The Heart of 'The Natural'

Wallace Carlson walks viewers through the production of an animated short at Bray Studios.

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

A day in the life of a train station.

A film about the expansion of the Central Line beyond Stratford.

Time Stood Still is a 1956 Warner Brothers Scope Gem travelogue, filmed the previous year in Dinkelsbühl, and presented in the wide-screen format of CinemaScope, directed by André de la Varre. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film at the 29th Academy Awards.

This short documentary explores just how the film Pumping Iron revolutionized the fitness industry and created an international icon in Arnold Schwarzenegger. It also touches on what Hollywood's idea of an action star was and is.

[…] Though the highs and lows of human experience are all here, it's often the gimcrack set design and fashion chops in these vintage clunkers that really wow – the pot-holder sweater vests, ponytails decorated with yarn, hippies with crumb-catching moustaches, banana-seat bikes and a hard rain of Quaaludes and amphetamines to illustrate the dangers of drug addiction. It is hard to believe anyone would buy the goofball cause-and-effect of that pill-popper's weather pattern in "Drugs Are Like That". Co-produced by the Miami Junior League and narrated by Anita Bryant in this cheery little hand-slapper, a kid stealing cookies from a cookie jar is implied to be headed down a bad road to Bowery bum rolls and LSD parties. (from: http://clatl.com/atlanta/av-geeks-greatest-hits-lessons-learned/Content?oid=1268313)

By land, by air, and by sea, viewers can now experience the struggle that millions of creatures endure in the name of migration as wildlife photographers show just how deeply survival instincts have become ingrained into to the animals of planet Earth. From the monarch butterflies that swarm the highlands of Mexico to the birds who navigate by the stars and the millions of red crabs who make the perilous land journey across Christmas Island, this release offers a look at animal instinct in it's purest form.

"Meat Joy is an erotic rite — excessive, indulgent, a celebration of flesh as material: raw fish, chicken, sausages, wet paint, transparent plastic, ropes, brushes, paper scrap. Its propulsion is towards the ecstatic — shifting and turning among tenderness, wildness, precision, abandon; qualities that could at any moment be sensual, comic, joyous, repellent. Physical equivalences are enacted as a psychic imagistic stream, in which the layered elements mesh and gain intensity by the energy complement of the audience. The original performances became notorious and introduced a vision of the 'sacred erotic.' This video was converted from original film footage of three 1964 performances of Meat Joy at its first staged performance at the Festival de la Libre Expression, Paris, Dennison Hall, London, and Judson Church, New York City."

Originally shown in IMAX theaters, this film presents highly detailed and lavish views of the gorgeous scenery of the Pacific Northwest, both as they appeared before the top 1,300 feet of Mount St. Helens was blown into the sky and during the disaster's dramatic aftermath.

A breathtaking view of Zion National Park filmed originally in the IMAX format.

Scientists visit the remote surface and undersea locations to study various species of whales in their natural habitat.

Ocean Oasis is a fascinating journey into the bountiful seas and pristine deserts of two remarkably different, but inextricably linked worlds — Mexico's Sea of Cortés and the Baja California desert.

A short black-and-white silent documentary film featuring one dog jumping through hoops and another dancing in a costume, which was considered lost until footage from an 1896 Fairground Programme was identified as being from this film.

"All sounds travel in waves much the same as ripples in water." Educational film produced by Bray Studios New York, which was the dominant animation studio based in the United States in the years surrounding World War I.

Shot on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and in the Bahamas, Ocean Wonderland brings to you the amazing beauty of the many varieties of coral and the immense diversity of the marine life thriving there.

Alleged silent black-and-white short film shot at Apsley Gate, Hyde Park, London. It was claimed to be the first motion picture until pre-dating footage shot by Louis Le Prince was discovered. It was never publicly shown and is now considered a lost film with no known surviving prints or stills.

An educational short film about correct speaking methods.

By using special cameras and techniques, David Fortney has captured the beauty of these parks in ways never seen before. Fluid, masterful camera work and serial photography gives you the sensation of soaring over and through the landscape.

A nature documentary about the gulls, who are terrorizing other birds by killing their kids and raiding their nests for eggs. Often interpreted as an allegory of Nazism.