Ephemera: Archaeology on Television

Ephemera, made in 2004 by Sean Caveille, is a short film about the popularity of archaeology/history programmes on TV. At the time, new quick-paced series like Extreme Archaeology (Channel 4) and Hidden Treasure (BBC 2) were desperately trying to capture new viewers by turning archaeology into that most dreaded of adjectives - 'sexy'. Four years later and the BBC are trying to do the same thing again with Bonekickers...

Ephemera has a distinctive visual style which is achieved through placing the importance back upon the archaeology itself: once the interviews were filmed and edited, they were video-projected onto prehistoric West Kennet long barrow and re-filmed. More about this can be found here: http://www.archaeologychannel.org/content/video/ephemera-about.htm

director's website: http://www.timesequence.com

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• archaeology
• history
• documentary
• heritage
• Avebury
• West
• Kennet
• Silbury
• Hill
• Bonekickers
• Time
• Team
• Seahenge
• Julian
• Richards
• Blood
• Vikings
• Meet
• Ancestors
• Chronicle
• media
• video
• projection
• art
• interviews

[Digginjim]

re-watching this Sean - chillingly prescient for whats happening to television archaeology right now....

[SeanCaveille]

Hello Digginjim and thanks for your comment. What current programmes did you have in mind?

[QuantumBabe]

Some intresting things being said here...still I hope that media can help in raising awarness with the general public for conserving history and archeaology.

[taff1976]

Voices of reason here