27-421: Corona Theatre School (formerly Corona Academy ) was founded in 1950 as a performing arts academy in west London. After the retirement of its owner, Rona Knight, it reopened as Ravenscourt Theatre School in 1989. Rona Knight was born on 22 June 1911, the daughter of Leonard and Ellen Edith Speck Knight. She made her first stage appearance at age 11, at a Sunday School benefit. At the age of fourteen, Knight opened
54-752: A BBC and recording soprano. After World War II, Knight attended the Paris school of mime, dance and drama, and in 1950, opened the Corona Academy of Stage Training, in Sutton Lane, Chiswick. In 1955, the Corona Academy moved to larger facilities at 16 Ravenscourt Avenue, Hammersmith , whilst retaining its former premises in Chiswick. The school supplied the young cast for Lionel Bart's Oliver . The Corona Academy of Stage Training closed in 1989, following Miss Knight's retirement. Ravenscourt Theatre School
81-529: A civilian aged 19, was the only ENSA member killed in the war. On 23 January 1945 in Normandy , she was being driven between shows as a passenger aboard a truck carrying stage scenery which strayed into a minefield. She was buried with full military honours in Sittard War Cemetery. Despite many extremely talented entertainers working for ENSA, the organisation was necessarily spread thin over
108-536: A newsreel story can be found in the film Citizen Kane (1941), which was prepared by RKO's actual newsreel staff. Citizen Kane includes a fictional newsreel called "News on the March" that summarizes the life of title character Charles Foster Kane while parodying The March of Time . On August 12, 1949, one hundred twenty cinema technicians employed by Associated British Pathé in London went on strike to protest
135-426: Is a form of short documentary film , containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema , newsreels were a source of current affairs, information, and entertainment for millions of moviegoers. Newsreels were typically exhibited preceding a feature film , but there were also dedicated newsreel theaters in many major cities in
162-771: The Afrika Korps . The only known ENSA theatre to have survived in its original condition is the Garrison Theatre at Hurst Castle in the New Forest National Park . Created by servicemen in 1939, the proscenium arch still bears the badge and grenades of the Royal Artillery , and the curtains still hang from an original galvanised gas pipe. Shows are presented from time to time by the Friends of Hurst Castle. Newsreel A newsreel
189-654: The DuMont Television Network launched two short-lived newsreel series, Camera Headlines and I.N.S. Telenews , the latter in cooperation with Hearst's International News Service . On August 15, 1948, CBS started their evening television news program Douglas Edwards and the News . Later the NBC, CBS, and ABC (USA) news shows all produced their own news film. In New Zealand, the Weekly Review
216-770: The Services Sound and Vision Corporation (SSVC), until 2 March 2020, when the SSVC re-branded to the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS), with the CSE likewise re-branding as BFBS Live Events . The first big wartime variety concert organised by ENSA was broadcast by the BBC to the Empire and local networks from RAF Hendon in north London on 17 October 1939. Among the entertainers appearing on
243-439: The 1930s and ’40s, and some large city cinemas also included a smaller theaterette where newsreels were screened continuously throughout the day. By the end of the 1960s television news broadcasts had supplanted the format. Newsreels are considered significant historical documents, since they are often the only audiovisual record of certain cultural events. this list is incomplete. Silent news films were shown in cinemas from
270-539: The 1970s, rendered them obsolete. Newsreel cinemas either closed or went to showing continuous programmes of cartoons and short subjects, such as the London Victoria Station News Cinema, later Cartoon Cinema that opened in 1933 and closed in 1981. The last American newsreel was released on December 26, 1967, the day after Christmas . Nonetheless, some countries such as Cuba, Japan, Spain, and Italy continued producing newsreels into
297-479: The 1980s and 1990s. An Australian movie production dramatizing the cameramen and producers of newsreels was released in 1978. The title was Newsfront . Some events featured during the presentation were regarding the 1949 election of the Australian Prime Minister, the rabbit plague, and the introduction of television (1956). A 2016 Irish documentary, Éire na Nuachtscannán ("Ireland in
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#1732793126644324-680: The Cinesound Movietone Australian Newsreel Collection, a comprehensive collection of 4,000 newsreel films and documentaries representing news stories covering all major events. The first official British news cinema that only showed newsreels was the Daily Bioscope that opened in London on May 23, 1909. In 1929, William Fox purchased a former cinema called the Embassy . He changed
351-558: The Corona Dancing School, which proved successful. The dancing and singing group became known as the "Corona Babes" (later known as the "Corona Kids"), and in the early 1930s, began to perform professionally, all around the country. During the Second World War, Knight joined the hospital section of ENSA ( Entertainments National Service Association ). She chose the stage name Rona Brandon, and became well known as
378-568: The Second World War, the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda , a state organization in Nazi Germany for disseminating stories favorable to the administration's goals, created Die Deutsche Wochenschau (1940–1945). There were no other newsreels disseminated within the country during the war. In some countries, newsreels generally used music as a background for usually silent on-site film footage. In some countries,
405-579: The bill were Adelaide Hall , The Western Brothers and Mantovani . A newsreel of this concert showing Hall singing " We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line " accompanied by Mantovani and His Orchestra exists. Many members of ENSA later had careers in the entertainment industry after the war, including actors Terry-Thomas , Peter Sellers and Kenneth Connor . Tap and acrobatic dancer Vivienne Hole, stage name Vivienne Fayre,
432-610: The dismissal of fifteen men on the grounds of redundancy while conciliation under trade union agreements was pending. Their strike lasted through to at least Tuesday August 16, the Tuesday being the last day for production on new newsreels shown on the Thursday. Events of the strike resulted in over three hundred cinemas across Britain having to go without newsreels that week. In 1936, when the BBC Television Service
459-617: The format from a $ 2 show twice a day to a continuous 25-cent programme, establishing the first newsreel theater in the United States; the idea was such a success that Fox and his backers announced they would start a chain of newsreel theaters across the country. The newsreels were often accompanied by cartoons or short subjects . The First World War saw the major countries using the newest technologies to develop propaganda for home audiences. Each used carefully edited newsreels to combine straight news reports and propaganda. During
486-731: The late 19th century. In 1909 Pathé started producing weekly newsreels in Europe. Pathé began producing newsreels for the UK in 1910 and the US in 1911. Newsreels were a staple of the typical North American , British , and Commonwealth countries (especially Canada , Australia , and New Zealand ), and throughout European cinema programming schedule from the silent era until the 1960s when television news broadcasting completely supplanted its role. The National Film and Sound Archive in Australia holds
513-666: The morning, and vocational training in the afternoon. For much of its life, the school was situated near to Ravenscourt Park Underground station , in what is now the Ravenscourt Park Preparatory School. A similar school opened in Kew in 2009, and in 2010, became the Corona Theatre School, partially taking the name of the former school. In April 2010, the theatre school, opened as Ravenscourt, became known as Corona Theatre School. The school
540-458: The narrator used humorous remarks for light-hearted or non-tragic stories. In the U.S., newsreel series included The March of Time (1935–1951), Pathé News (1910–1956), Paramount News (1927–1957), Fox Movietone News (1928–1963), Hearst Metrotone News (1914–1967), and Universal Newsreel (1929–1967). Pathé News was distributed by RKO Radio Pictures from 1931 to 1947, and then by Warner Brothers from 1947 to 1956. An example of
567-512: The opportunity to study six GCSEs , and advanced training in all aspects of performing arts (Acting, Dance and Singing), and the opportunity to study towards a BTEC National Diploma in Performing Arts, at the age of 16. Students were admitted to the school by audition, personal interview, and a written examination. Corona Theatre School ran a school agency, for full-time students, past students, and some actors and actresses from outside
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#1732793126644594-487: The school. Entertainments National Service Association The Entertainments National Service Association ( ENSA ) was an organisation established in 1939 by Basil Dean and Leslie Henson to provide entertainment for British armed forces personnel during World War II . ENSA operated as part of the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes . In 1946 it was re-named to Combined Services Entertainment (CSE) operating under
621-517: The vast area it had to cover. Thus many entertainments were substandard, and the popular translation of the acronym ENSA was "Every Night Something Awful" . ENSA plays a modest role in the film Love Story (1944) in which Margaret Lockwood stars as a concert pianist who makes an ENSA tour to North Africa and the Mediterranean region. The film Desert Mice (1959) follows the fictional escapades of an ENSA troop with Sid James assigned to
648-509: Was "the principal film series produced in the 1940s". The first television news broadcasts in the country, incorporating newsreel footage, began in 1960. Newsreel-producing companies excluded television companies from their distribution, but the television companies countered by sending their own camera crews to film news events. Newsreels died out because of the nightly television news broadcast, and technological advances such as electronic news-gathering for television news , introduced in
675-698: Was a stage school in London, for children aged 7 to 19 years old. The school was founded in 1989 by Robin Phillips, following the closure of the Corona Stage Academy, and the retirement of its principal, Rona Knight. Robin ran the Corona agency for many years, and most of the traditions of Corona were incorporated into the Ravenscourt Theatre School, including the uniform and the teaching format, which had full academic studies in
702-473: Was a totally independent venture, and had no link with the former Corona Academy, although it did use a similar uniform. The school announced, in February 2013, that it would close. Students either attended the school on a full-time, part-time or holiday school basis. The full-time school admitted both boys and girls, from the age of 11, and had a curriculum that pivoted around the performing arts. Students had
729-675: Was launched in the United Kingdom, it was airing the British Movietone and Gaumont British newsreels for several years (except for a hiatus during World War II), until 1948, when the service launched their own newsreel programme, titled Television Newsreel , that would last until July 1954, when it was replaced by News and Newsreel . On February 16, 1948, NBC launched a ten-minute television program called Camel Newsreel Theatre with John Cameron Swayze that featured newsreels with Swayze doing voiceovers. Also in 1948,
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