Science film

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A science film is understood to be a film whose content serves science and research. Science films are now mostly produced on video . Working on popular science topics is now a domain of television .

history

Eadweard Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey used serial photography to record phases of movement for scientific purposes for the first time. Between 1895 and 1900 the French physician and physiologist Félix Regnault made further scientific studies of movement on film. At the turn of the century, medicine, biology and ethnology increasingly used the medium of film for documentary as well as instructing and teaching purposes. For example, films about Ferdinand Sauerbruch's work were made at the Charité in Berlin .

Types of science films

Research film

The research film is used to log and document very fast movements that are no longer perceptible to the human eye. Special technical devices such as high-speed cameras are used here. Today the film material made available in this way is evaluated with the help of image processing systems.

Documentary film

The documentary film records unique and non-repeatable events or, within the framework of the ethnological film, preserves the living conditions of foreign ethnic groups or elements of folklore . The Institute for Scientific Film in Göttingen has set itself the task of documenting the objective world and preparing the collected films for scientific research.

Educational film

The educational film combines a documentary or scientific character with an educational structure. It is used in the context of school and university training, especially since the 1970s at distance universities .

Popular science film

In popular science films, the social, political or moral problems associated with discoveries or inventions are discussed. The popular science film often made use of a framing narrative action, for example in the biography of doctors and researchers (for example in Robert Koch, The Fighter of Death (1939) or Sauerbruch - That Was My Life (1954)). Other popular science films make use of documentary film , for example in the area of animal and travel films .

literature

  • Gotthard Wolf : The scientific documentary film and the Encyclopaedia Cinematographica. Munich 1965.
  • Gotthard Wolf: The Scientific Film in the Federal Republic of Germany. Bonn-Bad Godesberg 1975.
  • Peter Gürge: Cultural studies filming in transition. The film work of Edmund Ballhaus. Waxmann, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-8309-1852-3 .

Web links

  • Gürge, Peter 2000: Cultural Studies Filming in Transition. The film work of Edmund Ballhaus. Dissertation, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Full text (PDF; 3.3 MB)
  • Historical science films in the online archive of the Austrian Media Library