photographs of Walker Evans have become a part of America's collective memory, forever capturing the places and faces of times long gone. In this program, NewsHour correspondent Ray Suarez outlines Evans' life while talking with Jeff Rosenheim, curator of photography at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Evans' close friend William Christenberry, about the late...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Renowned artist Jerry Uelsmann is a master of photographic manipulation and montage techniques, which he uses to communicate a surreal vision-intriguing, disturbing-that is distinctly his own. In this program filmed by triple-Emmy Award-winning director Daniel Reeves, Uelsmann discusses the sources, dynamics, and nuances of his bold works of art. A trip into the fascinating alchemical world of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: This program addresses the emotionally manipulative power of photography by illustrating how commercial advertising has created an obsession with youth and physical perfection and can exploit viewers' fascinations with celebrity, sexuality, and violence. The video also demonstrates how photogenic people who adroitly use the visual media have come to dominate the political scene. Commentary is...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: How do photographic images evoke meaning and emotion? To understand that, viewers first need to understand how the eyes and brain process input from the visual world. After an overview of the biomechanics of vision, this program explains how proximity, similarity, and continuity affect perception; what light is and how lighting types and angles alter an image; and how color theory operates....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: As photo director for National Geographic, David Griffin has helped capture and publish some of the most compelling images ever seen, and he knows full well the power of the camera - its ability to not only render the truth but connect us to our world. In this TEDTalk, filled with glorious illustrations, Griffin examines how a good photojournalist tells stories, confronts issues, and helps...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: A peace-loving man with a decidedly global perspective, Albert Kahn spent most of his life and wealth trying to expand Western understanding of other cultures-largely through film and photography. This program delves into Kahn's origins and formative years and the launch of his Archive of the Planet project. Topics include Kahn's Jewish ancestry and Alsacian upbringing; his early success in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009