About the Archive

Anyone is free to browse the site . However, it is intended to provide film makers with a resource of specialised scientific and special effects shots that they can license to use in their own productions. By quoting the clip number and time codes embedded in each clip, they can agree a license for their use and order clean master clips to replace the placeholder downloaded from this site. Please contact us and agree the license before  completing your edit to ensure that you are happy with our licensing terms and conditions

To download collections for private reference or to use as placeholders in an offline edit, simply right click the mouse and select “Save  video as”. Please be aware that some of these collections are quite long and will take some time to download; so don’t panic it things seem to be slow.


ABOUT THE CATEGORIES

The archive is organised as a heirarchy starting with categories. A category is sub-divided into a number of subjects. Some of these subjects may fit into more than one category and will be found in both. Subjects are sometimes narrowed further to a collection of topics.

When you access a topic, their will be a collection of video clips streaming as a single film. You can view this online or download it to your desktop.


USING METADATA

Information about all the clips available in the archive is available as a downloadable pdf document when you click “See Detailed Description". As well as  descriptions of each clip in a collection, the PDF will give you technical information about the master materials availble. 

The information supplied in the metadata is supplied in good faith and is accurate as far as we know. However, we take no responsibility for the information given in the descriptions. It is for guidance only and you should independently check the information and the suitability of the clips for your use. 


ABOUT THE IMAGES

Please remember this is a special effects archive. The purpose of the clips contained here is to provide images that can be used to illustrate various phenomena or processes that would be difficult for most film makers to shoot for themselves or else they might be unfilmable by any conventional means. This is where special effects comes in. Some material may look real but should not be represented as scientific fact. There is usually a comment either as part of the "Description" or in the "Notes" section of the metadata to tell you.

There are four types of image present on this site:

Certain categories such as Landscapes or Microscopy can be considered to be "real". They are obvious because you will probably have seen similar material already.

Models, especially developmental ones, are designed to cover a range of uses and any facts (e.g: age) given in the metadata are approximate. Models are identified as such in the metadata description field.

Internal environments such as blood vessels, hearts or lungs, are created to provide illustrative footage of internal physiology but should never be represented as anything other than a simulation. The effects use real tissue but it is not usually human tissue. However, the tissues are selected because they are very similar to humans and do illustrate human physiology. Often the "Notes" section of the metadata will say "Biological Simulation" to indicate this. None of this type of filming is ever carried out on live animals.

If you need more information about any of the images, you should contact us

© David Barlow 2018