CuriosityStream – a place to find interesting documentaries

Byrichard

Yesterday I started exploring CuriosityStream, a video streaming website that makes finding and watching documentaries easy. You can have a trial run of seven days but after watching three documentaries since yesterday evening I am convinced that it is a place where I want to watch more content. 


I like documentaries that are well produced and enhance my understanding of topics. The documentaries I have watched are Dawn of the Oceans and the first episode of Quantum Physics yesterday. Today I watched Ships that Changed the World. 


For documentaries to be worthwhile they must inform and educate their audiences without sensationalism and breathless commentary. They must also provide information that is interesting and relevant. I also believe that to a certain degree they need to be neutral. With Netflix I feel that their documentaries are out to push an agenda, are not that well produced and slide towards low production values and partisanship. 


When documentaries are well produced they are like books. They enhance your understanding of a subject and by the end of the film or episode you come away having learned something.  



The categories so far are Science, History, Technology, Nature, Society, Lifestyle and 360 videos. In the 360 videos I noticed that there is the ZDF documentary about volcanoes. This was one of the most impressive and effective uses of 360 video I have seen. 


You can browse through these categories and find films on specific topics and watch them then and there or you can browse through and add these documentaries to a watch list. This is useful when watching series. 


A sample watchlist. 


When you find documentaries that are especially interesting you can share them straight from curiositystream to Facebook and Twitter. 



Curiositystream is quick to respond to tweets. If you have comments or feedback there is a high probability that they will be seen. 


https://twitter.com/CuriosityStream/status/1055459403002867712

Glacier Exit – A short documentary showing a glacier’s retreat
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Glacier Exit – A short documentary showing a glacier’s retreat

Byrichard

https://vimeo.com/198306286


Originally they meant to go out to have an adventure. They interviewed an individual about how the glacier’s rate of retreat has been increasing over the years. “I used to come here with a snow plow. Now I need a lawnmower”. 


Global warming is visible around the world. Rockfalls have made hiking dangerous. There have been rockfalls at “Les Cosmiques” as well as along one of the routes I walked last year near Zermatt. 


There are so many images of how glaciers used to look and how they look now. What was under hundreds of metres of ice is now supporting mature trees. 


In the documentary above I like the point where you see markers to see how far the glacier has retreated. It would have been better if they had marked the points with the years on a map, so that we could see how fast melt is increasing. 

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D-Day Film archives on Facebook

Byrichard

Yesterday D-Day Film Archives were shared on Facebook. These film archives were of landing crafts landing troops on the beaches, of battleships firing rocket salvos at the coast, of gliders being pulled by planes, of paratroopers getting and more.

Over the years films have been preserved by transferring the footage from one film stock to another and then transferred from film to tapes. The problem with film and tape is that they are stored in a physical location that only archivists have access to. This means that if we’re curious about seeing the footage, like the footage included in this post we would have to go to the film archive and ask for permission to see this footage. Within a few hours, days or weeks we might get an answer. We would have transport costs, access costs and more.

The advantage of digital video archives accessible online is that everything is accessible within a few seconds with the right keywords. This means that a child hearing about the Second World War for the first time can do a quick search and see this footage. History, rather than being words on a page, is brought to life. It stops being an abstract subject for the mind. In this footage, we see our grandparents and our nephews and nieces see their great-grandparents.

An effort, by the international community, should be made to preserve, digitise and then make available as much of this film material as possible. The technology exists today so that, at the very least, we can have digital backups of all of this material and in the best case scenario for this material to be available for future generations to watch and study.

I have already spent 15 months as a video archivist and media asset manager and I would like to continue this line of work. I find it to be a fascinating and interesting way to learn about history. It inspires to find books that contextualise the material that I am seeing on screen. This material makes us more informed citizens of the society in which we live.

 

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Dirty Gold War screening at the Graduate Institute.

Byrichard

I went to watch Dirty Gold War at the Graduate Institute at lunch time today. The film is interesting because it makes you think about the environmental impact of gold mining. We’re familiar with the stories of gold mines in South Africa. We’re familiar with the stories of the gold rush. We don’t often think of the environmental impact of Gold mining in rain forests in Latin America. This documentary introduces the topic well.

It brings our attention to the fact that when people buy luxury products like gold watches, bracelets and other objects they are buying objects that have no environmental or ethical credentials. It leads us to question when the luxury industries will be accountable to such considerations.

Mobile Phones, laptops, televisions and other devices all contain traces of gold. If that gold is sourced from environmentally unfriendly sources then we are contributing to the destruction of the rainforests and the poisoning of ecosystems. Fairphone and other companies with such goals benefit from such documentaries because we are shown why their goals are so important. It contextualises their mission and their reason for being. It also helps to put pressure on all electronics manufacturers to do more to reduce their impact on the environment.

Dirty Gold is a topic that does not get much attention. As I reach the conclusion of this blog post I find that Dirty gold points to a music album rather than gold mining. We need to raise awareness of this topic. People are wearing wedding wings, luxury products and using electronic devices that are in part for the degradation of the environment. As awareness of these issues grows so companies like Apple, Sony and others should work to ensure a clean product line, from raw material in the ground to the finished product.

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The Great Wide Open – Episode 5

Byrichard

The Great Wide Open is a different climbing video than I am used to because it discusses history, culture and American identity. It speaks about the American Independence day and watching fireworks from “Devils tower“, a laccolithic butte. This is an interesting rock formation. The rock has vertical cracks that are impressive to see.

There are many aspects that I like and enjoy about this video. I like the visuals and I like the discussion of history and opportunism and passion. The segment that I like less is about death. I associate death with scuba diving rather than climbing. Recently I have watched quite a few documentaries about climbing and death. The film Sherpa and one other explored the themes both of mountain professionals and the risks they take and the other looked at climbers and the risks they take. They’re interesting topics but exploring the lives of people who live their passions is more pleasant. One person said “I think too many people live their lives, five days looking forward to the two day weekend and they don’t look forward to their life on the small amount of time we have on this earth.” That’s why I enjoy watching documentaries about this topic. For brief instants we get to dream and to aspire to new things.

There is a lot of attention in the media today about how women look and how they are perceived. The focus needs to shift away from how women look and focus instead on what they can do. Climbing news and videos are one way to achieve this goal. We see women who excel at their chosen sport and this has a positive effect. It takes us away from the superficial and presents us with the concrete. In climbing we notice women for their prowess rather than their looks and this is positive. I appreciate them for their ability  to challenge and overcome their fears. I frequently climbed with someone who was afraid and I would not hesitate to do it again. Enabling others is a good quality to have.

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Squadron Scramble – book review

Byrichard

Squadron Scramble is an interesting book to read in post-BREXIT England because it highlights aspects of the Second World War that BREXITers forget about. It looks at how the main character had to flee France via Dunkirk as well as the situation that Polish airmen had found themselves in. First they lost their homes, then they had to flee France when it was invaded and finally they went to England via North Africa.

You can read more about Polish Air Forces in France and Great Britain following this link for factual rather than fictional information and context. The book provides us with an easy to read, easy to understand scenario. If you had lost your country and you were flying for a third country would you want to shoot pilots as they parachute to safety or would you allow them to live.

If you were in England during the Second World War at what point would you have felt secure and confident that Germany would be overwhelmed and beaten. When would the battle shift from a fight for survival to a fight for supremacy?

This book focuses on the air war during daylight hours when Hurricanes and Spitfires were in their element and only glimpses at dog fighting at night. The book touches superficially on a number of topics without providing as much depth and context as it could.

This is an interesting documentary about the Polish contribution to the Battle of Britain. It shows how effectively they helped to fight the German Luftwaffe and how they were betrayed by the British people once the war was over. They had fought to defend England and defeat the Germans in order to ensure that their country would be freed from the Germans only to be betrayed when their country was handed over to the communists. Some of them went back to Poland but had to flee to other countries. They were not honoured in the victory parade either. The documentary is interesting as it provides its viewers with a good account of the Polish contribution to the British and Allied war effort.

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A Rock Crawler and Wildlife Film Making

Byrichard

When Gordon Buchanan was following bears in the United States we watched the resulting documentaries on television. We have seen him a number of times in episodes of countryfile as well. Now he is working on getting footage of wolves in the wild. For this project he is staying out in the wild and following a pack of wolves day after day for weeks. As part of this project he is filming with a broadcast camera and gopro cameras which he fixed on to a “rock crawler”. The Rock crawler is a remote control car with the body removed.

The BBC were working on a documentary about polar bears and for certain shots they created a den for filming purposes. It helped to tell the story but people felt that the purity of that documentary had been tainted. This genre of documentary aims to tell a genuine story with no reconstruction or trickery. Everything has to be genuine.

As we see from the footage above Gordon Buchanan was able to get the camera right up to the den and film the wolf cubs from the mouth of the den. This technology is great for story telling because it provides the camera operator with greater flexibility. He is able to get the camera to where he wants it to be without going there in person. In theory animal behaviour is genuine.

Sensory: BBC Wildlife Director John Downer & the technology of ‘spy-cam’ filmmaking from Getty Images on Vimeo.

With this technology a greater variety of shots can be achieved, from flying with specific birds to traveling under water with penguins and lounging in a pool with tigers. In essence spy creature cameras allow wildlife filmmakers to get genuine animal interactions without relying on luck. They can make their own luck and the natural history documentary genre benefits.

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Flowing water – a visual experiment

Byrichard

Flowing Water РA visual experiment is a simple one minute video. The first images were filmed at the Arboretum in the Jura and the timelapses show clouds playing above the Jura near La D̫le. La D̫le is where the doppler radar is located. That radar shows rainfall and precipitation so that air traffic controllers can advise pilots of weather conditions.

With the amount of rain that has fallen over the last six or more weeks every river is full of water. As a result of this they are flowing fast and debris can be seen. When rivers flow fast they are fun to watch. The next step would be to capture waterfalls over a period of minutes or hours. If we stopped recording just as the rain stopped we might get interesting results. The peak wouldn’t appear until soon after the rain stopped.

I was lucky with these clouds because they moved quickly from one side of the screen to the other. They also formed and dispersed quickly. As a result I could set the interval to take images every few seconds. I could quickly see the result and adjust. When I filmed the clouds I filmed the ground and the trees as they came in and out of the shadow of clouds, I filmed a tighter shot where you could see the transmission mast and then I pointed to the sky and tried to capture the movement of clouds with blue sky as a backdrop. Some moments are fun to watch.

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Sharkwater – a documentary worth watching

Byrichard

Sharkwater – A documentary worth watching.

If you have one and a half hours of free time I recommend watching this documentary. It discusses the anti-whaling work by the Sea Shepherd, the work it did to combat long lining around the Galapagos and it touches on the shark finning mafia and corruption.

The documentary also looks at the public perception of sharks. It shows that they are not the dangerous animal that they were thought to be until recent history. The film ends with a shot of the narrator free-diving with sharks and being perfectly relaxed. At one point he says “sharks are so sensitive that they can feel your heart beat, if you are calm they will stay but if you panic they will flee”. I paraphrased his exact words.

Another theme that is explored in this documentary is the food chain. He mentions that plankton absorb a lot of Carbon dioxide and that with the overfishing of sharks the ecological balance will be ruined as the apex predators are lost. He pushes strongly for the conservation of shark numbers. We are familiar with the current Save our Sharks movement.

This is an interesting investigative documentary about the economy surrounding shark finning and why it has a negative impact on the food chain. If the documentary was updated it could look at the economic viability of shark tourism that has grown in recent years. Sharks, in some places are more valuable alive than dead. If you don’t have time to watch the entire documentary then I recommend that you watch the last thirty to fourty minutes.

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Spy-cam wildlife filmmaking

Byrichard

Spy-cam wildlife filmmaking is an interesting discipline. It builds upon the decades of innovation that the documentary film genre has built upon. From the earliest images by the Lumière brothers of the workers at a factory to the development of film editing by Eisenstein and Dziva Vertov demonstrated by “The Man With the Movie Camera to sync sound with the Crystal sound system used by Jean Rouch for Chronique d’un été.

The BBC is seen as the leading example of high quality television programming and this has been the case for decades. The Natural History Unit is responsible for some of the best wildlife documentary films and series and with good reason. They adopt the latest technology, hire crews for months or even years at a time, to capture nature’s spectacle and beauty, and bring it to living rooms around the world.

Sensory: BBC Wildlife Director John Downer & the technology of ‘spy-cam’ filmmaking from Getty Images on Vimeo.

This attention to detail and this dedication to getting the best images has resulted in some of the best looking documentaries around. the Blue Planet Series, the Planet Earth series, Life and others have provided people with what I like to call a video encyclopaedia of the natural world.

The technological innovation that we see in the video above demonstrates how animals and behaviour that we had seen through a tele-lens can now be seen up close and with as natural a behaviour as possible. Almost every book I have read about the documentary genre speaks about capturing life with as little alteration of natural behaviour as possible. This technology is making that wish a more realistic goal.