Declan Patrick MacManus, better known by his stage name Elvis Costello, is an English songwriter, singer, record producer, author and television presenter. Music critics consider Costello to be one of the most gifted and versatile songwriters of his generation. His first album, My Aim Is True (1977), is widely regarded as one of the best debut albums in popular music history. The album spawned no hit singles, but contains some of Costello's best-known songs, including the ballad "Alison". Costello's next two albums, This Year's Model (1978) and Armed Forces (1979), recorded with his backing band the Attractions, helped define the new wave music genre. From late 1977 through early 1980, each of the eight singles he released reached the UK Top 30. His biggest hit single, "Oliver's Army" (1979) sold more than 400,000 copies in Britain. He has had more modest commercial success in the US but has earned much praise among music critics. From 1977 through the early 2000s, Costello's albums regularly ranked high on the Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics' poll, with This Year's Model and Imperial Bedroom (1982) voted the best album of their respective years. His biggest US hit single, "Veronica" (1989), reached number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Julie Frances Christie is a British actress. An icon of the Swinging Sixties, Christie is the recipient of numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She has appeared in six films ranked in the British Film Institute's BFI Top 100 British films of the 20th century, and in 1997, she received the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement.
Robert Wyatt is a retired English musician. A founding member of the influential Canterbury scene bands Soft Machine and Matching Mole, he was initially a kit drummer and singer before becoming paraplegic following an accidental fall from a window in 1973, which led him to abandon band work, explore other instruments, and begin a forty-year solo career.
Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night is a 1988 Cinemax television special originally broadcast on January 3, 1988, starring triple Hall of Fame inductee rock/pop singer/songwriter Roy Orbison and backing band TCB Band with special guests including Bruce Springsteen, k.d. lang and others. The special was filmed entirely in black and white. After the broadcast the concert was released on VHS and Laserdisc. A live album was released in 1989.
Don't Look Now is a 1973 English-language thriller film directed by Nicolas Roeg, adapted from the 1971 short story by Daphne du Maurier. Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland portray Laura and John Baxter, a married couple who travel to Venice following the recent accidental death of their daughter, after John accepts a commission to restore a church. They encounter two sisters, one of whom claims to be clairvoyant and informs them that their daughter is trying to contact them and warn them of danger. John at first dismisses their claims, but starts to experience mysterious sightings himself.
Alan Will Wyatt CBE was formerly managing director of BBC Television (1991–96) and Chief Executive of BBC Broadcast (1996–99). He was later a company director, media consultant and author.
Undercurrents is an alternative video news network which began with the UK distribution of videotapes shot by volunteers. It has since expanded to include a web presence, media training for volunteers, and a film festival, BeyondTV.
A nature documentary or wildlife documentary is a genre of documentary film or series about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures, usually concentrating on video taken in their natural habitat but also often including footage of trained and captive animals. Sometimes they are about wildlife or ecosystems in relationship to human beings. Such programmes are most frequently made for television, particularly for public broadcasting channels, but some are also made for the cinema medium. The proliferation of this genre occurred almost simultaneously alongside the production of similar television series which is distributed across the world.
Planet Earth is a 2006 British television series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit. Five years in the making, it was the most expensive nature documentary series ever commissioned by the BBC and also the first to be filmed in high definition. The series received multiple awards, including four Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, and an award from the Royal Television Society.
Overlord is a 1975 black-and-white British war film written and directed by Stuart Cooper. Set during the Second World War, around the D-Day invasion, the film is about a young British soldier's experiences and his meditations on being part of the war machinery, including his premonitions of death. The film won the Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize at the 25th Berlin International Film Festival. “Overlord is not about military heroics; on the contrary, it is about the bleakness of sacrifice”, Cooper said.
NHNZ, formerly Natural History New Zealand, is a New Zealand-based television production house.
Good Guys, Bad Guys was an Australian comedy/drama TV series that screened on the Nine Network between 1997 and 1998, with a telemovie and twenty-six episodes produced. The crime-themed show was set in Melbourne.
Planet Earth: The Future is a 2006 BBC documentary series on the environment and conservation, produced by the BBC Natural History Unit as a companion to the multi-award-winning nature documentary Planet Earth. The programmes were originally broadcast on BBC Four immediately after the final three episodes of Planet Earth on BBC One. Each episode highlights the conservation issues surrounding some of the species and environments featured in Planet Earth, using interviews with the film-makers and eminent figures from the fields of science, conservation, politics, and theology. The programmes are narrated by Simon Poland and the series producer was Fergus Beeley.
Frozen Planet is a 2011 British nature documentary series, co-produced by the BBC ZDF and The Open University. It was filmed by the BBC Natural History Unit. The production team, which includes executive producer Alastair Fothergill and series producer Vanessa Berlowitz, were previously responsible for the award-winning series The Blue Planet (2001) and Planet Earth (2006), and Frozen Planet is billed as a sequel of sorts. David Attenborough returns as narrator. It is distributed under licence by the BBC in other countries, Discovery Channel for North America, ZDF for Germany, Antena 3 for Spain and Skai TV for Greece.
Rupert Wyatt is an English filmmaker. He made his directorial debut with the 2008 film The Escapist, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. His second film was the 2011 blockbuster Rise of the Planet of the Apes. His third film was the 2019 sci-fi film Captive State. He also directed the first two episodes of the television adaptation of The Mosquito Coast in 2021, as well as serving as an executive producer on the series.
Endless Harmony: The Beach Boys Story is a 1998 biographical documentary directed by Alan Boyd. The film is a biography of the American rock band The Beach Boys. The documentary features archived footage and interviews by band members along with interviews from musicians such as Jackson Browne, Glen Campbell, Elvis Costello, and Sean Lennon. The soundtrack to the documentary was released along with the documentary's release.
Hidden Kingdoms is a British documentary television series that was first broadcast on BBC One on 16 January 2014. The three-part series is narrated by Stephen Fry and shows how animals experience the world from their perspective. Animals shown include a chipmunk, dung beetle, Rufous elephant shrew and treeshrew, and Japanese rhinoceros beetle.
The Hunt is a 2015 British nature documentary series made for BBC Television, first shown in the UK on BBC One and BBC One HD on 1 November 2015. The series is narrated by David Attenborough.
Planet Earth II is a 2016 British nature documentary series produced by the BBC as a sequel to Planet Earth, which was broadcast in 2006. The series is presented and narrated by Sir David Attenborough with the main theme music composed by Hans Zimmer.
Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London is a 1967 documentary film by Peter Whitehead. It includes sequences of “Swinging London” with accompanying contemporary pop music, concert and studio performances by musicians including the Rolling Stones and the first professional footage filmed of Pink Floyd, and several interviews. It is notable for showing footage shot inside the short-lived UFO Club, the British counter-culture night club in the basement of 31 Tottenham Court Road, and at The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream multi-artist event held in the Great Hall of the Alexandra Palace, including John Lennon. The film also shows scenes of soldiers parading in scarlet jackets and bearskins, London street scenes, a protest march, psychedelic patterns being painted on a semi-naked girl, the arrival of Playboy Bunny girls by plane, and guests including Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, Terence Stamp, and Jim Brown arriving at the premiere of Polanski’s film Cul-de-sac.
