Metadata
WORK ID: YFA 3557 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| JORVIK: THE VIKINGS RETURN | 1984 | 1984-04-13 |
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Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Colour Sound: Sound Duration: 26 mins 40 secs Credits: Narrated by Roger Greenwood Jorvik sound designer Trevor Wishart Camera Alan Wilson Sound Barry Box, Kevin Quirk, Graham Ironside. Yorkshire Television Subject: Architecture |
| Summary This programme takes a look at the National Viking Centre Museum in York as it nears completion. The film shows the Museum being completed on the space of the archaeological dig site in Coppergate, York. It features interviews with many of those involved in the planning and construction of the Museum, explaining how it aims to preserve the remains of Jorvik, the Viking capital over 1000 years ago. |
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Description
This programme takes a look at the National Viking Centre Museum in York as it nears completion. The film shows the Museum being completed on the space of the archaeological dig site in Coppergate, York. It features interviews with many of those involved in the planning and construction of the Museum, explaining how it aims to preserve the remains of Jorvik, the Viking capital over 1000 years ago.
The programme begins looking down the Shambles, onto the Minster. Then various museum exhibits...
This programme takes a look at the National Viking Centre Museum in York as it nears completion. The film shows the Museum being completed on the space of the archaeological dig site in Coppergate, York. It features interviews with many of those involved in the planning and construction of the Museum, explaining how it aims to preserve the remains of Jorvik, the Viking capital over 1000 years ago.
The programme begins looking down the Shambles, onto the Minster. Then various museum exhibits are shown going back chronologically, accompanied with a musical soundtrack appropriate for each age. Then there is an overhead shot of York and of Coppergate. There then follows a series of interviews, stressing the Museum's innovative audio-visual presentation techniques and its historical accuracy designed to counteract popular misconceptions about the Viking Era. Interviews include: PETER ADDYMAN (Director, York Archaeological Trust), ANTHONY GAYNOR (Project Director), IAN SKIPPER (businessman and co-financier of the project), MAGNUS MAGNUSSON (broadcaster and Chairman of Stewards, YAT), JOHN SUNDERLAND (Reconstruction Design Director), GRAHAM IBBESSON (sculptor/designer of museum's display mannequins), PHOEBE MCLEOD (Museum Production Manager), CAROLYN LLOYD (Archaeologist/Researcher), ALAN BINNS (Viking ship expert), ALF READMAN (Sail-maker), RICHARD HALL (Archaeologist and director of original dig), JIM SPRIGGS (Senior Conservator). All subject matter of the interviews includes the project's history, development, financing, presentation.
The programme also includes footage of York and its famous sites and historic architecture including the Shambles with shoppers and York Minster.
Parts of the museum exhibitions are shown such as museum mannequins - figures through history (modern-day, wartime, Victorian, mediaeval); various museum centrepieces - detailed reconstruction of Viking settlement with life-size mannequins, smells and sound effects; and museum staff working on displays.
A major part of the project is the dig at Coppergate which is also documented including footage of mechanical excavators, dig-workers, and excavated timbers being winched out of preservation bath.
Credits:
Narrated by Roger Greenwood
Jorvik sound designer Trevor Wishart
Camera Alan Wilson
Sound Barry Box, Kevin Quirk, Graham Ironside.
Yorkshire Television Ltd. 1984
Context
A historic museum in more than one sense, here unearthed, rising upon the site where its own artefacts are dug up, and recreating the people, smells and sounds of the Viking age.
This is an excellent presentation of all that went into making the world famous Jorvik Museum in York just as it neared its completion in 1984. Pioneering a new way of experiencing the exhibits in a museum, the film allows those who dreamt up the idea of immersing the visitor into the past, and those who brought...
A historic museum in more than one sense, here unearthed, rising upon the site where its own artefacts are dug up, and recreating the people, smells and sounds of the Viking age.
This is an excellent presentation of all that went into making the world famous Jorvik Museum in York just as it neared its completion in 1984. Pioneering a new way of experiencing the exhibits in a museum, the film allows those who dreamt up the idea of immersing the visitor into the past, and those who brought it to life, to reveal just how it was done; with Magnus Magnusson providing added enthusiasm and intellectual weight. In his 2014 book on the development of the Jorvik Museum, On My Way to Jorvik, the centre’s Project Designer, John Sunderland, recounts how the idea of making the experience of visiting the Museum like watching a film, presenting it as a story, was a very novel approach; the whole enterprise was a tremendous learning experience for all involved. Since its opening the Museum has had over 17 million visitors and two major refurbishments, bringing it up to date with the findings of the latest archaeological research. The faces of the Viking figures have also been updated by forensic software to reflect better how the Viking inhabitants of York would have looked. In December, 2015 York experienced some of the worst flooding in decades. Heavy rainfall on Boxing Day left almost 600 homes and businesses submerged for 48 hours, including the Jorvik museum. Thanks to staff on their Christmas break wading back through the floodwaters to help, every original artefact from the 1976 excavation in Coppergate which uncovered the buried world was rescued. The museum is set to re-open to the public in April, 2017. http://jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk/ https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/nov/21/york-to-reopen-vikings-of-jorvik-attraction-16-months-after-floods |
