Cannes & Media

MIPTV Media Market is an event which takes place annually in Cannes, using the facilities and infrastructure which the town has developed over the years to host other important events such as the Cannes Film Festival amongst other events.

It is essentially a content market for co-producing, buying, selling, financing and distributing entertainment content. It provides the people involved in the TV, film, digital and audiovisual content, production and distribution industry .

The congress includes "Content 360" media festival which aims to showcase the best in creative & innovative productions for cross platform (TV, Film, Mobile, Internet) distribution.

The church of StJacques

Filmtips: Music

Nothing sets the mood for your video like a good musical soundtrack. Watch any movie or television show (even news “magazines”) and you will hear music creating a mood that compliments the images on the screen.

Turn the sound off and most of that feel goes away.  it just wouldn’t work. Conversely, the wrong music can do just as much damage. For instance, a beach vacation video would be difficult to watch with polka music in the background. Used properly, music can relax, inspire or excite your viewers – even evoke a response that visuals alone cannot.

Potes and Picos

Videotape is a means of recording images and sound onto magnetic tape as opposed to movie film or random access digital media. In most cases, a helical scan video head rotates against the moving tape to record the data in two dimensions, because video signals have a very high bandwidth, and static heads would require extremely high tape speeds. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) or, more commonly, video cassette recorders (VCRs) and video cameras. Tape is a linear method of storing information and, since nearly all video recordings made nowadays are digital, it is expected to gradually lose importance as non-linear/random-access methods of storing digital video data become more common.

 

Chateau de la Mer: Mandelieu

Filmtips:

At the end of the day its all about editing, isnt it ?

I have to say, in all immodesty, that I have always been very happy with editing. Editing is true storytelling. The best part of filmmaking! and I love that bit.

Theres a old movie expression: in film you write something three times. you write when you write it. you write it when you shoot it. and you write it when you edit it.

 

Water sensation

Filmtips:
As a general rule, the longer your short film is, the harder it is to keep the viewer's attention. This is especially true of online viewing The average time that a viewer spends watching a film is 4 minutes.

Clipper Stad Amsterdam

Filmtips:

In filmmaking, the Rough cut is the second of three stages of offline editing. The rough cut is the first stage in which the film begins to resemble its final product. Rough cuts do not flow well and still undergo many changes before the release of the film.

See also the Beagle sails again video on this site.

Santiago de la Compostella

If your video is too dark very frequent probleml ook for a brightness control to lighten it up. If necessary, then use the contrast adjustment to eliminate fading.

Underexposure due to backlighting is another frequent problem; it occurs when you shoot with a bright light like the sun or a window behind your subject.Software sometimes offers a lighting filter that lets you adjust this. Most programs also offer image stabilization filters that can work wonders with handheld shots, so give this a try as well.

Grasse city of perfumes

For years, producing DVDs was the only easy way to share your videos; now you can share them online, or carry them with you on your cell phone or iPod. Remember that most sites won't let you upload videos longer than 10 minutes or larger than 100MB.

Spanish food

Narrative
This is how a story is organised in time and from a certain viewpoint .
It involves the unfolding of a story : a beginning and an end and “events” in the middle. This intrigue obeys certain rules: for it to develop, the initial situation needs to be modified. The narrative organises the story's space time.

It determines the order and the duration of this story both thanks to the shots and to the sequences. Most of the time it works with temporal jump cuts (what happened between two events is not described). It can use flash-backs or flash-forwards. It can also mark the simultaneity (notably by alternating editing) or repetition (often by a return to identical images).

Asturias inland

Filminfo:
Aspect ratio describes the dimensions of video screens and video picture elements. All popular video formats are rectilinear, and so can be described by a ratio between width and height. The screen aspect ratio of a traditional television screen is 4:3, or about 1.33:1. High definition televisions use an aspect ratio of 16:9, or about 1.78:1. The aspect ratio of a full 35 mm film frame with soundtrack (also known as the Academy ratio) is 1.375:1.

Ratios where the height is taller than the width are uncommon in general everyday use, but do have application in computer systems where the screen may be better suited for a vertical layout. The most common tall aspect ratio of 3:4 is referred to as portrait mode and is created by physically rotating the display device 90 degrees from the normal position. Other tall aspect ratios such as 9:16 are technically possible but rarely used.

Pittoresque Provence

Essence of film
    Filmmaking – process of making a film. Filmmaking involves a number of discrete stages including an initial story, idea, or commission, through scriptwriting, casting, shooting, editing, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a film release and exhibition. Filmmaking is both an art and an industry. Films were originally recorded onto plastic film which was shown through a movie projector onto a large screen (in other words, an analog recording process). The adoption of CGI-based special effects led to the use of digital intermediates. Most contemporary films are now fully digital through the entire process of production, distribution, and exhibition from start to finish.

Anchovy fishing

Dogme rules known as "The Vow of Chastity."
• Shooting on location (no imported props or sets)
• Sound and image produced together

• A handheld camera
• Natural light
• No optical work or filters
• No superficial action (murders, weapons)
• No temporal or geographic alienation
• No genre films
• No signature

Eindhoven, silentmovie

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially spoken dialogue. In entertainment silent films the acting and dialogue is commuted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as film itself, but because of the technical challenges involved, synchronized dialogue was only made practical in the late 1920s with the perfection of the audion amplifier tube and the introduction of the Vitaphone system. After The Jazz Singer in 1927, "talkies" became more and more commonplace and within a decade silent films essentially disappeared.

Cine de LLanes

THE PROJECT

The town council of Llanes has designed a route which travels throughout the borough to visit the key scenes from the films which have been filmed here. There have been 18 full length feature films, 3 television series and a short film shot in Llanes.

Carmelo Gomez«Llanes de cine» This is the name of the project, initiated by the town council of Llanes, which aims to promote tourism and culture. Their aim was to promote the beauty and value of the numerous scenes, places of natural beauty which have served as backdrops for the production of a large number of full length feature films, short films, documentaries, video-clips, television series and promotion films for television. In addition the Llanes town council has tried to pay tribute to and to express their gratitude to the directors and producers who have chosen Llanes to bring their visions to life.

Sports-training video

Filminfo:
A stunt performer or stuntman or daredevil is someone who performs dangerous stunts, often as a career.

These stunts are sometimes rigged so that they look dangerous while still having safety mechanisms, but often they are as dangerous as they appear to be. There is an inherent risk in the performance of all stunt work in film, television and stage work. Daredevil performers are distinct from stunt performers and stunt doubles, as they perform their stunts purely for the sake of the stunt itself, often before an audience for their entertainment and personal monetary gain for the event, while a stunt performer, or stunt double typically performs stunts intended for use in a motion pictures or dramatized television (although one person could certainly be both, as was the case with Harry Houdini, Jackie Chan, Tony Jaa and others). Stunt performers and stunt doubles are generally skilled at performing physical action in character for film and television.

Cote d'Azur: Cannes

Citizen journalism, as a form of alternative media, presents a “radical challenge to the professionalized and institutionalized practices of the mainstream media”.

According to Terry Flew, there have been three elements critical to the rise of citizen journalism: open publishing, collaborative editing, and distributed content. Mark Glaser, a freelance journalist who frequently writes on new media issues, said in 2006:

The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others. For example, you might write about a city council meeting on your blog or in an online forum. Or you could fact-check a newspaper article from the mainstream media and point out factual errors or bias on your blog. Or you might snap a digital photo of a newsworthy event happening in your town and post it online. Or you might videotape a similar event and post it on a site such as YouTube.

CostaVerde (Green Spain)

Info:

It is called green because it has a wet and temperate oceanic climate which allows a lush vegetation to thrive. The climate and landscape are determined by the Atlantic Ocean winds whose moisture gets trapped by the mountains circumventing the Spanish Atlantic façade. Because of the Foehn effect, the southern slopes fall inside the rain shadow zone and so Green Spain contrasts starkly with the Spanish drier central plateau. Conversely, in those brief episodes when the southwestern winds blow through the mountains (especially during October-November[, the effect reverses, the northern coast gets inside the Foehn winds and is dry and much warmer than the inner plateau, where rain is present.

 

Man with the camera

filmtips:

A snapshot is popularly defined as a photograph that is "shot" spontaneously and quickly, most often without artistic or journalistic intent. Snapshots are commonly considered to be technically "imperfect" or amateurish--out of focus or poorly framed or composed. The term derives from the snap shot of hunting. Common snapshot subjects include the events of everyday life, such as birthday parties and other celebrations; sunsets; children playing; group photos; pets; and the like.

The "snapshot camera" tradition continues with inexpensive point-and-shoot digital cameras that fully automate flash, ISO, focus, shutter speed, and other functions, making the shooting of a good-quality image simple. Such cameras are typically programed to achieve a deep depth of field and high shutter speed so that as much of the image is in focus as possible. For expert photographers, who are better able to control the focus point, the use of shallow depth of field often achieves more pleasing images by blurring the background and making the subject stand out.

Arrival of a prince

Filmtips:

Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting schedule. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be speaking a different language. The procedure was sometimes practised in musicals when the actor had an unsatisfactory singing voice, and remains in use to enable the screening of audio-visual material to a mass audience in countries where viewers do not speak the same language as the original performers. "Dubbing" also describes the process of an actor's re-recording lines spoken during filming and which must be replaced to improve audio quality or reflect dialog changes. This process is called additional dialogue recording, or ADR for short. Music is also dubbed onto a film after editing is completed.

Fiesta Espana

Interlacing

Video can be interlaced or progressive. Interlacing was invented as a way to achieve good visual quality within the limitations of a narrow bandwidth. The horizontal scan lines of each interlaced frame are numbered consecutively and partitioned into two fields: the odd field consisting of the odd-numbered lines and the even field consisting of the even-numbered lines.
Abbreviated video resolution specifications often include an i to indicate interlacing. For example, PAL video format is often specified as 576i50, where 576 indicates the vertical line resolution, i indicates interlacing, and 50 indicates 50 fields (half-frames) per second.

In progressive scan systems, each refresh period updates all of the scan lines. The result is a higher spatial resolution and a lack of various artifacts that can make parts of a stationary picture appear to be moving or flashing.

A procedure known as deinterlacing can be used for converting an interlaced stream, such as analog, DVD, or satellite, Deinterlacing cannot, however, produce a video quality that is equivalent to true progressive scan source material.

Ribadeo

Filmtips:

• Video quality is measured in lines of resolution, the number of tiny horizontal stripes of color the playback uses to fill your TV screen. As you can see by this table, digital camcorders blow every previous tape format out of the water.
  All camcorders, TVs, and VCRs have the same vertical resolution; this table measures horizontal resolution.)
  VHS, VHS-C

Circus animals

Many animal welfare and animal rights organizations are opposed to the use of wild animals in circuses. The animal rights groups also oppose the use of domestic animals, such as horses or dogs, in circuses. Many of these groups actively campaign against circuses by staging protests to increase awareness of animal rights' violations and to urge circus-goers to boycott circuses and to patronize only animal-free circuses. The groups assert that animals used in the circus are subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment during training, harsh conditions during transport, and a general lack of mental and physical stimulation.
An official dutch university report concluded;
Wild animals in circuses suffer through the inability to exhibit natural behavior and boredom, lack of exercise, overcrowding and frequent, prolonged transport situations.
From the observed animals in the Netherlands showed 71% clinical abnormalities.
Elephants are the most affected of all circus animals. They are approximately 17 hours per day (unnecessarily) chained to a front and rear leg and have averaged over 10 hours a day deviant behavior, which is a symptom of chronic and severe stress.

Fishing village in green Spain

In photography, panning refers to the horizontal movement or rotation of a still or video camera, or the scanning of a subject horizontally on video or a display device.
Movie and television cameras pan by turning horizontally on a vertical axis, but the effect may be enhanced by adding other techniques, such as rails to move the whole camera platform. Slow panning is also combined with zooming in or out on a single subject, leaving the subject in the same portion of the frame, to emphasize or de-emphasize the subject respectively.

In video technology, the use of a camera to scan a subject horizontally is called panning.

The term panning is derived from panorama a word originally coined in 1787 by Robert Barker for the 18th century version of these applications, a machine that unrolled or unfolded a long horizontal painting to give the impression the scene was passing by.

The Elephant .........man!!

The Elephant Man is a 1980 drama film based on the story of Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the film), a severely deformed man in 19th century London. The film was directed by David Lynch The screenplay was adapted by Lynch, Christopher De Vore, and Eric Bergren from the books The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences (1923) by Sir Frederick Treves and The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity by Ashley Montagu. It was shot in black-and-white.

The Elephant Man was recognized as a critical and commercial success, and received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture in 1981.

Some critics have dismissed The Elephant Man as an exercise in emotional manipulation, however I believe this completely misses the point. All films are manipulative to some degree, but it is a manipulation in which we as an audience engage by consent. The Elephant Man will stand the final test and it will be appreciated fully by future audiences, in much the same way as Citizen Kane had to wait for some decades until audiences were able to fully comprehend its greatness.

Roman aqueducts & waterworks

Although particularly associated with the Romans, aqueducts were devised much earlier in the Near East and Indian subcontinent, where peoples such as the Egyptians and Harappans built sophisticated irrigation systems. Roman-style aqueducts were used as early as the 7th century BC, when the Assyrians built an 80 km long limestone aqueduct, 10 m high and 300 m wide, to carry water across a valley to their capital city, Nineveh.


Purchased film content is downloaded onto an editing work station hard drive and third-party editors manually re-edit the video and audio tracks, removing objectionable content. Some manual re-edits are done by fans

Artwork in a Spanish monastery

Using Natural Lighting

Shooting in full noon-day sun is not recommended as it casts harsh shadows on a person's face. You're better off shooting in full shade and optionally bouncing extra light into the scene with reflectors. Similarly, shooting in partial shade with intense sunlight will create a very high contrast scene. Shooting out of the shade can be great in the morning or evening, just remember that your lighting will be in flux and eventually too dark or too light. Overcast days are great for getting even lighting.

Altamira Cave

The Altamira Cave, discovered by Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola in 1879, are located in one of the hills that surround the nice valley where Santillana village is placed. Its discovery started big polemics between the archaeologists, because they did not believe that prehistoric men were able to do such perfect paintings. The main gallery, called the polychromes chamber, is also known as the Cappella Sistina of the quaternary art.
In its ceiling there are nearly a hundred of animals and signs, especially bisons in different postures , with other animals as deers, horses, wild boars and

Max Havelaar by Multatuli

The colonial control of Indonesia had passed from the Dutch East India Company (VOC) to the Dutch government due to the economic failure of the VOC. In order to increase revenue, the Dutch colonial government implemented a series of policies termed the Cultivation System (Dutch: cultuurstelsel), which mandated Indonesian farmers to grow a quota of commercially tradable crops such as tea and coffee, instead of growing staple foods such as rice. At the same time, the colonial government also implemented a tax collection system in which the collecting agents were paid by commission. The combination of these two strategies caused widespread abuse of colonial power, especially on the islands of Java and Sumatra, resulting in abject poverty and widespread starvation among the farmers. Multatuli wrote Max Havelaar in protest against these colonial policies. Despite its terse writing style, it raised the awareness of Europeans living in Europe at the time that the wealth that they enjoyed was the result of suffering in other parts of the world. This awareness eventually formed the motivation for the new Ethical Policy by which the Dutch colonial government attempted to "repay" their debt to their colonial subjects by providing education to some classes of natives, generally members of the elite loyal to the colonial government. A follow-up to the recent video "Multatuli's Amsterdam" also on this site.

Carnival: Apotheosis

Filmtips:

A soundscape is a sound or combination of sounds that forms or arises from an immersive environment. The study of soundscape is the subject of acoustic ecology. The idea of soundscape refers to both the natural acoustic environment, consisting of natural sounds, including animal vocalizations and, for instance, the sounds of weather and other natural elements; and environmental sounds created by humans, through musical composition, sound design, and other ordinary human activities including conversation, work, and sounds of mechanical origin resulting from use of industrial technology. The disruption of these acoustic environments results in noise pollution.

The term "soundscape" can also refer to an audio recording or performance of sounds that create the sensation of experiencing a particular acoustic environment, or compositions created using the "found sounds" of an acoustic environment, either exclusively or in conjunction with musical performances.

 

Glas

Bert Haanstra (31 May 1916 23 October 1997) was a famous Dutch film and documentary director and Academy Award winner.

Haanstra was born in the town of Holten and became a professional filmmaker in 1947. In 1958 his documentary Glass, a filmic improvisation made in a glassfactory, won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject.

His price-winning film Glas, not the one above, can be watched on line

Iberian birds

Digital Content Creation is a modern term denoting the creation and modification of digital content, such as animation, audio, graphics, images or video, as part of the production process before presentation in its final medium.
This large field encompasses many segments such as 3D graphics, audio editing, compositing, authoring, etc. There are other terms available such as creative media or multimedia production, but they also apply to processes not done digitally, such as drawing paintings by hand or producing in the sense of financing a project. DCC best describes the software used in connection with output produced by the user and the DCC industry as a whole.

Winehills & waterways

 

What Is Time-Lapse?

To create a time-lapse clip, pictures, or frames as they are called in video and film production, are taken over a long period of time and then pieced together using software. When they are played back, it appears as if time has been sped up.

Atlantic Spain

HDV is a highly compressed high definition format. As a result, it is not naturally compatible with standard definition televisions or DVD players as such. However, both the camera and the VTR have a "down converted" output that can be used to play into astandard definition TV. This output will provide a standard definition (lower detail) version of the HDV original recording.

If however you are going to edit with your HDV footage, it can be captured into an editing system either via the cameras / players firewire connection or alternatively through a firewire to serial digital video converter. From then on, your editing system will be editing a high-definition master and at the end of this process, HD masters or downconverted SD masters can be created to play on TV systems or create DVDs.

11/11 carnival

On November 11 (the eleventh of the eleventh), at exactly 11:11, is the start of the the carnival season The reason for this date is the number 11, which was traditionally the number of fools and madmen. November 11 is exactly 40 days before December 21, the shortest day. This is the beginning of the dark period for Christmas ending February 2 February 2 is the earliest possible date for carnival. This video shows some weird celebrations with prince Carnival and his mates near a statue of a goat where every year a new theme is announced.

 

Weit ist der Weg

A visit to Easter-Germany a couple of years ago
Though it has changed a lot after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there are still souvenirs from the (DDR) past to be found in various places.
Especially normal houses which should be restored or otherwise demolished. Even the communist Trabant car was still running.

Music: Kraftwerk "Autobahn"

Castres

Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures and file footage are film or video footage that is not custom shot for use in a specific film or television program. Stock footage is of beneficial use to filmmakers as it is far cheaper than shooting new material. A single piece of stock footage is a "stock shot" or a "library shot".[1] Stock footage may have appeared in previous productions but may also be outtakes or footage shot for previous productions but not used. Examples of stock footage which might be utilised are moving images of cities and landmarks, dangerous wildlife in their natural environments and historical footage.

Carcasonne Castle

The fortified city itself consists essentially of a concentric design of two outer walls with 53 towers and barbicans to prevent attack by siege engines. The castle itself possesses its own drawbridge and ditch leading to a central keep. The walls consist of towers built over quite a long period.[4] One section is Roman and is notably different from the medieval walls with the tell-tale red brick layers and the shallow pitch terracotta tile roofs. One of these towers housed the Catholic Inquisition in the 13th century and is still known as "The Inquisition Tower".

Images of France

France is the birthplace of cinema and was responsible for many of its early significant contributions. Several important cinematic movements, including the Nouvelle Vague, began in the country. It is noted for having a particularly strong film industry, due in part to protections afforded by the French government.

Muiderslot

The Muiderslot is a Castle in the Netherlands, located at the mouth of the river Vecht, some 15 kilometers southeast of Amsterdam, in Muiden, where it flows into what used to be the Zuiderzee. It's one of the better known castles in the Netherlands and has been featured in many television shows set in the Middle Ages.

The history of the Muiderslot (Castle Muiden, where muiden means rivermouth) begins with Count Floris V who built a stone castle at the mouth of the river back in 1280, when he gained command over an area that used to be part of the See of Utrecht. The River Vecht was the trade route to Utrecht, one of the most important trade towns of that age. The castle was used to enforce a toll on the traders. It is a relatively small castle, measuring 32 by 35 metres with brick walls well over 1.5 metres thick. A large moat surrounded the Castle

Najera in Rioja

Nájera is a small town located in the "Rioja Alta" region of La Rioja, Spain on the river Najerilla. Nájera is a stopping point on the Way of St James.

The area attracted the Romans, who built the town of Tritium on land which now falls within the boundaries of Nájera and the neighbouring municipality of Tricio. Subsequently the area was under Muslim rule and the name Nájera (Naxara meaning "town between the rocks") is of Arabic origin.

Funny Faces

Fun is the enjoyment of pleasure, particularly in leisure activities. Fun is an experience - short-term, often unexpected, informal, not cerebral and generally purposeless. It is an enjoyable distraction, diverting the mind and body from any serious task or contributing an extra dimension to it. Although particularly associated with recreation and play, fun may be encountered during work, social functions, and even seemingly mundane activities of daily living. It may often have little to no logical basis, and opinions on whether or not an activity is fun may differ. A distinction between enjoyment and fun is difficult but possible to articulate,[1] fun being a more spontaneous, playful, or active event. There are psychological and physiological implications to the experience of fun.

Parc de la Ciutat

Getting the pictures
Your images are the meat of the video. Good pictures compel viewers attention and are the proof of your story.Good video is a lot of mental work. Try not to rush. Donât be afraid to stop an interview or move to a new position to get a better picture. Since this is for the Web, remember your image will be quite small. This means you need to fill up your frame. Donât have the subject off in the distance. Keep your composition simple and uncluttered. Get your camera in close to the subject -- donot shoot from across the room.Move the camera to follow action or reveal elements. Otherwise, keep your shot steady. Let the action leave the video frame to give you transition points â let subject get up out of the chair or dance out of the picture.

Rendez vous on Mont Juic

Naturally wooded, the slopes of the Montjuïc were traditionally used to grow food and graze animals by the people of the neighbouring Ciutat Vella. In the 1890s, the forests were partially cleared, opening space for parklands. The site was selected to host the 1929 International Exposition (a World's Fair), for which the first large-scale construction on the hill began. The surviving buildings from this effort include the grand Palau Nacional, the Estadi Olímpic (the Olympic stadium), the ornate Font Màgica fountains, and a grand staircase leading up from the foot of Montjuïc at the south end of the Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina, past the Font Màgica and through the Plaça del Marquès de Foronda and the Plaça de les Cascades to the Palau Nacional.

On a terrace in Amsterdam

In film, a remake is a motion picture based on a film produced earlier. The term remake can refer to everything on the spectrum of reused material: both an allusion or a line by line change retake of a movie. However, the term generally pertains to a new version of an old film. A reproduced television series could also be called a remake.

Towards Tulle

Initially, the Gauls settled an oppidum at the site of what is now the Puy St Clair because it was a site surrounded by cliffs and so easy to get off. After the conquest, the city moved downwards, to the Trech district and the Romans established a temple to honor Tutela, goddess of protection of property and persons. The name of the city comes from this goddess. She was honoured here because it was a ford over the Corrèze where passed a very old road between Brittany and the Mediterranean sea. In the seventh century was built a monastery dedicated to St. Michael. The local population settled around the buildings. The first monastery, destroyed by the Viking invasions in 846, was rebuilt but disappeared in the eleventh century.

Leon Spain

Fictional film, fiction film or narrative film is a film that tells a fictional or fictionalized story, event or narrative. In this style of film, believable narratives and characters help convince the audience that the unfolding fiction is real. Lighting and camera movement, among other cinematic elements, have become increasingly important in these films. Great detail goes into the screenplays of narratives, as these films rarely deviate from the predetermined behaviours and lines of the classical style of screenplay writing to maintain a sense of realism. Actors must deliver dialogue and action in a believable way, so as to persuade the audience that the film is real life.

about Ardeche

The Ardèche is a 125 km long river in south-central France, a right-bank tributary of the River Rhône. Its source is in the Massif Central, near the village of Astet. It flows into the Rhône near Pont-Saint-Esprit, north-west of Orange. The river gives its name to the French department of Ardèche.

The valley of the Ardèche is very scenic, in particular a 30 km section known as the Ardèche Gorges. The walls of the river here are limestone cliffs up to 300m high. A kayak and camping trip down the gorge is not technically difficult and is very popular in the summer. The most famous feature is a natural 60m stone arch spanning the river known as the Pont d'Arc (arch bridge).

 

Alexander Nevsky cementary

 Alexander Nevsky (Prokofiev)

The film was the first of Eisenstein's dramatic films to use sound. (The earlier Bezhin Meadow, had also used sound, but production was shut down and most of the finished scenes were destroyed.) The film's score was composed by Sergei Prokofiev, who later reworked the score into a concert cantata. The creation of Alexander Nevsky was a collaboration in the fullest sense of the word: some of the film was shot to Prokofiev's music and some of Prokofiev's music was composed to Eisenstein's footage. Prokofiev viewed the film's rough cut as the first step in composing its inimitable score. The strong and technically innovative collaboration between Eisenstein and Prokofiev in the editing process resulted in a match of music and imagery that remains a standard for filmmakers. Valery Gergiev, the principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, has stated his opinion that Prokofiev's music for this film is "the best ever composed for the cinema".