Who we are

Nature Screen

Nature Screen is produced by Cornucopia TV, a specialist educational film and TV production company based in London, England. All rights to the design, content and screens are owned by Cornucopia. Our contact details are below for all enquiries:

Cornucopia Productions Ltd
5 Rozel Road
London
SW4 0ER

Tel: 0207 062 1060

www.cornucopia.tv

email: admin@naturescreen.org

Cornucopia TV

Cornucopia was established in 2000 as a science-arts specialist TV and Film production company. At first we worked with Channel 4, later with Teachers TV and then the BBC to develop strands for education that addressed both student learning and teacher training. This includes almost all foundation and core subjects as well as international dimensions and the politics of education provision.

Cornucopia has a list of clients that includes all the main commissioners and distributors of educational content. It also has an extensive network of schools, institutions and individual education professional who have in various ways contributed to the thinking behind Nature Screen. There are not many who passed through the doors of Cornucopia who did not get into a conversation about ‘ambient video’.

Cornucopia Productions is a member of the British Educational Suppliers Association and currently provides all the facilities, as well as financial and professional support for Nature Screen. If you are interested in discussing collaboration please contact Ben Dickey directly: ben@cornucopia.tv

Background

The founder of Nature Screen and Cornucopia TV is Ben Dickey. He has many years experience working with schools as a documentary, education and children’s TV producer - as well as being a long-serving Primary School governor.

Among his various roles in production and education, Ben led the secretariat for the Learning Process in 2020 Task Force at the Department of Trade and Industry back in the late ‘90s. It was there that he first proposed that education technology combined with the emerging study of neuroscience could hold the key to a transformation in learning. Little did he know that the challenges of climate change as well as the growing mental health crisis would add significantly to the relevance of that approach today.

As a creative film-maker, Ben’s passion for nature and capturing the experiences of nature on film is the inspiration behind the screens that you see on Nature Screen, many of which Ben himself has made. This creative exploration started on DV cameras in the 1990s and was at first a private passion. It developed using Flip cameras and the famous Canon 5Dmk2 in the early 2010s. Subject matter was dominated by mountains, particularly his beloved Lake District. Now the preferred equipment is lightweight 4K cameras and ambisonic sound recording. The aim is authenticity, rewarding attention and inattention equally - just like nature itself.

There are many others who feature in the Nature Screen story and our Hall of Fame is growing. Firstly the creatives who have helped develop the ambient video art-form that is behind our nature screens - videographers and photographers, editors, directors and fine artists. Then the teachers, schools and academics who have supported the early stage research and development of Nature Screen to address children’s needs. Last but not least the researchers and contributors to the knowledge base upon which the project is founded - many are to be found cited in our knowledge base and elsewhere on Nature Screen.


Nature Screen Hall of Fame

Our thanks go to the following individuals who have been instrumental in guiding the development of Nature Screen. They are too numerous to mention all of them so apologies to anyone not included:

Creatives:

Mark MacKenzie, Emily Rose Peacock, Bernard Zieja, Jack Wormell, Sam Bland, Charlie Druce, Paul Baker, Zoe Dickey, Dan Pearson, Huw Morgan, Allan Sutherland

Advisors, Academics and Educationalists:

Dr Andrew Speakman, Mike Mathias, Joanna Fulford, Kevin Sutherland, Joel Roach, Mike Gershon
Lord Jim Knight, Prof Rob Holdway, Dr Kevin Lu, Dr Rachel Burch, Fintan Clear, Dr Amelia Roberts
Dr Coral Harper