Glossary · Storytelling
Archival footage
Archival footage is film, video, photographs, audio or documents recorded in the past and kept in a collection, used in a new work to show what really happened.
Why it matters
Archive material is often the strongest evidence a history story has. It also comes with questions about rights, accuracy and context that a careful maker has to answer.
Archives include national libraries, news libraries, museums, company records and private collections. Material may be in the public domain, licensed for a fee, or not available for reuse at all, and the rules differ by country and by item.
An archive clip is a record, not a decoration. It's easy to show footage from the wrong year, the wrong place, or a different event that merely looks similar. Checking the source, the date and what the clip actually shows is part of using it honestly.
Still photographs are often brought to life with slow pans and zooms, sometimes called the Ken Burns effect, or split into layers for a sense of depth. These moves add motion without changing what the photograph shows.
A short about the 1929 stock market crash needs a shot of crowds outside the exchange. The editor confirms the clip's date and place in the archive's catalog before using it, and drops a more dramatic clip that turns out to be from a different year.
Last reviewed 15 October 2026.