How to find the clip you want

There are two ways to look for clips on the Contemporary Footage website: browsing and searching. To browse, explore the clip categories on the left, clicking the triangles to reveal sub categories. Searching offers further possibilities.

The basic search has three options. Any words, the default setting, will look for any of the words you enter, ie searching "Moscow Russia USSR' will bring up results with any of those words. It will also bring up ‘Russian' because ‘Russia' appears within the word Russian.

All words means you are searching for both words in the list, but not necessarily in the right order. Eg. "Cuba Castro" will bring up clips with both words anywhere in the title, eg "Castro with Cuban flag".

Exact Phrase will search for the exact text you have typed in, and is case sensitive. It is useful for searching for names and places which have a common element -ie San Francisco / San Jose.

Extended Search Options. When your search results are loaded you will be presented with the option of a further advanced search. Clicking on the Extended Search Options button will bring up new search criteria of country, category and film. The pop-up menus allow you to construct more complex searches, eg the word ‘train', exact phrase, and country ‘former USSR' from the pop-up menu to find footage of locamotives in the USSR.

This database is built on a system originally intended only for internal use and is still being updated and refined. If you cannot find the clips you are looking for, or are having any problems with the system, please contact us.