Web
Below are some of the web sites and web resources to which I have contributed something. Most of these are mentioned elsewhere on this site, plus there are links to my main web sites on the top menu of these pages, but I've brought the various sites together here for convenience.
Anglo-Boer War
http://www.bfi.org.uk/nftva/catalogues/catalogue/2
My 1997 filmography of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) - that is, the films and television programmes held in the then National Film and Television Archive - is available as web pages on the British Film Institute's site.
The Bioscope
http://bioscopic.wordpress.com
This is my blog on the subject of early and silent cinema. The emphasis is on research, with news and information on publications, conferences, festivals, discoveries, publications, documents and online resources. My nom de plume is urbanora.
British Universities Newsreel Database
http://www.bufvc.ac.uk/newsreels
Between 2000 and 2007 I oversaw this database of (almost) all British newsreel stories 1910-1979, plus British cinemagazines (1918-1980s), with digitised production documents, links to downloadable Pathe newsreels, and lots of background texts.
Charles Urban, Motion Picture Pioneer
Charles Urban was a pioneering producer of non-fiction films between 1897 and 1925, as well as the entrepreneur behind Kinemacolor, the world's first successful natural colour motion picture system. He was also the subject of my thesis.
Diving for Pearls
http://divingforpearls.wordpress.com
Just to prove that I'm not solely interested in early film, this site has used blogging software to gather together quotations on the theme of diving for pearls, inspired by Christopher Smart's lines "For in my nature I quested for beauty/But God, God hath sent me to sea for pearls". It is no longer being added to.
Just a Shop Girl from Brixton
An illustrated essay (beautifully designed by Victoria Saint-Claire) on the poignant story of Margaret Leahy, the Brixton milliner's assistant who in 1921 won a competition to become a British film star and ended up acting opposite Buster Keaton in his feature film The Three Ages. It's located in the Articles section of the Damfinos site.
The London Project
The main output of a research project (which ended in 2005) hosted by the AHRC Centre for British Film and Television Studies, investigating the film business and cinemas in London 1894-1914. The database lists most of the businesses and film venues in London before the First World War.
Spanish Civil War
http://www.bfi.org.uk/nftva/catalogues/catalogue/9
Another of the filmographies I produced when at the National Film and Television Archive, this being films and television programmes on the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) held at what is now the BFI NAtional Archive.
Who's Who of Victorian Cinema
http://www.victorian-cinema.net
This biographical website is co-managed with Stephen Herbert, and is based on the book Who's Who of Victorian Cinema which we co-edited in 1996. It describes the lives of some 300 people worldwide involved in the birth and early development of motion picture films, with a growing number of background resources.
