1.
United Kingdom
–
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
2.
Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
Film studio
–
The majority of firms in the entertainment industry have never owned their own studios, but have rented space from other companies. The largest film studio in the world is Hengdian World Studios, in Zhejiang and he distributed these movies at vaudeville theaters, penny arcades, wax museums, and fairgrounds. The pioneering Thanhouser film studio was founded in New Rochelle, New York in 1909 by American theatrical impresario Edwin Thanhouser, the company produced and released 1,086 films between 1910 and 1917, successfully distributing them around the world. The first film ever, Million Dollar Mystery, was released by the Thanhouser company in 1914. In the early 1900s, companies started moving to Los Angeles, although electric lights were by then widely available, none were yet powerful enough to adequately expose film, the best source of illumination for motion picture production was natural sunlight. Some movies were shot on the roofs of buildings in Downtown Los Angeles, early movie producers also relocated to Southern California to escape Edisons Motion Picture Patents Company, which controlled almost all the patents relevant to movie production at the time. The first movie studio in the Hollywood area was Nestor Studios, in the same year, another 15 independents settled in Hollywood. Other production companies eventually settled in the Los Angeles area in such as Culver City, Burbank. Five large companies, 20th Century Fox, RKO Pictures, Paramount Pictures, smaller studios operated simultaneously with the majors. Together with smaller outfits such as PRC TKO and Grand National, the Big Fives ownership of movie theaters was eventually opposed by eight independent producers, including Samuel Goldwyn, David O. Selznick, Walt Disney, Hal Roach, and Walter Wanger. In 1948, the government won a case against Paramount in the Supreme Court. This decision, reached after years of litigation, hastened the end of the studio system. By the 1950s, the components of a typical major film studio had become standardized. Movement in and out of the studio is normally limited to specific gates, Studio premises generally feature multiple sound stages along with an outside backlot, as well as offices for studio executives and production companies. There is normally a studio commissary, which is the term in the film industry for what other industries call a company cafeteria. With the growing diversification of studios into such fields as video games, television, theme parks, home video and publishing, instead the studios transformed into financing and distribution entities for the films made by their affiliated production companies. With the decreasing cost of CG and visual effects, many studios sold large chunks of their once massive studio spaces or backlots to private real-estate developers. Century City in Los Angeles was once part of the 20th Century Fox backlot, in most cases portions of the backlots were retained and are available for rental by various film and television productions
4.
Borehamwood
–
Borehamwood, is a town in southern Hertfordshire. It is an suburb of London, situated 12 miles from Charing Cross. Borehamwood has a population of 31,065, and is within the parish of Elstree and Borehamwood. There is one weekly newspaper, the Borehamwood and Elstree Times, the town is perhaps most well known for its film and TV studios, commonly known as Elstree Studios, hence the association with Elstree. One of the earliest mentions of Bosci de Boreham, is in 1188 and he also gave to the Abbey the wood of Boreham for the feeding of the swine. In 1776, the House of Lords granted, An Act for dividing and closing the Common or Waste Ground, called Boreham Wood Common, in the Parish of Elstree otherwise Idletree, in the Country of Hertford. Up until 1909, the town was part of the ancient parish of Elstree, from the 1920s onwards, the town became known as one of the main centres of the UK film, and later television, industries due to the presence of production studios. Following World War II, the population greatly increased, with large areas of council housing set up for displaced Londoners. Fast train connections to central London have resulted in the town becoming a residential suburb. Borehamwood is currently undergoing a substantial housing transformation which has hundreds of new homes built over the last five years. There are currently two further developments being built and more are expected, in addition to the studios, the town is also home to many retail shops, offices and light industry. On the west side of Borehamwood is a station, Elstree & Borehamwood railway station served by trains operated by Govia Thameslink Railway on the Thameslink route. The Uno run a bus service stops at Borehamwood starting from Hatfield to Stanmore and back. Intalink operate a bus service to parts of Hertfordshire. The A1 road passes just to the east of the town, Borehamwood experiences an oceanic climate similar to almost all of the rest of the United Kingdom. Since the 1920s, the town has been home to film studios. This earned it the nickname of the British Hollywood, whilst most of these studios have now closed, two still remain. These were partly demolished in the 1980s to make way for a Tesco Extra supermarket on one side and an office block complex on the other
5.
Elstree
–
In 2011, its population was 5,110. It forms part of the parish of Elstree and Borehamwood. The village often lends its name to businesses and amenities in the adjacent town of Borehamwood. The local newspaper is the Borehamwood and Elstree Times, together with Borehamwood, the village is twinned with Offenburg in Germany and Fontenay-aux-Roses in France. Elstree & Borehamwood railway station is on the Thameslink Line between London St Pancras and Bedford and it was built by the Midland Railway in 1868, and is located just north of the 1,072 yard long Elstree Tunnels. The area of Borehamwood to the west of the railway line, Elstree South tube station was due to be an extension of the Northern line, planned in the 1930s, but never completed. The old A5 road goes through Elstree village, where it is designated as the A5183 road, through the village, the road is called Elstree Hill South, High Street and Elstree Hill North. The 18th century Grade II listed building, Elstree Hill House, is still on Elstree Hill South, in the early 1900s, it was noted that. Elstree Aerodrome is licensed by the CAA and has a 2, 150-foot paved runway, suitable most for light aircraft and it also is one of the main helicopter centres for North London and is extending its provision in this area. In the early 1930s it was a landing strip for the local Aldenham House country club. A concrete runway was put down during World War II, all six were killed when it crashed and burned in heavy fog on Arkley Golf Course,3 miles short of the runway. London Transports Aldenham Works was sited on the edge of Elstree close to the A41, it was opened in 1956, closed in 1986 and it is now a large business park. Originally a 19th-century steam ship owned by the Houlder Brothers, the town lends its name to a series of ships called the Elstree Grange. Laura Ashley The Manor Hotel, formerly known as the Edgwarebury Hotel, is located on Barnet Lane, and operated by Corus Hotels. The Tudor-style building dates back to 1540, was converted into a hotel in the 1960s, notable guests have included Peter Sellers, Tom Cruise, John Cleese and Stanley Kubrick. It was the home of armaments manufacturer and First Baronet Sir Trevor Dawson. A house in Elstree designed by architect Edward John May was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1887, St Nicholas Parish Church was designed by English architect Philip Charles Hardwick. Elstree is home to Aldenham School, and Haberdashers Askes Boys School, since the 1780s, a private school has been located in Elstree
6.
Hertfordshire
–
Hertfordshire is a county in southern England, bordered by Bedfordshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Buckinghamshire to the west and Greater London to the south. For government statistical purposes, it is placed in the East of England region, in 2013, the county had a population of 1,140,700 living in an area of 634 square miles. Four towns have between 50,000 and 100,000 residents, Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage, Watford and St Albans. Hertford, once the market town for the medieval agricultural county derives its name from a hart. Elevations are high for the region in the north and west and these reach over 240m in the western projection around Tring which is in the Chilterns. The countys borders are approximately the watersheds of the Colne and Lea, hertfordshires undeveloped land is mainly agricultural and much is protected by green belt. The countys landmarks span many centuries, ranging from the Six Hills in the new town of Stevenage built by local inhabitants during the Roman period, Leavesden filmed much of the UK-based $7.7 Bn box office Harry Potter film series and has the countrys studio tour. Saint Alban, a Romano-British soldier, took the place of a Christian priest and was beheaded on Holywell Hill and his martyrs cross of a yellow saltire on a blue background is reflected in the flag and coat of arms of Hertfordshire. Hertfordshire is well-served with motorways and railways, providing access to London. The largest sector of the economy of the county is in services, Hertfordshire was the area assigned to a fortress constructed at Hertford under the rule of Edward the Elder in 913. Hertford is derived from the Anglo-Saxon heort ford, meaning deer crossing, the name Hertfordshire is first recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1011. Deer feature in many county emblems, there is evidence of humans living in Hertfordshire from the Mesolithic period. It was first farmed during the Neolithic period and permanent habitation appeared at the beginning of the Bronze Age and this was followed by tribes settling in the area during the Iron Age. 293 the first recorded British martyrdom is believed to have taken place. Saint Alban, a Romano-British soldier, took the place of a Christian priest and was beheaded on Holywell Hill. His martyrs cross of a saltire on a blue background is reflected in the flag. He is the Patron Saint of Hertfordshire, with the departure of the Roman Legions in the early 5th century, the now unprotected territory was invaded and colonised by the Anglo-Saxons. By the 6th century the majority of the county was part of the East Saxon kingdom
7.
BBC Elstree Centre
–
BBC Elstree Centre, sometimes referred to as BBC Elstree Studios, is a television production facility located on Clarendon Road in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire. The site was the first of such complexes referred to as Elstree Studios located in the area. Originally film studios, in the late 1950s the site was converted for use as a television studio, after ATV became Central Television and moved to a new Midlands-based site, it was sold to the BBC in 1984. It is currently a base for BBC Television with studios run by the BBCs commercial subsidiary BBC Studios. The site includes the set for the long-running soap opera EastEnders. With the closure of BBC Television Centre, Studio D at the site has been utilised for many of the BBCs large studio productions such as Children in Need, the Neptune Film Company opened the first studios in Borehamwood in 1914. It contained just a single 70ft windowless stage, relying on electricity from a generator for lighting. At the time, this was an innovation, as the majority of films were shot in large glass-roof studios which relied on natural light. It was said that Borehamwood was chosen as it had a good London train service but was far away to avoid the then-regular London fogs. Production ceased during 1917 and the studio was sold to the Ideal Film Company who used the site up until 1924, during 1928, the studio was sold to Ludwig Blattner who connected it to the electricity mains and introduced a German system of sound recording. The Blattner Studio was leased to Joe Rock Productions during 1934, Rock Productions built four new large stages and began making films including the drama film The Edge of the World, directed by Michael Powell. The studios were owned by British National Films Company between 1939 and 1948, although during this period a large portion of the studio was taken over by the British government for war work. During 1953, the studios were bought by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. mainly for television production, early productions included the Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Presents series and a few episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The studios were sold to Lew Grades Associated Television in 1958, a 7. 5-acre site on Londons South Bank had been purchased, but completion of a wholly new complex would be some years in the future, while the need for more studio space was urgent. As a result, the Clarendon Road centre was re-equipped as an electronic TV complex and most of ATVs live and recorded shows were made there. The series made by the affiliated ITC, such as The Saint, Gideons Way, originally some ATV programmes were made at the Alpha studios in Aston, Birmingham, as ATV had the weekday Midland franchise as well as the weekend London franchise until 1968. After 1970 programmes such as Crossroads were made at the new Birmingham studios at the ATV Centre, larger-scale productions, including many drama programmes, continued to be recorded at the Elstree facility for the rest of ATVs existence. In the period of its occupation of the Elstree complex, the smaller Studios A and B were used for schools TV and sitcoms, Studio D, with permanent audience seating, was used for light entertainment programmes such as the ATV Morecambe and Wise series and The Muppet Show
8.
Civil parish
–
In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority. It is a parish, in contrast to an ecclesiastical parish. A civil parish can range in size from a town with a population of around 80,000 to a single village with fewer than a hundred inhabitants. In a limited number of cases a parish might include a city where city status has been granted by the Monarch. Reflecting this diverse nature, a parish may be known as a town, village. Approximately 35% of the English population live in a civil parish, as of 31 December 2015 there were 10,449 parishes in England. On 1 April 2014, Queens Park became the first civil parish in Greater London, before 2008 their creation was not permitted within a London borough. The division of land into ancient parishes was linked to the system, parishes. The manor was the unit of local administration and justice in the early rural economy. Later the church replaced the court as the rural administrative centre. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the power to levy a rate to fund relief of the poor was conferred on the authorities by the Act for the Relief of the Poor 1601. Both before and after this optional social change, local charities are well-documented, the parish authorities were known as vestries and consisted of all the ratepayers of the parish. As the number of ratepayers of some parishes grew, it increasingly difficult to convene meetings as an open vestry. In some, mostly built up, areas the select vestry took over responsibility from the body of ratepayers. This innovation improved efficiency, but allowed governance by a self-perpetuating elite, by the 18th century, religious membership was becoming more fractured in some places, due for instance to the progress of Methodism. The legitimacy of the parish came into question and the perceived inefficiency. Sanitary districts covered England in 1875 and Ireland three years later, the replacement boards were each entitled to levy their own rate in the parish. The church rate ceased to be levied in many parishes and became voluntary from 1868, the ancient parishes diverged into two distinct systems of parishes during the 19th century
9.
Elstree & Borehamwood railway station
–
Elstree & Borehamwood railway station is on the Midland Main Line in England, serving the village of Elstree and the town of Borehamwood in Hertfordshire. It is 12 miles 35 chains down-line from London St. Pancras and is situated between Mill Hill Broadway to the south and Radlett to the north and its three-letter station code is ELS. The station is served by Thameslink-operated trains on the Thameslink route and it is in Travelcard Zone 6. In 1862, The London and Midland Junction Railway Bill is here referred to as providing for a new line of Railway into the metropolis, by the 1920s, it had been renamed Elstree and Boreham Wood station. The station was renamed from Elstree & Borehamwood to Elstree on 6 May 1974, a new footbridge and step-free lifts, installed under Network Rails Access for All programme are due to open on 1 October 2014. The scheme, much delayed after originally being programmed to open in March 2014, has caused much angst within the community, the London LOOP walk passes close to the station on its way from Stanmore to High Barnet. The station has a PlusBus scheme where train and bus tickets can be together for a cheaper price. On Sundays this is reduced to two trains per hour in both directions, peak-hour services run on to Bedford. Night services operate to Gatwick Airport, Three Bridges and Brighton, east Midlands Trains InterCity services from Leeds, Sheffield and Leicester run through at high speed, but do not stop. Interchange with InterCity services can be made at Luton Airport Parkway or Luton, in March 2009, Southeastern and Thameslink began running some peak-hour trains from Sevenoaks to Luton, though in the off-peak these services turn back at Kentish Town. In advance of the current franchisee taking on the route, a stated that from 2018 there would be an increase in stopping services to St. Albans on Sundays. Elstree South tube station - unbuilt London Underground station Train times and station information for Elstree & Borehamwood railway station from National Rail grid reference TQ190962
10.
Telephone exchange
–
A telephone exchange is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network or in large enterprises. In historical perspective, telecommunication terms have been used with different semantics over time, the term telephone exchange is often used synonymously with central office, a Bell System term. Often, an office is defined as a building used to house the inside plant equipment of potentially several telephone exchanges. Such an area has also referred to as the exchange. Central office locations may also be identified in North America as wire centers, All central offices within a larger region, typically aggregated by state, were assigned a common numbering plan area code. For corporate or enterprise use, a telephone exchange is often referred to as a private branch exchange. Smaller installations might deploy a PBX or key telephone system in the office of a receptionist and this made it possible for subscribers to call each other at homes, businesses, or public spaces. These made telephony an available and comfortable communication tool for everyday use, one of the first to propose a telephone exchange was Hungarian Tivadar Puskás in 1877 while he was working for Thomas Edison. The first experimental telephone exchange was based on the ideas of Puskás, the worlds first commercial telephone exchange opened on November 12,1877 in Friedrichsberg close to Berlin. George W. Coy designed and built the first commercial US telephone exchange opened in New Haven. The switchboard was built from carriage bolts, handles from teapot lids and bustle wire, Charles Glidden is also credited with establishing an exchange in Lowell, MA. with 50 subscribers in 1878. In Europe other early telephone exchanges were based in London and Manchester, Belgium had its first International Bell exchange a year later. In 1887 Puskás introduced the multiplex switchboard, later exchanges consisted of one to several hundred plug boards staffed by switchboard operators. Each operator sat in front of a panel containing banks of ¼-inch tip-ring-sleeve jacks. In front of the jack panel lay a horizontal panel containing two rows of patch cords, each connected to a cord circuit. When a calling party lifted the receiver, the loop current lit a signal lamp near the jack. The operator responded by inserting the rear cord into the jack and switched her headset into the circuit to ask, Number. For a local call, the operator inserted the front cord of the pair into the partys local jack
11.
Ludwig Blattner
–
Ludwig Blattner was a German-born inventor, film producer and studio owner in the United Kingdom, and developer of one of the earliest sound recording devices. This device was marketed as the Blattnerphone, whilst on a promotional tour of his sound recording technology in 1928 he would choose ladies from the audience to dance with to music being played from a Blattnerphone. In about 1920 he moved to Manchester where he managed a chain of cinemas, later in the 1920s he bought the British film rights to Lion Feuchtwangers novel Jew Süss although the film was not made until 1934 after Blattner sold on the rights to Gaumont British. In 1928 his company produced a series of films of musical performances such as Albert Sandler and His Violin and Teddy Brown. This process was known as the Blattner Keller-Dorian process, which lost out to rival colour systems. The 1932 BBC Year Book said, In some ways the most important event of the year has been the adoption by the B. B. C. of the Blattnerphone recording apparatus described in the Technical Section. In 1939 the BBC used a Blattnerphone to record Prime Minister Neville Chamberlains announcement to Britain of the outbreak of World War II, after going through several more owners, the studio became the BBC Elstree Centre in 1984. Of German origin, Blattner emigrated to Great Britain in 1897 aged 16 with Gustav Mellin and he had two British-born children, Gerry Blattner born in 1913 in Liverpool, and Betty Blattner born in 1914 in Cheshire. They both followed their father into the business, Gerry as a producer and Betty as a makeup artist. Ludwig Blattner never became a British citizen, and during the First World War he remained in an internment camp, ludwig hanged himself at the Elstree Country Club in October 1935, and he and Gerry were honoured by the naming of Blattner Close in Elstree in the mid-1990s. Blattnerphone at the BBCs A History of the World Louis Blattner at Internet Movie Database Blattner Close at streetmap. co. uk
12.
Joe Rock
–
Joe Rock was an American movie producer, director, actor, and screenwriter best remembered today for producing a series of 12 two reel comedies starring Stan Laurel in the 1920s. If wed run away from cops, wed run back into cops, by 1924, Stan Laurel had forsaken the stage for full-time film work, and was still involved with actress Mae Dahlberg. Among the films in which they appeared was the 1922 parody, Mud. Around this time, Mae started interfering with Laurels work and was holding him back, Laurel insisted that she be in his every picture, and audiences didnt like her. When Joe Rock put Laurel under contract for twelve two-reel comedies, the contract had one unusual stipulation and it was felt that her temperament was hindering his career. When she balked, Rock held firm, finally offering her a most unusual and he would give her several thousand dollars, along with some jewels she had pawned, if she would go back to Australia. When Stan showed no inclination to demur, she accepted the offer, the ships purser had strict instructions, Mae would not receive her payment until the ship was a day out at sea. Without any distractions, Stan finished the twelve films ahead of schedule, Stan next joined the Hal Roach studio as a writer and director, but due to the contract with Joe, could not act in any of the films. From the Joe Rock Studios came the A Ton of Fun series of comedy shorts, the series was launched in 1925 and ran two years. Alternatively known as The Three Fatties, they were played in order of girth by Hilliard Fat Karr, Kewpie Ross and Frank Fatty Alexander. The films were Tailoring, All Tied Up, Three Wise Goofs, Heavy Love, The Heavy Parade, Three of a Kind, Old Tin Shoes, Three Missing Links, and Campus Romeos. Produced by Joe Rock, the shorts were made by Poverty Row studio Standard Photoplay Co. and released by Joseph P. Kennedy, ironically, comedian-turned-producer Joe Rock, who created the series, didnt think The Three Fatties were fat enough. Frank Alexander and Kewpie Ross were actually padded far beyond their natural waistlines, built on the premise that three fat men were funnier than one, Rock created a surprising number of outlandish situations for the trio during the series long run. The Neptune Film Company opened the first studios in Borehamwood in 1914 and it contained just a single small windowless stage, relying entirely on electricity from a gas powered generator for lighting. Production ceased during 1917 and the studio was sold to the Ideal Film Company who used the site up until 1924, during 1928 the studio was sold to Ludwig Blattner. The Blattner Studio was leased to Joe Rock Productions during 1934 and 2 years later purchased the site. Joe Rock made Ludwig Blattners son Gerry the studio manager, Rock Productions built 4 new large stages and began making films including the 1937 feature The Edge of the World. These studios would eventually become BBC Elstree Centre, Clarendon Road Studios, in 1935 Rock met director Michael Powell
13.
British National Films Company
–
In 1934 the British National Films Company was formed in England by J. Arthur Rank, Lady Annie Henrietta Yule of Bricket Wood and producer John Corfield. Joseph Arthur Rank was a member of the British Methodist Church. On the first day of the week, he was a Sunday school teacher and his idea spread to other classes held by other churches and in 1933, this motivated Rank to form a Religious Film Society to distribute the films that he wanted to show to other Sunday schools. Following distribution, Rank then decided to go into the business of producing religious films, mastership was his first religious film production. It was a film made at Merton Park Studios at a cost of £2,700. Mastership was never shown commercially because it was intended as a form of evangelism. Rank was pleased with the results, and other films went into production in Elstree at the better equipped Rock Studios, in the 1930s, the Methodist Times newspaper in England began attacking the low moral standards exhibited by British films and by American films shown in Britain. It was this exchange that motivated Rank to expand his interests into the commercial market. A young producer named John Corefield introduced Rank to Lady Annie Henrietta Yule of Bricket Wood, in order to fill her life with activity, she engaged in big game hunting and breeding Arabian horses with a degree of success and lasting fame. Upon meeting J. Arthur Rank, she decided to add the making of films to her list and she thought that films were an interesting hobby and similar to her financial interests in Arabian horse breeding. In 1934, Rank, Lady Yule and John Corefield formed the British National Films Company, in 1935, British National commenced production of their first feature film, Turn of the Tide. The script was based upon a 1932 novel by Leo Walmsley called Three Fevers, the setting, which Rank knew from childhood, was Robin Hoods Bay on the north coast of Yorkshire, England. Having read the book, Rank decided that it would make an excellent family-friendly British film in answer to the Hollywood-style movies that Alexander Korda was making at the Denham Film Studios. Although Turn of the Tide was well made and featured a good cast, British National could not get wide distribution for the film, the company struggled to recoup its costs. Rank knew that for British National to make a profit, he had to create a version of his Religious Film Society to control distribution and exhibition. In 1934, Charles Boot had undertaken to construct a new studio in the village of Iver Heath in Buckinghamshire. His location was set among the trees on the estate grounds of a mansion called Heatherden Hall that Boot had recently bought at auction. The complex was named Pinewood Film Studios and was completed within a year, by 1935, Boot had approached British National about taking over ownership and management of the new studios and a contract was entered into
14.
Government of the United Kingdom
–
Her Majestys Government, commonly referred to as the UK government or British government, is the central government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The government is led by the Prime Minister, who all the remaining ministers. The prime minister and the other most senior ministers belong to the supreme decision-making committee, the government ministers all sit in Parliament, and are accountable to it. After an election, the monarch selects as prime minister the leader of the party most likely to command a majority of MPs in the House of Commons. Under the uncodified British constitution, executive authority lies with the monarch, although this authority is exercised only by, or on the advice of, the prime minister, the Cabinet members advise the monarch as members of the Privy Council. They also exercise power directly as leaders of the Government Departments, the current prime minister is Theresa May, who took office on 13 July 2016. She is the leader of the Conservative Party, which won a majority of seats in the House of Commons in the election on 7 May 2015. Prior to this, Cameron and the Conservatives led a government from 2010 to 2015 with the Liberal Democrats. A key principle of the British Constitution is that the government is responsible to Parliament, Britain is a constitutional monarchy in which the reigning monarch does not make any open political decisions. All political decisions are taken by the government and Parliament and this constitutional state of affairs is the result of a long history of constraining and reducing the political power of the monarch, beginning with the Magna Carta in 1215. Parliament is split into two houses, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, the House of Commons is the lower house and is the more powerful. The House of Lords is the house and although it can vote to amend proposed laws. Parliamentary time is essential for bills to be passed into law, Ministers of the Crown are responsible to the House in which they sit, they make statements in that House and take questions from members of that House. For most senior ministers this is usually the elected House of Commons rather than the House of Lords, since the start of Edward VIIs reign, in 1901, the prime minister has always been an elected member of Parliament and therefore directly accountable to the House of Commons. Under the British system the government is required by convention and for reasons to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons. It requires the support of the House of Commons for the maintenance of supply, by convention if a government loses the confidence of the House of Commons it must either resign or a General Election is held. The support of the Lords, while useful to the government in getting its legislation passed without delay, is not vital, a government is not required to resign even if it loses the confidence of the Lords and is defeated in key votes in that House. The House of Commons is thus the Responsible house, the prime minister is held to account during Prime Ministers Question Time which provides an opportunity for MPs from all parties to question the PM on any subject
15.
Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
–
Douglas Elton Fairbanks Jr. KBE, DSC, was an American actor and a decorated naval officer of World War II. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was born in New York City, the child of actor Douglas Fairbanks and his first wife. His parents divorced when he was nine years old, and both remarried and he lived with his mother in New York, California, Paris and London. Fairbankss father was one of cinemas first icons, noted for such swashbuckling adventure films as The Mark of Zorro, Robin Hood and The Thief of Bagdad. Largely on the basis of his fathers name, Fairbanks Jr. was given a contract with Paramount Pictures at age 14, in the last years of the silent period, he was elevated to star billing opposite Loretta Young in several pre-Code films. He appeared in Our Modern Maidens, which led to a romance and marriage to his co-star. He also appeared with John Gilbert and Greta Garbo in A Woman of Affairs, in 1930, Fairbanks Jr. went to Warner Bros. to test for the second lead in Moby Dick. Although he didnt get the part, head of production Darryl F. Zanuck was impressed with Douglass screen test and he supported Leslie Howard in Outward Bound and Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar. He made Chances, which was a hit, and Union Depot, because he spoke French he was put in Lathlet incomplet, which screened only in France. During this period of his career, Fairbanks Jr. specialised in supporting female stars such as Bette Davis, Loretta Young, Ann Dvorak and his most notable credit was Morning Glory with Katharine Hepburn. In 1934, Warners asked all his stars to take a 50 percent pay cut because of the Depression, Fairbanks Jr. refused and quit the studio. He received a job offer from Britain and would spend the few years there. Fairbanks Jr. was in The Rise of Catherine the Great and he intended to return to Hollywood to appear in Design for Living but fell ill on the way and Gary Cooper took his part. Back in Britain he made Success at Any Price and Mimi and he made a series of comedies supporting female stars, then had his biggest ever hit with Gunga Din. Fairbanks Jr. began to work increasingly in action/adventure films, The Sun Never Sets, Rulers of the Sea, Green Hell and he had a change of pace when he starred in and co produced Angels Over Broadway. His last film before enlisting was The Corsican Brothers, in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him special envoy to South America. Fairbanks served on the cruiser Wichita during the disastrous Convoy PQ17 operation, lieutenant Fairbanks was subsequently transferred to Virginia Beach where he came under the command of Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, who was preparing U. S. naval forces for the invasion of North Africa, Fairbanks convinced Hewitt of the advantages of a military deception unit, then repeated the proposal at Hewetts behest to Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations
16.
Associated Television
–
This service started on Saturday,24 September 1955 and was extended until Sunday,28 July 1968. ATV was also awarded the franchise to provide the weekdays Independent Television service for the Midlands region and this service started on Friday,17 February 1956 and was extended until Monday,29 July 1968. Both companies had applied for a contract to one of the new ITV stations. By the time of the merger ABDC were well advanced with their plans whilst ITPC planned to operate as an independent producer selling their shows to the new network contractors. When financial problems hit ABDC, the Independent Television Authority, the body of ITV, invited Grade. This provided the required and put Littler and Grade in control of the new company. After ABC had been operating for three weeks the name was changed to Associated TeleVision Ltd, the logo, designed for ABC and tweaked for ATV, was a shadowed eye inspired by the CBS logo and reputedly designed by Lew Grade on a transatlantic flight back from the US. The logo is one of the most recognisable in broadcasting, ABC began broadcasting in its own right on Saturday 24 September 1955, after jointly presenting the networks opening night on Thursday 22 September. The name ATV was first seen in London on Saturday 8 October 1955, the company won two contracts, the weekend contract for London and the Monday–Friday contract for the Midlands. The latter service opened on 17 February 1956, with ABC providing the weekend programmes, the company ran into financial difficulty due to the staggering losses of the first two years of ITV and start-up costs. The London weekday contractor Associated-Rediffusion shouldered some of ATVs losses and further funding was achieved by selling shares to the Daily Mirror newspaper. The company structure was changed several times until 1966, when ATV and this marked the point where Lew Grade advanced from being the greatest influence over the company to taking control. ATVs main impact was in variety and light entertainment, at this point the company was renamed ATV Network Limited. During the 1970s, ATV received much criticism over its lack of programming, particularly for the east of its region. ATV Midlands Limited, a company created by ACC solely for the franchise process. ATV ceased broadcasting at 12. 34am on Friday 1 January 1982, the final closedown was marked by a brief tribute to ATV from original announcer Shaw Taylor before duty announcer Mike Prince signed off with the playing of the National Anthem. The newly reformed company, Central Independent Television plc, began broadcasting with a promo at 9. 25am that morning. Central inherited the studios at ATV Centre, Birmingham and ATV Elstree along with land that ATV Midlands had purchased for their new Nottingham studio centre
17.
Morecambe and Wise
–
Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, known as Morecambe and Wise, were an iconic British comic double act, working in variety, radio, film and most successfully in television. Their partnership lasted from 1941 until Morecambes death in 1984, the show was a significant part of British popular culture, and they have been described as the most illustrious, and the best-loved, double-act that Britain has ever produced. In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, The Morecambe and Wise Show was placed 14th. In September 2006, they were voted by the public as number 2 in a poll of TVs 50 Greatest Stars and in 2011 their early career was the subject of the television biopic Eric. In 2013, the two were honoured with a plaque at Teddington Studios where their last four series were recorded. Morecambe and Wises partnership began in 1941 when they were booked separately to appear in Jack Hyltons revue. War service broke up the act but they reunited by chance at the Swansea Empire Theatre in 1946 when they joined forces again and they made their name in variety, appearing in a variety circus, the Windmill Theatre, the Glasgow Empire and many venues around Britain. After this they made their name in radio, transferring to television in 1954. Their show, Running Wild, was not well received and led to a newspaper review, Definition of the week, TV set—the box in which they buried Morecambe. Eric apparently carried this review around with him ever after and from then on Eric, in 1956 they were offered a spot in the Winifred Atwell show with material written by Johnny Speight and this was a success. In 1959 they topped the bill in BBC TVs long running variety show The Good Old Days in a Boxing Day edition of the programme, in later years the pair would become a Christmas TV Institution in their own right. It is this period of their careers that is regarded as their glory days. The Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise Show The Morecambe & Wise Show from 1980 and Hills, the pair starred in three feature films during the 1960s—The Intelligence Men, That Riviera Touch, and The Magnificent Two. In 1983 they made their last film, Night Train To Murder, in 1976, they were both awarded the OBE. Together Morecambe, Wise and Braben were known as The Golden Triangle, Morecambe and Wise are considered by many to be one of the UKs all-time favourite comedy acts. John Ammonds was also central to the duos most successful period in the 1970s, as the producer of the BBC TV shows, it was his idea to involve celebrity guests. He also perfected the duos familiar dance, which was based on a dance performed by Groucho Marx in the film Horse Feathers, Ernest Maxin started choreographing the musical numbers in 1970, and succeeded John Ammonds as producer of the BBC TV shows in 1974. The other writers were Barry Cryer, John Junkin, Dick Hills and Sid Green during the ATV Two of a Kind series, Mike Craig, Morecambe and Wises comic style varied subtly throughout their career, depending on their writers
18.
The Muppet Show
–
The Muppet Show is a family-oriented comedy-variety television series that was produced by puppeteer Jim Henson and features The Muppets. The programmes were recorded at ATVs Elstree Studios in Borehamwood, England, the series shows a vaudeville or music hall-style song-and-dance variety show, as well as glimpses behind the scenes of such a show. Kermit the Frog stars as a showrunner who tries to control of the antics of the other Muppet characters. The show was known for physical slapstick, sometimes absurdist comedy. Each episode also featured a human guest star, as the shows popularity rose, many celebrities were eager to perform with the Muppets on television and in film. Many of the puppeteers also worked on Sesame Street, Jerry Juhl and Jack Burns were two of the show writers. The music was performed by Jack Parnell and his orchestra, since 1969, Sesame Street had given Jim Hensons Muppet creations exposure, however, Henson began to perceive that he was pigeonholed as a childrens entertainer. He sought to create a programme that could be enjoyed by young, Two specials were produced and aired on ABC that are considered pilots for The Muppet Show. Neither led to the sale of a network series. However, the prime-time access rule had just been enacted, which took the 7,30 to 8 pm ET slot from the networks and turned it over to their affiliates. CBS suggested it would be interested in Hensons proposal as a series it could purchase for its owned-and-operated stations. According to the pitch reel, Rowan & Martins Laugh-In co-creator George Schlatter was originally going to be involved. Henson put aside his misgivings about syndication and accepted, the Muppet Show Theme is the shows theme song. It is the opening and closing theme for episode of The Muppet Show and was performed by The Muppets in a scene of The Muppets. Each episode ended with an instrumental performance of The Muppet Show Theme by the Muppet orchestra before Statler. Some last laugh sequences featured other Muppets on the balcony, for example, in one episode, the Muppets of Sesame Street appeared behind the duo who told them, How should we know how to get to Sesame Street. We dont even know how to get out of this stupid theater box, every series, the TV version of the song was presented with re-worked lyrics. While the opening sequence evolved visually over the course of the five series
19.
ITV Central
–
The station is owned and operated by ITV plc, under the licensee of ITV Broadcasting Limited. During the 1970s ATV, the previous Midlands licence holder, had often been criticised for its lack of regional output, equally, its corporate headquarters were based in central London. The company name would also be changed from ATV Network Limited to ATV Midlands Limited, to demonstrate this change of share structure, the IBA insisted that ATV change its company name, to show that it was a substantially new company due to the requirements of a dual region. Central got around this by simply inserting Independent into their name on registering it, Central initially ran a sole pan-regional service from Birmingham, as a result of an industrial dispute which prevented its East Midlands service from Nottingham commencing before September 1983. The split allowed Central to serve the West Midlands with its own service from Birmingham, there were few differences between the East and West sub-regions, but each had its own news service, advertisements, and during the early years of operation, continuity. By March 1984, the reorganisation of the company was complete, Centrals interests in on-screen fiction saw the company buy the Korda Film Library in 1986. On the same day, Central brought a stake in Starstream, CTE, the companys key international distributor of programming, would later represent output sales for HTV, Meridian and Carlton, who took over Central in 1994. In 1989, the company founded Zodiac Entertainment – an American entertainment firm specialising in the production and distribution of animated cartoons, Central invested $35 million in the company before deciding to discontinue its production business in 1994, leaving Zodiac to become a distributor. In March 1994, Anglia acquired Centrals stake in the company to full control with Central moving over to Carltons sales department. The stations workforce was reduced to 1500 by 1990 and then to 900 by the start of 1992 – less than half of the payroll Central had employed in 1987. Central also profited from the auction after Meridian, a consortium in which Central held a 20% stake, by March, a rival bid from Gerald Ronsons Heron Corporation also entered the race to takeover ACC. By January 1983,167 staff had bought shares in the station for a £1 each as part of an innovative shareholding scheme to help offload shares to people in the Central region. Network programmes were now classed as Carlton UK Productions and around 140 jobs were lost from the downgraded Birmingham operation, on 6 September 1999, the station was rebranded on-air as Carlton Central, though the registered company name remained Central Independent Television Limited. The new identity, produced by Lambie-Nairn was also used on Centrals sister stations in the London and Carlton Westcountry regions, only the Carlton name was used on air, however Centrals regional news programmes retained the Central brand. With the merger of Carlton and Granada on 2 February 2004 and it is currently owned by ITV plc and on 29 December 2006, the registered company name was changed from Central Independent Television Ltd to ITV Central Ltd. This company is, along with most other companies owned by ITV plc. On 5 April 2005, it was revealed ITV Central could be fined by regulator Ofcom for broadcasting a pre-recorded late Central News bulletin for the East Midlands, the regulator later permitted ITV to pre-record some regional news bulletins shortly before transmission. On 15 July 2008, the station was fined £25,000 for contempt of court, upon winning the franchise, Central decided to construct new studios for its East sub-region, based in Lenton Lane, Nottingham – the new complex was to be called East Midlands Television centre
20.
ITV (TV network)
–
ITV is a commercial TV network in the United Kingdom. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990 its legal name has been Channel 3, to distinguish it from the analogue channels at the time, namely BBC1, BBC2. ITV is a network of channels that operate regional television services as well as sharing programmes between each other to be displayed on the entire network. In recent years, several of companies have merged so currently the fifteen franchises are in the hands of two companies. With the exception of Northern Ireland, the ITV brand is the used by ITV plc for the Channel 3 service in these areas. In Northern Ireland, ITV plc uses the brand name UTV, STV Group plc, uses the STV brand for its two franchises of central and northern Scotland. The origins of ITV lie in the passing of the Television Act 1954, the act created the Independent Television Authority to heavily regulate the industry and to award franchises. The first six franchises were awarded in 1954 for London, the Midlands, the first ITV network to launch was Londons Associated-Rediffusion on 22 September 1955, with the Midlands and North services launching in February 1956 and May 1956 respectively. Following these launches, the ITA awarded more franchises until the country was covered by fourteen regional stations. Following the 1993 changes, ITV as a network began to consolidate with several companies doing so to save money by ceasing the duplication of services present when they were all separate companies. The ITV Network is not owned or operated by one company, since 2016 the fifteen licences are held by two companies, with the majority held by ITV Broadcasting Limited, part of ITV plc. The network is regulated by the media regulator Ofcom who is responsible for awarding the broadcast licences, the last major review of the Channel 3 franchises was in 1991, with all operators licences having been renewed between 1999 and 2002 and again from 2014 without a further contest. However, due to amalgamation of several of companies since the creation of ITV Network Limited. Approved by Ofcom, this results in ITV plc commissioning and funding the network schedule, all licensees have the right to opt out of network programming, however many do not due to pressures from the parent company or because of limited resources. The network also needs to produce accessible output containing subtitles, signing, in exchange for this programming, the ITV network is available on all platforms free to air and can be found at the top of the EPG of all providers. Since the launch of the platform in 1998, all of the ITV licensees have received gifted capacity on the terrestrial television platform. At present, the companies are able to broadcast additional channels and all choose to broadcast the ITV plc owned ITV2, ITV3, ITV4 and CITV in their region. UTV and STV previously broadcast their own services – UTV2 in Northern Ireland and S2 in central and northern Scotland – until 2002, the broadcasters all make use of the Digital 3&4 multiplex, shared with Channel 4
21.
Independent Broadcasting Authority
–
The Independent Broadcasting Authority was the regulatory body in the United Kingdom for commercial television – and commercial and independent radio broadcasts. The IBA came into being when the Sound Broadcasting Act 1972 gave the Independent Television Authority responsibility for organising the new Independent Local Radio stations, Independent Television Commission formally replaced the IBA on 1 January 1991 in regulatory terms, however the Authority itself was not officially dissolved until 2003. It established and part-funded a National Broadcasting School to train on-air, the IBAs approach to regulation was more robust than its successors, and it assumed the ultimate role of the broadcaster. The IBA took a very hands-on approach and placed the interests of the viewer before anything else, for example, if two ITV licensees wanted to merge, or another wanted to change its broadcast name, this would require approval by the IBA. This direct approach extended to also, the IBA could place limits on how many soap episodes could be shown per week. In 1960, two years after the scandal in America, the IBAs predecessor imposed a £1,000 cap on the value of prizes that would increase over the years to £6,000 in 1981 and be lifted in 1993. The Six Thousand Four Hundred Pound Question was only asked every other week so as not to break the regulatory £3, 200/week maximum. For several years until July 1990 the IBA put out a weekly programme under the title Engineering Announcements, transmitted outside normal programme hours. These provided valuable information for members of the radio and television trade. Regional programming on ITV was a concern for the IBA. In particular, the IBAs E&D Department developed SABRE that enabled mainland broadcast television channels to be received for re-broadcasting in the Channel Islands. During the early 1980s, the E&D Department designed and manufactured the specialised broadcast receiving and monitoring equipment used to build the national broadcast network for Channel Four, e&Ds engineers also designed and built some of the first digital audio equipment for satellite broadcasting including systems using data packets. In the late 1980s the IBA was appointed as regulator and transmitter operator for the first DBS service for the UK, in advance of this, the rival Sky Television plc was able to launch an analogue service from Luxembourg regulated satellites. After around a year, the merged with BSB. These assets are now within the portfolio operated by Arqiva, in 2008 the IBAs extensive archive was lodged with the University of Bournemouth. The IBAs Membership of the European Broadcasting Union was passed to United Kingdom Independent Broadcasting, the Engineering staff of the IBA contributed many papers to international standards groups and conferences over many years. Its lasting legacy is a set of IBA Technical Reviews published over a period of 16 years from 1972 to 1988, the complete set of these Reviews as well as some other documents and records is available for free download. The reviews were written by the technical staff of the IBA but some articles were written by others from the Independent Television companies
22.
The Midlands
–
The Midlands is a cultural and geographic area roughly spanning central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders South East England, South West England, North West England, Yorkshire and Humber, East of England and its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important location for the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. The greater part of the area is formed of two English statistical regions, the West Midlands and East Midlands, the Midlands does not correspond to any current administrative area, and there is therefore no strict definition. With more restricted boundaries than the area known as the Midlands. These are also constituencies of the European Parliament, the East Midlands region comprises the shire counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire and the unitary county of Rutland. The two regions have a population of 10,135,000, and an area of 11,053 sq mi. The largest Midlands conurbation, which includes the cities of Birmingham, various part of the Midlands are somewhat poetically referred to as the Heart of England, especially in tourist literature. The various areas of the Midlands have their own character, giving rise to a high number of local history. Nottingham played a part in the English Civil War, which is commemorated in a number of place names. Areas such as Derbyshires Amber Valley and Erewash combine attractive countryside with industrial heritage and are home to historic canals, the Black Country, broadly the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Wolverhampton and Walsall, played an important part in the Industrial Revolution. The Midlands is predominantly low-lying and flat in character, although isolated hills such as Turners Hill have extensive views. Upland areas lie in the west and north of the region with the Shropshire Hills to the west, close to the Welsh border, the Shropshire Hills reach heights of over 500 m, including the Long Mynd, Clee Hills and Stiperstones ridge. Wenlock Edge, running through the middle of the Shropshire Hills AONB, is a long, low ridge, the Peak District reaches heights of between 300 m and 600 m with Kinder Scout being the highest point at 636 m. Further south, the Welsh border reaches over 700 m high, at Black Mountain, other small areas of lower hills in the Midlands include Cannock Chase in Staffordshire, Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, and the Lincolnshire Wolds in Lincolnshire. The Cotswolds – designated an AONB in 1966, – extend for over 90 miles through six counties, but centred on Gloucestershire. They reach a highest point of 330 m at Cleeve Hill, the Malverns are formed of some of the oldest rock in England and extend for some 13 km through two West Midlands counties as well as northern Gloucestershire in the southwest. The highest point of the hills is the Worcestershire Beacon at 425 m above sea level, the Midlands has a temperate maritime climate. With cold, cloudy, wet winters and comfortable, mostly dry, the temperature usually ranges from −0.4 °C during winter nights to 24.1 °C during summer days
23.
BBC
–
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. It is headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, the BBC is the worlds oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees. It employs over 20,950 staff in total,16,672 of whom are in public sector broadcasting, the total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time, flexible, and fixed contract staff are included. The BBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, and used to fund the BBCs radio, TV, britains first live public broadcast from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford took place in June 1920. It was sponsored by the Daily Mails Lord Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian Soprano Dame Nellie Melba, the Melba broadcast caught the peoples imagination and marked a turning point in the British publics attitude to radio. However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office, was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts. But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests, John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its General Manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast. The company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved manufacturers, to this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to inform, educate and entertain. The financial arrangements soon proved inadequate, set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets. By mid-1923, discussions between the GPO and the BBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster-General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Sykes Committee and this was to be followed by a simple 10 shillings licence fee with no royalty once the wireless manufactures protection expired. The BBCs broadcasting monopoly was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, the BBC was also banned from presenting news bulletins before 19.00, and required to source all news from external wire services. Mid-1925 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Crawford committee, by now the BBC under Reiths leadership had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit the loss making consortium with Reith keen that the BBC be seen as a service rather than a commercial enterprise. The recommendations of the Crawford Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the 1926 general strike broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production and with restrictions on news bulletins waived the BBC suddenly became the source of news for the duration of the crisis. The crisis placed the BBC in a delicate position, the Government was divided on how to handle the BBC but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PMs own
24.
EastEnders
–
EastEnders is a long running British soap opera created by Julia Smith and Tony Holland which has been broadcast on BBC One since 1985. Set in the East End of London in the fictional Bough of Walford the programme follows the stories of local residents, the series was initially screened as two 30-minute episodes per week however since 2001, episodes have been broadcast every day apart from Wednesdays and weekends. Same-day repeats and omnibus editions of the series were previously shown on BBC Three however as of 2016 these are broadcast on UK-based TV channel W. They gave the job of creating this new soap to script writer Tony Holland and producer Julia Smith and they created twenty-four original characters for the show, based upon Hollands own family, and people they remembered from their own experiences in the East End. Granada Television gave Smith unrestricted access to the Coronation Street production for a month so that she could get a sense how a continuing drama was produced and they cast actors for their characters, and began to film the show at BBC Elstree Centre in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire. Julia Smith thought Eastenders looked ugly written down, and capitalised the second e, the central focus of EastEnders is the fictional Victorian square Albert Square in the fictional London Borough of Walford. In the shows narrative, Albert Square is a 19th-century street, named after Prince Albert, thus, central to Albert Square is The Queen Victoria Public House. Fans have tried to establish the location Walford would have within London if it were real, Walford has the postal district of E20. The postcode district was selected as if it were part of the actual E postcode area covers much of east London although the next unused postcode district in the area was. In 1917 the current postal districts in London were assigned according to the name of the main sorting office for each district. If Walford had been assigned in this scheme it would have been given E17, in March 2011, Royal Mail allocated the E20 postal district to the 2012 Olympic Park. The postal district in EastEnders was entirely fictional up to that point, the shows creators opted for E20 instead of E19 as it was thought to sound better. In September 2011 the postal code for Albert Square was revealed in an episode as E20 6PQ, there is also a market close to Fassett Square at Ridley Road. The postcode for the area, E8, was one of the titles for the series. The name Walford is both a street in Dalston where Tony Holland lived and a blend of Walthamstow and Stratford—the areas of Greater London where the creators were born, other parts of the Square and set interiors are based on other locations. The fictional local newspaper, the Walford Gazette, in local news events such as the arrests or murders of characters appear. EastEnders is built around the idea of relationships and strong families and this theme encompasses the whole Square, making the entire community a family of sorts, prey to upsets and conflict, but pulling together in times of trouble. Co-creator Tony Holland was from a large East End family, Pauline and Petes mother was the domineering Lou Beale, who lived with Pauline and her family
25.
Top of the Pops
–
Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly between 1 January 1964 and 30 July 2006. It was traditionally shown every Thursday evening on BBC1, except for a period on Fridays in mid-1973 before being again moved to Fridays in 1996. Each weekly programme consisted of performances from some of that weeks best-selling popular music artists, additionally, there was a special edition of the programme on Christmas Day, featuring some of the best-selling singles of the year. With its high viewing figures the show became a significant part of British popular culture, although the weekly show was cancelled in 2006, the Christmas special has continued. It also survives as Top of the Pops 2, which began in 1994, in the 1990s, the shows format was sold to several foreign broadcasters in the form of a franchise package, and at one point various versions of the show were shown in nearly 100 countries. Editions of the programme from the 1970s are being repeated on most Thursdays and Fridays on BBC Four, Top of the Pops was created by BBC producer Johnnie Stewart, inspired by the popular Teen and Twenty Disc Club which aired on Radio Luxembourg. It was first aired in 1964 and was based on the Top 20. By 1970 the Top 30 was being used and the show was extended from 30 to 45 minutes duration, the show was also now shown in colour following the BBC1 upgrade in November 1969. A switch to the Top 40 was made in 1984, the show saw many changes through the decades, in style, design, fashion and taste. It periodically had some aspect of its sequence, logo and theme tune, format, or set design altered in some way. The programme had several executive producers during its run, in charge of the production of the show. When Stewart left the show in 1973, after nearly 10 years in charge, both Stewart and Nash made brief returns to the show as producer after they left, in 1976 and 1981 respectively. Stewart devised the rules which governed how the show would operate, the programme would end with the number one record. The show would include the highest new entry and the highest climber on the charts, tracks could be featured in consecutive weeks in different formats. For example, if a song was played over the chart countdown or the closing credits, when the programmes format changed in November 2003, it concentrated increasingly on the top 10. Later, during the BBC Two era, the top 20 was regarded as the main point, with the exception made for up. Singles from below the top 40 were shown if the band were up, if a single being performed was below the top 40, just the words New Entry were shown and not the chart position. Top of the Pops was first broadcast on Wednesday,1 January 1964 at 6,35 pm and it was produced in Studio A on Dickenson Road in Rusholme, Manchester
26.
'Allo 'Allo!
–
Allo Allo. is a BBC television British sitcom that was first broadcast on BBC One from 1982 to 1992, comprising eighty-five episodes. The story is set in a small-town café in German-occupied France during the Second World War and it is a parody of another BBC programme, the wartime drama Secret Army. Allo, Allo. was created by David Croft, who wrote the theme music. Lloyd and Croft wrote the first six series, the remaining series were written by Lloyd and Paul Adam. Set during the Second World War, Allo Allo, tells the fictitious story of René Artois, a café owner in the town of Nouvion, France. Military from the Axis powers have occupied the town and stolen all of its valuable artefacts and these include a painting of The Fallen Madonna by Van Klomp. Two officers, Colonel Kurt von Strohm and Captain Hans Geering, have decided to keep the paintings for themselves after the war, Hitler also wants the paintings, and sends Herr Flick of the Gestapo to the town to find them. Flick, in turn, conspires to keep them, the paintings are duplicated by a forger, get mixed up, lost, found and are put in knackwurst sausages, and hidden in the cellar of Café René. Other valuable artefacts include a painting of the Cracked Vase with the big daisies by Van Gogh, the first cuckoo clock ever made, at the same time, the café is being used as a safe house for two brave but clueless British airmen, Fairfax and Carstairs. René is forced to work with the French Resistance, led by the fearsome Michelle Dubois, the far-fetched plans of the Resistance to get the airmen back to Britain repeatedly fail. These are some of the running gags of the series. As part of plans, the Resistance have placed a radio in the bedroom of Renés mother-in-law, Madame Fanny La Fan. René answers with Allo, allo, zis is Nightawk, are you receiving me, hence the title of the show. The Resistance is also helped by Officer Crabtree, a British spy posing as a French policeman, however, he does not speak it very well, especially the vowels, resulting in frequent malapropisms. For example, whenever he says Good morning, it out as Good moaning. René is also trying to keep his affairs with his waitresses secret from his wife, Edith, but she is such an appallingly bad singer that visitors to her café often put cheese in their ears to block the sound. In addition, the communist resistance is plotting against René for serving Germans, however, the communist resistance only blow things up for money. Furthermore, the seemingly gay German Lieutenant Gruber is also continually flirting with René and these situations are more humorous because René is not stereotypically attractive, is not considered a hero, and is often forced by his wife to undertake missions and secret operations
27.
You Rang, M'Lord?
–
You Rang MLord. is a BBC television sitcom written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, the creators of Dads Army, It Aint Half Hot Mum and Hi-de-Hi. It was broadcast between 1990 and 1993 on the BBC, also featured were Donald Hewlett and Michael Knowles from Perry and Crofts It Aint Half Hot Mum, and Bill Pertwee and occasionally Frank Williams from Dads Army. Numerous small parts were played by other alumni of David Croft and/or Jimmy Perry shows, the memorable 1920s-style theme tune was sung by Bob Monkhouse. Episodes of You Rang MLord. were fifty minutes long, rather than the usual thirty, there was also less reliance on filmed location sequences. The series, in common with all situation comedies of its time, was filmed in front of a studio audience. Mark Lewisohn notes that the writers were careful to ensure that the sets, lighting, for a situation comedy, the episodes are an unconventional length. The 50 minute duration was Crofts idea, as he felt this would give them the opportunity to develop characters and this was supported by Gareth Gwenlan, head of BBC comedy. This coupled with production values and attention to period detail gives the series the feel of a comedy drama. The sets were subsequently improved for the first series, other locations include the seafront at Cromer, Lynford Hall and Oxburgh Hall as the bishops palace. The 1st World War battle scene at the beginning of the episode was built in Long Valley. The exterior of the Meldrum house is seen, although the pilot featured exterior shots of an actual building. 15, Holland Villas Road, London W14, but later took place at a mockup built on the car park at BBC Elstree Studios or location in Norfolk. The first two series were directed by David Croft who then handed over directing duties to Roy Gould, his Production Manager for many years, the series opening and closing music was written by Jimmy Perry and Roy Moore and performed by an authentic 1920s-style orchestra. The vocals were performed by Bob Monkhouse and Paul Shane, in the pilot episode, two World War I soldiers stumble across the body of an officer while crossing no-mans land under heavy gunfire during the Battle of Amiens in 1918. Assuming the officer is dead, one soldier, Alf Stokes, attempts to rob the officer, much to the disgust of his comrade, James Twelvetrees. After it becomes apparent that the officer is not dead. The two soldiers are called to see the officer, The Honourable Teddy Meldrum, who says he is eternally grateful for their services. Meanwhile, Alf Stokes and Ivy, his daughter, have just been sacked from their jobs in a music hall
28.
Grange Hill
–
Grange Hill is a British television childrens drama series originally made by the BBC. The show began its run on 8 February 1978 on BBC1, after 30 years, the show was cancelled in 2008 as it was felt by the BBC that the series had run its course. The drama was centred on the comprehensive school of Grange Hill in the North London borough of Northam. The series was originally to have been called Grange Park, which would go on to be used as the name of the school in another Redmond creation, the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside. Grange Hill was originally conceived by ATV writer Phil Redmond, who first approached various television companies with the idea in 1975, from the start, the series caused controversy for its real-life, gritty portrayal of school life, which differed from the idealised portrayals of earlier school dramas. Redmond has said that he wasnt really able to start pushing the boundaries until later series and this led to Redmond being summoned to lunch by BBC bosses and forced to agree that there would be no further series unless he toned things down. Grange Hills highest profile period was undoubtedly the mid-late 1980s, one of the most famous storylines during this time was that of Zammo McGuire, played by Lee Macdonald, and his addiction to heroin. This storyline ran over two series and focused on Zammos descent into drugs and how it strained his relationship with girlfriend Jackie, the shows other favourite characters during this period were Gonch and Hollo, played by John Holmes and Bradley Sheppard. During his time at the school Gonch took part in many moneymaking schemes, there was a comedic element to the duos relationship that worked well with viewers. Script editor Anthony Minghella, who worked on the series for years during the 1980s. During the 1990s, Grange Hill did not receive the media attention that it had had just a few years before. The teachers were now equals in the narrative, with their lives taking up almost as much time as those of the pupils. In 1994, two characters were introduced with disabilities, Denny Roberts, who had dwarfism, and Rachel Burns, both characters were presented as one of the gang and hated being accorded any special treatment because of their circumstances. This prompted the BFIs 2002 publication The Hill And Beyond to comment that Grange Hill had perhaps become politically correct. Beginning on 4 April 1993, in celebration of the programmes 15th anniversary, the repeats ended with Series 16 in 1999. In the 1990s Grange Hill was repeated in full on satellite and cable channel UK Gold. In 1998, it reappeared on sister channel UK Gold Classics, which was a channel showing programmes previously aired on UK Gold. The channel lasted only six months, however, before becoming UK Gold 2 in April 1999, by 2001, the series was almost entirely issue-led and the decision to tackle the subject of rape upset some parents
29.
Holby City
–
Holby City is a British medical drama television series that airs weekly on BBC One. The series was created by Tony McHale and Mal Young as a spin-off from the established BBC medical drama Casualty, since the shows initial development, it has become a weekly fixture in the schedule. Holby City airs once a week, all round. The show follows the lives of medical and ancillary staff at the fictional Holby City Hospital and it began with eleven main characters in its first series, all of whom have since left the show. New main characters have both written in and out of the series since, with a core of around fifteen main actors employed on the serial at any given time. Seventeen series of Holby City have aired, and the eighteenth began airing from 13 October 2015, the show has run for over 800 hour-long episodes. It is filmed at the BBC Elstree Centre in Hertfordshire, from October 2010, Holby City moved to high definition broadcasting. The series employs a team of researchers to ensure medical accuracy, cast members are taught to perform basic medical procedures, and given the opportunity to spend time on real hospital wards for research. The shows first series averaged 9.27 million viewers, but apart from a rise in its series, ratings declined year-on-year until 2009. The twelfth series saw a rise to 5.62 million. Later series have drawn over 4 million viewers per week. The show began with eleven main characters in its first series. New main characters have both written in and out of the series since, with a core of fifteen to twenty main actors employed on the serial at any given time. McHale was the lead writer for several years, and was the first British writer ever to become the showrunner of a major prime time drama. Seventeen complete series of Holby City have aired, and an eighteenth began airing in October 2015, the show has run for over 600-hour-long episodes. It is filmed in studios at the BBC Elstree Centre in Hertfordshire and it has occasionally featured special episodes filmed on location abroad. From October 2010, Holby City moved to high definition broadcasting, in September 2016, as part of the broadcasters Compete Or Compare Strategy, the BBC confirmed the show would be one of the first put up for tender. A decision on the tender was also confirmed for February or March 2017
30.
Alfred Hitchcock
–
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE was an English film director and producer, at times referred to as The Master of Suspense. He pioneered many elements of the suspense and psychological thriller genres and he had a successful career in British cinema with both silent films and early talkies and became renowned as Englands best director. Hitchcock moved to Hollywood in 1939, and became a US citizen in 1955 and he also fashioned for himself a recognisable directorial style. Hitchcocks stylistic trademarks include the use of movement that mimics a persons gaze. In addition, he framed shots to maximise anxiety, fear, or empathy and his work often features fugitives on the run alongside icy blonde female characters. Prior to 1980, there had long been talk of Hitchcock being knighted for his contribution to film, Hitchcock later received his knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in the 1980 New Year Honours. Hitchcock directed more than fifty films in a career spanning six decades and is often regarded as one of the most influential directors in cinematic history. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else, Hitchcocks first thriller, The Lodger, A Story of the London Fog, helped shape the thriller genre in film. His 1929 film, Blackmail, is cited as the first British sound feature film, while Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest. Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born on 13 August 1899 in Leytonstone and he was the second son and the youngest of three children of William Hitchcock, a greengrocer and poulterer, and Emma Jane Hitchcock. He was named after his fathers brother, Hitchcock was raised as a Roman Catholic, and sent to Salesian College, Battersea, and the Jesuit grammar school St Ignatius College in Stamford Hill, London. His parents were both of half-English and half-Irish ancestry and he often described a lonely and sheltered childhood that was worsened by his obesity. Around age five, Hitchcock recalled that to him for behaving badly. This incident implanted a lifelong fear of policemen in Hitchcock, and such harsh treatment, sources vary on Hitchcocks performance in school. Gene Adair reports that by most accounts, Alfred was only an average, or slightly above-average, however, McGilligan writes that Hitchcock certainly excelled academically. When Hitchcock was 15, his father died, in that same year, he left St. Ignatius to study at the London County Council School of Engineering and Navigation in Poplar, London. After leaving, he became a draftsman and advertising designer with a company called Henleys. Hitchcock joined a regiment of the Royal Engineers in 1917
31.
Blackmail (1929 film)
–
Blackmail is a 1929 British thriller drama film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Anny Ondra, John Longden, and Cyril Ritchard. Based on the 1928 play Blackmail by Charles Bennett, the film is about a London woman who is blackmailed after killing a man who tries to rape her, the silent version still exists in the British Film Institute collection. On 26 April 1929, Scotland Yard Detective Frank Webber escorts his girlfriend Alice White to a tea house and they have an argument and Frank storms out. While reconsidering his action, he sees Alice leave with Mr. Crewe, Crewe persuades a reluctant Alice into coming up to see his studio. She admires a painting of a clown, and uses his palette and brushes to paint a cartoonish drawing of a face, he adds a few strokes of a feminine figure. He gives her a dancers outfit and Crewe sings and plays Miss Up-to-Date on the piano, Crewe steals a kiss, to Alices disgust, but as she is changing and preparing to leave, he takes her dress from the changing area. He attempts to rape her, her cries for help are not heard on the street below, in desperation, Alice grabs a nearby bread knife and kills him. She angrily punches a hole in the painting of the clown, then leaves after attempting to remove any evidence of her presence in the flat and she walks the streets of London all night in a daze. When the body is found, Frank is assigned to the case and he also recognizes the dead man, but conceals this from his superior. Taking the glove, he goes to see Alice at her fathers tobacco shop, as they hide from her father in a telephone booth, Tracy, arrives. He had seen Alice go up to Crewes flat, and he has one of her gloves, when he sees Frank with the other one, he attempts to blackmail them. His first demands are petty ones, and they accede, Frank learns by phone that Tracy is wanted for questioning, he was seen near the scene and has a criminal record. Frank sends for policemen and tells Tracy he will pay for the murder, Alice is apprehensive, but still does not speak up. When the police arrive, Tracys nerve finally breaks and he flees, the chase leads to the British Museum, where he clambers onto the domed roof of the Reading Room and slips, crashing through a skylight, and falling to his death inside. The police assume he was the murderer, unaware of this, Alice feels compelled to give herself up and goes to see the Chief Inspector at New Scotland Yard. Before she can confess to him, the inspector receives a telephone call and she finally tells Frank the truth—that it was self-defense against an attack she cannot bear to speak of—and they leave together. As they do, a policeman walks past, carrying the damaged painting of the laughing clown, the film began production as a silent film. To cash in on the new popularity of talkies, the producer, John Maxwell of British International Pictures
32.
Sound film
–
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923. The primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid- to late 1920s, at first, the sound films which included synchronized dialogue, known as talking pictures, or talkies, were exclusively shorts. The earliest feature-length movies with recorded sound included only music and effects, the first feature film originally presented as a talkie was The Jazz Singer, released in October 1927. A major hit, it was made with Vitaphone, which was at the time the brand of sound-on-disc technology. Sound-on-film, however, would become the standard for talking pictures. By the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon, in the United States, they helped secure Hollywoods position as one of the worlds most powerful cultural/commercial centers of influence. In Europe, the new development was treated with suspicion by many filmmakers and critics, in Japan, where the popular film tradition integrated silent movie and live vocal performance, talking pictures were slow to take root. In India, sound was the element that led to the rapid expansion of the nations film industry. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as the concept of cinema itself. On February 27,1888, a couple of days after photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge gave a lecture not far from the laboratory of Thomas Edison, the two inventors privately met. No agreement was reached, but within a year Edison commissioned the development of the Kinetoscope, essentially a peep-show system, as a visual complement to his cylinder phonograph. The two devices were brought together as the Kinetophone in 1895, but individual, cabinet viewing of motion pictures was soon to be outmoded by successes in film projection and these appear to be the first publicly exhibited films with projection of both image and recorded sound. Phonorama and yet another sound-film system—Théâtroscope—were also presented at the Exposition, three major problems persisted, leading to motion pictures and sound recording largely taking separate paths for a generation. The primary issue was synchronization, pictures and sound were recorded and played back by separate devices, sufficient playback volume was also hard to achieve. Finally, there was the challenge of recording fidelity, cinematic innovators attempted to cope with the fundamental synchronization problem in a variety of ways. In 1902, Léon Gaumont demonstrated his sound-on-disc Chronophone, involving an electrical connection he had recently patented, four years later, Gaumont introduced the Elgéphone, a compressed-air amplification system based on the Auxetophone, developed by British inventors Horace Short and Charles Parsons
33.
Silent film
–
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. The silent film era lasted from 1895 to 1936, in silent films for entertainment, the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, mime and title cards which contain a written indication of the plot or key dialogue. During silent films, a pianist, theatre organist, or, in large cities, pianists and organists would either play from sheet music or improvise, an orchestra would play from sheet music. The term silent film is therefore a retronym—that is, a term created to distinguish something retroactively, the early films with sound, starting with The Jazz Singer in 1927, were referred to as talkies, sound films, or talking pictures. A September 2013 report by the United States Library of Congress announced that a total of 70% of American silent feature films are believed to be completely lost, the earliest precursors of film began with image projection through the use of a device known as the magic lantern. This utilized a glass lens, a shutter and a persistent light source, such as a powerful lantern and these slides were originally hand-painted, but still photographs were used later on after the technological advent of photography in the nineteenth century. The invention of a practical photography apparatus preceded cinema by only fifty years, the next significant step towards film creation was the development of an understanding of image movement. Simulations of movement date as far back as to 1828 and only four years after Paul Roget discovered the phenomenon he called Persistence of Vision. This experience was further demonstrated through Rogets introduction of the thaumatrope, the first projected primary proto-movie was made by Eadweard Muybridge between 1877 and 1880. Muybridge set up a row of cameras along a racetrack and timed image exposures to capture the many stages of a horses gallop, the oldest surviving film was created by Louis Le Prince in 1888. It was a film of people walking in Oakwood streets garden. Edison also made a business of selling Kinetograph and Kinetoscope equipment, due to Edisons lack of securing an international patent on his film inventions, similar devices were invented around the world. The Lumière brothers, for example, created the Cinématographe in France, the Cinématographe proved to be a more portable and practical device than both of Edisons as it combined a camera, film processor and projector in one unit. In contrast to Edisons peepshow-style kinetoscope, which one person could watch through a viewer. Their first film, Sortie de lusine Lumière de Lyon, shot in 1894, is considered the first true motion picture, the invention of celluloid film, which was strong and flexible, greatly facilitated the making of motion pictures. This film was 35 mm wide and pulled using four sprocket holes and this doomed the cinematograph, which could only use film with just one sprocket hole. From the very beginnings of film production, the art of motion pictures grew into maturity in the silent era. Silent filmmakers pioneered the art form to the extent that virtually every style, the silent era was also pioneering era from a technical point of view
34.
British and Dominions Imperial Studios
–
British and Dominion Imperial was a successor to British National Pictures, which began operations in 1925 and was taken over by British International Pictures in 1927. Blackmail, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and the first British talkie, was made at the facility by the company, other filmmakers who worked for British and Dominions Imperial included producer Anthony Havelock-Allan, who made Lancashire Luck there. Alexander Kordas London Films produced The Private Life of Henry VIII, the studio was destroyed by fire on 9 February 1936. The Herbert Wilcox production London Melody had to be completed at Pinewood Studios, in 1996, a plaque was placed at the location of the former studio. Associated British Picture Corporation List of British and Dominions films
35.
Associated British Picture Corporation
–
ABPC also owned approximately 500 cinemas in Britain by 1943. The studio was owned by Warner Bros. from about 1940 until 1969. It formed one half of an integrated film industry duopoly in Britain with the Rank Organisation. He appointed Joseph Grossman, formerly manager of the Stoll Studios, during its early years the companys most prominent work was that directed by Alfred Hitchcock, including the film Blackmail, usually regarded as the first British all-talkie. Hitchcock left the company in 1933 to work for the rival British Gaumont, the company was renamed Associated British Picture Corporation in 1933 and was now in a position to vertically integrate production, distribution and exhibition of films. Under Maxwells paternalistic management the company prospered and during 1937 it acquired British Pathé, the studio at Elstree was taken over by the government for the duration of the war, and film production was restricted to B-Pictures made at the companys smaller studio in Welwyn Garden City. This studio complex closed in 1950, of the 21 films made by ABPC during the 1950s only two were derived from original screenplays. It was a place, said Richard Attenborough when remembering ABPCs Elstree facility. It created nothing in terms of a feeling of commitment, during this period though, the company produced its best remembered titles such as The Dam Busters, and Ice Cold in Alex, whose director J. Lee Thompson was ABPCs most productive during the 1950s. Policies changed after Clark left in January 1958, new projects from the company were limited to those using contracted television comedy performers, and investment in independent productions. The use of Elstree for television production increased, later successful features from ABPC itself included several films built around the pop singer Cliff Richard, such as The Young Ones and Summer Holiday. In 1962, the company acquired 50% of the shares of Anglo-Amalgamated, the entire ABPC library is now owned by StudioCanal. Associated British Film Distributors Ltd. - usually only known by its initials, ABFD British, Warner-Pathé Distributors Ltd. from 1958 Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors. From 1962 Associated British Picture Corporation at the Internet Movie Database
36.
World War II
–
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
37.
War Office
–
The name War Office is also given to the former home of the department, the War Office building located at the junction of Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall in central London. During August 2013 it was announced that the former War Office building would be sold on the open market. The War Office developed from the Council of War, an ad hoc grouping of the King and his military commanders which managed the Kingdom of Englands frequent wars. It was equivalent to the Admiralty, responsible for the Royal Navy, and the Air Ministry, the department had several London homes until it settled at Horse Guards in Whitehall during 1722, where it was to remain until 1858. The first War Office Secretary at War is usually said to have been William Blathwayt and it was, however, a fairly minor government job which dealt with the minutiae of administration rather than grand strategy. Issues of strategic policy during wartime were managed by the Northern and Southern Departments, from 1704 to 1855, the job of Secretary was possessed by a minister of the second rank, although he was occasionally part of the Cabinet. Many of his responsibilities were transferred to the Secretary of State for War after the creation of more senior post during 1794. The job of Secretary at War was merged with that of the Secretary of State for War during 1855, during 1855 the Board of Ordnance was abolished as a result of its perceived poor performance during the Crimean War. This powerful independent body, dating from the 15th century, had directed by the Master-General of the Ordnance. The disastrous campaigns of the Crimean War resulted in the consolidation of all duties during 1855 as subordinate to the Secretary of State for War. He was not, however, solely responsible for the Army and this was reduced in theory by the reforms introduced by Edward Cardwell during 1870, which subordinated the Commander-in-Chief to the Secretary for War. His resistance to reform caused military efficiency to lag well behind that of Britains rivals, the management of the War Office was hampered by persistent disputes between the civilian and military parts of the organisation. The government of H. H. Asquith attempted to resolve this during the First World War by appointing Lord Kitchener as Secretary for War, making him the first, however, this was thought unsatisfactory, during his tenure, the Imperial General Staff was virtually dismantled. Its role was replaced effectively by the Committee of Imperial Defence, the War Office decreased greatly in importance after the First World War, a fact illustrated by the drastic reductions of its staff numbers during the inter-war period. On 1 April 1920, it employed 7,434 civilian staff and its responsibilities and funding were also reduced. During 1936, the government of Stanley Baldwin appointed a Minister for Co-ordination of Defence, when Winston Churchill became Prime Minister during 1940, he bypassed the War Office altogether and appointed himself Minister of Defence. Clement Attlee continued this arrangement when he came to power during 1945, during 1964, the present form of the Ministry of Defence was established, unifying the War Office, Admiralty, and Air Ministry. The records of the War Office are kept by The National Archives with the code WO and it contains about 1,000 rooms across seven floors, linked by 2½ miles of corridors
38.
Warner Bros.
–
Entertainment Inc. – colloquially known as Warner Bros. or Warner Bros. It is one of the Big Six major American film studios, Warner Bros. is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America. The companys name originated from the four founding Warner brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, Jack, the youngest, was born in London, Ontario. The three elder brothers began in the theater business, having acquired a movie projector with which they showed films in the mining towns of Pennsylvania. In the beginning, Sam and Albert Warner invested $150 to present Life of an American Fireman and they opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1903. When the original building was in danger of being demolished, the modern Warner Bros. called the current building owners, the owners noted people across the country had asked them to protect it for its historical significance. In 1904, the Warners founded the Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company, in 1912, Harry Warner hired an auditor named Paul Ashley Chase. By the time of World War I they had begun producing films, in 1918 they opened the first Warner Bros. studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Sam and Jack produced the pictures, while Harry and Albert, along with their auditor and now controller Chase, handled finance and distribution in New York City. During World War I their first nationally syndicated film, My Four Years in Germany, on April 4,1923, with help from money loaned to Harry by his banker Motley Flint, they formally incorporated as Warner Brothers Pictures, Incorporated. The first important deal was the acquisition of the rights to Avery Hopwoods 1919 Broadway play, The Gold Diggers, however, Rin Tin Tin, a dog brought from France after World War I by an American soldier, established their reputation. Rin Tin Tin debuted in the feature Where the North Begins, the movie was so successful that Jack signed the dog to star in more films for $1,000 per week. Rin Tin Tin became the top star. Jack nicknamed him The Mortgage Lifter and the success boosted Darryl F. Zanucks career, Zanuck eventually became a top producer and between 1928 and 1933 served as Jacks right-hand man and executive producer, with responsibilities including day-to-day film production. More success came after Ernst Lubitsch was hired as head director, lubitschs film The Marriage Circle was the studios most successful film of 1924, and was on The New York Times best list for that year. Despite the success of Rin Tin Tin and Lubitsch, Warners remained a lesser studio, Sam and Jack decided to offer Broadway actor John Barrymore the lead role in Beau Brummel. The film was so successful that Harry signed Barrymore to a contract, like The Marriage Circle. By the end of 1924, Warner Bros. was arguably Hollywoods most successful independent studio, as the studio prospered, it gained backing from Wall Street, and in 1924 Goldman Sachs arranged a major loan
39.
EMI
–
EMI was a British multinational conglomerate founded in March 1931 and was based in London. At the time of its break-up in 2012, it was the fourth-largest business group and its EMI Records Ltd. group of record labels included EMI Records, Parlophone, Virgin Records and Capitol Records. EMI also had a publishing arm, EMI Music Publishing—also based in London with offices globally. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE100 Index, other members of the Sony consortium include the Estate of Michael Jackson, The Blackstone Group, and Abu Dhabi–owned investment fund Mubadala Development Company. The new vertically integrated company produced sound recordings as well as recording, the companys gramophone manufacturing led to forty years of success with larger-scale electronics and electrical engineering. He was killed in 1942 whilst conducting flight trials on an experimental H2S radar set, post-war, the company resumed its involvement in making broadcasting equipment, notably providing the BBCs second television transmitter at Sutton Coldfield. It also manufactured broadcast television cameras for British television production companies as well as for the BBC, the commercial television ITV companies also used them alongside cameras made by Pye and Marconi. Exports of this piece of equipment were low, however, the company was also for many years an internationally respected manufacturer of photomultipliers. This part of the business was transferred to Thorn as part of Thorn-EMI, in 1958 the EMIDEC1100, the UKs first commercially available all-transistor computer, was developed at Hayes under the leadership of Godfrey Hounsfield, an electrical engineer at EMI. In 1973 EMI was awarded a prestigious Queens Award for Technological Innovation for what was called the EMI scanner. After brief, but brilliant, success in the imaging field, EMIs manufacturing activities were sold off to other companies. Subsequently, development and manufacturing activities were sold off to companies and work moved to other towns such as Crawley. Emihus Electronics, based in Glenrothes, Scotland, was owned 51% by Hughes Aircraft, of California, US and it manufactured integrated circuits electrolytic capacitors and, for a short period in the mid-1970s, hand-held calculators under the Gemini name. Early in its life, the Gramophone Company established subsidiary operations in a number of countries in the British Commonwealth, including India, Australia. Over 150,000 78-rpm recordings from around the world are held in EMIs temperature-controlled archive in Hayes, in 1931, the year the company was formed, it opened the legendary recording studios at Abbey Road, London. During the 1930s and 1940s, its roster of artists included Arturo Toscanini, Sir Edward Elgar, during this time EMI appointed its first A&R managers. These included George Martin, who brought the Beatles into the EMI fold. When the Gramophone Company merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company in 1931, at this point RCA had a majority shareholding in the new company, giving RCA chair David Sarnoff a seat on the EMI board
40.
Bryan Forbes
–
Bryan Forbes, CBE was an English film director, screenwriter, film producer, actor and novelist, described as a Renaissance man and one of the most important figures in the British film industry. Best known as the director of the film The Stepford Wives, he wrote and directed several critically acclaimed films, including Whistle Down the Wind, Séance on a Wet Afternoon. He also scripted several films directed by others, such as The League of Gentlemen, The Angry Silence, Forbes was born John Theobald Clarke on 22 July 1926 in Queen Marys Hospital, Stratford, West Ham, Essex. A schoolfriend at West Ham was artist Albert Herbert, lionel Gamlin of the BBC took him on as the host of Junior Brains Trust, and invented Clarkes pseudonym of Bryan Forbes. Forbes trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from age 17 and he did four years of military service in the Intelligence Corps and Combined Forces Entertainment Unit, during which time he started to write short stories. After completing his service in 1948, following British Equity rules. Forbes began to act, appearing on stage and playing supporting roles in British films, in particular An Inspector Calls. He published a story collection in the early 1950s, which induced producer Cubby Broccoli to offer him screenwriting work on The Black Knight. He received his first credit for Second World War film The Cockleshell Heroes, while other early screenplays include I Was Montys Double, directed by Basil Dearden, Forbes also starred. The film recounted a bank heist carried out by ex-army officers, in 1959, he formed a production company, Beaver Films, with his frequent collaborator Richard Attenborough. Beaver Films made The Angry Silence, a screenplay by Forbes in which Attenborough took the lead role. It starred child actor Hayley Mills and Alan Bates, in one of his earliest film roles, the film was nominated for four BAFTA awards, including Best Film from any Source. It was the basis for a 1996 musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the L-Shaped Room, his next film as director, with Leslie Caron in the female lead, led to her gaining a nomination for an Oscar, and winning the BAFTA and Golden Globe awards. Comments Phil Wickham, It feels like half a new wave film – a mid-point between the innovation of the Woodfall Films and the mainstream of the British film industry. Forbes wrote and directed Séance on a Wet Afternoon, and the year he wrote the third screen adaptation of the Somerset Maugham novel Of Human Bondage. In 1965, he went to Hollywood to make King Rat and he followed this with The Wrong Box and The Whisperers, the latter featuring Edith Evans. A caper film, Deadfall, starred Michael Caine, in 1969, Forbes was appointed chief of production and managing director of the film studio Associated British. Under Forbess leadership, the studio produced The Railway Children, The Tales of Beatrix Potter and The Go-Between and his tenure though, was short-lived and marked by financial problems and failed projects
41.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
–
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of feature films and television programs. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California and it is one of the worlds oldest film studios. In 1971, it was announced that MGM would merge with 20th Century Fox, over the next thirty-nine years, the studio was bought and sold at various points in its history until, on November 3,2010, MGM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. MGM Resorts International, a Las Vegas-based hotel and casino company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MGM, is not currently affiliated with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1966, MGM was sold to Canadian investor Edgar Bronfman Sr. whose son Edgar Jr. would later buy Universal Studios, the studio continued to produce five to six films a year that were released through other studios, mostly United Artists. Kerkorian did, however, commit to increased production and a film library when he bought United Artists in 1981. MGM ramped up production, as well as keeping production going at UA. It also incurred significant amounts of debt to increase production, the studio took on additional debt as a series of owners took charge in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1986, Ted Turner bought MGM, but a few later, sold the company back to Kerkorian to recoup massive debt. The series of deals left MGM even more heavily in debt, MGM was bought by Pathé Communications in 1990, but Parretti lost control of Pathé and defaulted on the loans used to purchase the studio. The French banking conglomerate Crédit Lyonnais, the major creditor. Even more deeply in debt, MGM was purchased by a joint venture between Kerkorian, producer Frank Mancuso, and Australias Seven Network in 1996, the debt load from these and subsequent business deals negatively affected MGMs ability to survive as an independent motion picture studio. In 1924, movie theater magnate Marcus Loew had a problem and he had bought Metro Pictures Corporation in 1919 for a steady supply of films for his large Loews Theatres chain. With Loews lackluster assortment of Metro films, Loew purchased Goldwyn Pictures in 1924 to improve the quality, however, these purchases created a need for someone to oversee his new Hollywood operations, since longtime assistant Nicholas Schenck was needed in New York headquarters to oversee the 150 theaters. Mayer, Loew addressed the situation by buying Louis B. Mayer Pictures on April 17,1924, Mayer became head of the renamed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with Irving Thalberg as head of production. MGM produced more than 100 feature films in its first two years, in 1925, MGM released the extravagant and successful Ben-Hur, taking a $4.7 million profit that year, its first full year. Marcus Loew died in 1927, and control of Loews passed to Nicholas Schenck, in 1929, William Fox of Fox Film Corporation bought the Loew familys holdings with Schencks assent. Mayer and Thalberg disagreed with the decision, Mayer was active in the California Republican Party and used his political connections to persuade the Justice Department to delay final approval of the deal on antitrust grounds
42.
Star Wars (film)
–
Star Wars is a 1977 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. The first installment in the Star Wars film series, it stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, David Prowse, James Earl Jones, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, and Peter Mayhew co-star in supporting roles. The plot focuses on the Rebel Alliance, led by Princess Leia, and its attempt to destroy the Galactic Empires space station and this conflict disrupts the isolated life of farmhand Luke Skywalker, who inadvertently acquires a pair of droids that possess stolen architectural plans for the Death Star. Star Wars was released theatrically in the United States on May 25,1977 and it earned $461 million in the U. S. and $314 million overseas, totaling $775 million. It surpassed Jaws to become the film of all time until the release of E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial. When adjusted for inflation, Star Wars is the film in North America. It received ten Academy Award nominations, winning seven and it was among the first films to be selected as part of the U. S. Library of Congress National Film Registry as being culturally, historically, at the time, it was the most recent film on the registry and the only one chosen from the 1970s. Its soundtrack was added to the U. S. National Recording Registry in 2004, today, it is often regarded as one of the best films of all time, as well as one of the most important films in the history of motion pictures. It launched an industry of tie-in products, including TV series spinoffs, novels, comic books, and video games, the films success led to two critically and commercially successful sequels, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. A prequel trilogy was released between 1999 and 2005, followed by a trilogy beginning in 2015. In 2016, Rogue One was released as a prequel to the original Star Wars film. The galaxy is in the midst of a civil war, spies for the Rebel Alliance have stolen plans to the Galactic Empires Death Star, a heavily armed space station capable of destroying an entire planet. Rebel leader Princess Leia has the plans, but her ship is captured by Imperial forces under the command of the evil Darth Vader, before she is captured, Leia hides the plans in the memory of an astromech droid, R2-D2, along with a holographic recording. R2-D2 flees to the surface of the desert planet Tatooine with C-3PO, the droids are captured by Jawa traders, who sell them to moisture farmers Owen and Beru Lars and their nephew Luke Skywalker. While cleaning R2-D2, Luke accidentally triggers part of Leias message, the next morning, Luke finds R2-D2 searching for Obi-Wan, and meets Ben Kenobi, an old hermit who lives in the hills and reveals himself to be Obi-Wan. Contrary to his uncles statements, Luke learns that his father, Anakin, Obi-Wan tells Luke that Vader was his former pupil who turned to the dark side of the Force and killed Anakin. Obi-Wan then presents to Luke his fathers weapon – a lightsaber, Obi-Wan views Leias complete message, in which she begs him to take the Death Star plans to her home planet of Alderaan and give them to her father for analysis
43.
Star Wars
–
Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise, centered on a film series created by George Lucas. It depicts the adventures of characters a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. The franchise began in 1977 with the release of the film Star Wars and it was followed by the successful sequels The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, these three films constitute the original Star Wars trilogy. A prequel trilogy was released between 1999 and 2005, which received mixed-to-negative reactions, a sequel trilogy began in 2015 with the release of Star Wars, The Force Awakens. All seven films were nominated for Academy Awards and have been successes, with a combined box office revenue of over $7.5 billion. Spin-off films include Star Wars, The Clone Wars and Rogue One, Star Wars also holds a Guinness World Records title for the Most successful film merchandising franchise. In 2015, the value of the Star Wars franchise was estimated at USD $42 billion. In 2012, The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm for $4.06 billion and earned the rights to all subsequent Star Wars films. Walt Disney Studios owns digital distribution rights to all the Star Wars films, the events depicted in the Star Wars franchise take place in an unnamed fictional galaxy at an undetermined point in the distant past. Many species of creatures are depicted. Robotic droids are also commonplace and are built to serve their owners. Space travel is common, and many planets in the galaxy are members of a single galactic government. In the prequel trilogy, this is depicted in the form of the Galactic Republic, at the end of the trilogy and throughout the original trilogy. Preceding and during the trilogy, this government is the New Republic. One of the prominent elements of Star Wars is the Force and it is described in the first produced film as an energy field created by all living things surrounds us, penetrates us, binds the galaxy together. While the Force can be used for good, known as the side, it also has a dark side that, when pursued, imbues users with hatred, aggression. The sequel trilogy introduces the Knights of Ren, an order of practitioners of the side of the Force aligned with the First Order. The first film in the series, Star Wars, was released on May 25,1977 and this was followed by two sequels, The Empire Strikes Back, released on May 21,1980, and Return of the Jedi, released on May 25,1983
44.
Indiana Jones (franchise)
–
The Indiana Jones franchise is an American media franchise based on the adventures of Dr. Henry Indiana Jones, Jr. a fictional archaeologist. It began in 1981 with the film Raiders of the Lost Ark, a prequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, followed in 1984, and a sequel, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, was released in 1989. A fourth film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, was released in 2008, the series was created by George Lucas, the films star Harrison Ford and are directed by Steven Spielberg. The Walt Disney Company has owned the Indiana Jones intellectual property since its acquisition of Lucasfilm, a fifth film is planned for release on July 19,2019, with both Spielberg and Ford returning. Marvel Comics began publishing The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones in 1983, numerous Indiana Jones video games have been released since 1982. The first film, Raiders of the Lost Ark is set in 1936, Indiana Jones is hired by government agents to locate the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis. The Nazis have teams searching for artifacts, including the Ark. The Nazis are being helped by Indianas nemesis René Belloq, with the help of his old flame Marion Ravenwood and Sallah, Indiana manages to recover the Ark in Egypt. The Nazis steal the Ark and capture Indiana and Marion, Belloq and the Nazis perform a ceremony to open the Ark, but when they do so, they are all killed gruesomely by the Arks wrath. Indiana and Marion, who survived by closing their eyes, manage to get the Ark to the United States, the second film, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is set in 1935, a year before Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana escapes Chinese gangsters with the help of singer/actress Willie Scott, the trio crash-land in India, where they come across a village whose children have been kidnapped. A destructive cult led by Mola Ram has also taken the holy Sankara Stones, Indiana manages to overcome Mola Rams evil power, rescues the children and returns the stones to their rightful place, overcoming his own mercenary nature. Indiana and his friend Marcus Brody are assigned by American businessman Walter Donovan to find the Holy Grail and they are teamed up with Dr. Elsa Schneider, following on from where Indianas estranged father Henry left off before he disappeared. It transpires that Donovan and Elsa are in league with the Nazis, however, Indiana recovers his fathers diary filled with his research, and manages to rescue him before finding the location of the Grail. Both Donovan and Elsa fall to the temptation of the Grail, while Indiana, the fourth film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is set in 1957, nineteen years after The Last Crusade, thus acknowledging the real-life passing of years between films. Indiana is having a quiet life teaching before being thrust into a new adventure and he races against agents of the Soviet Union, led by Irina Spalko for a crystal skull. His journey takes him across Nevada, Connecticut, Peru, in 1973, George Lucas wrote The Adventures of Indiana Smith. Like Star Wars, it was an opportunity to create a version of the movie serials of the 1930s and 1940s
