Documentary & evidence
News and history, from their sources
A news short from a report, with a source tag on every number, or one question from history answered from the records themselves, the real pages on screen.
Film types: 2 · Example films: 4
Galileo's notebook and his printed book, night by night from 7 to 13 January, the drawings ringed and matched; a famous page the library itself calls a forgery set aside.
Example of Investigation Director16:9 · 84 s
Public-domain scans from Florence's national library and the Smithsonian; Carlos's 1880 translation.
Example films
Each film was directed, scored and rendered by a coding agent with one of our skills, from a short brief. Turn the sound on.
Vertical, from Ember's European Electricity Review: solar 13% of EU power in 2025, past coal since 2024, then the turn: gas power rose 8%.
Example of News Director9:16 · 48 s
Ember's report and Our World in Data, CC BY; CC0 and CC BY footage from Wikimedia Commons; the channel is a sample.
Square, from the UN's World Population Prospects 2024: 73.3 years in 2024, above 2019's 72.6 after COVID; then the 30-year gap the average hides.
Example of News Director1:1 · 39 s
UN estimates via Our World in Data, CC BY; the map from Natural Earth; the channel is a sample.
The Royal Society's 1888 report on screen: a police chief's account nearly 3,000 miles away, a London barometer's seven passages, and the committee's probable moment checked against a gas-works gauge.
Example of Investigation Director16:9 · 107 s
A public-domain scan of the report; one quiet line for the lives lost, in the report's own figure.
Film types
Each film type has one director, with its styles built in. Try any of them free first: Starter Director makes a 10–20 second film.
News shorts
A report or a release in under a minute, every number with its source.
News Director
A news short that reads with the sound off, every number with its source.
Built-in styles: Caption News · Data Story · Collage
Built-in styles
Caption News
Huge captions over footage and documents, a source tag on every number.
Data Story
Charts that grow from the real numbers, one point at a time.
Collage
Cut-out photos, paper and highlights, like a news explainer.
Investigations
One question answered from the records, shown on screen.
Investigation Director
One question, answered on screen from the records themselves.
Built-in styles: Visual Investigation · Collage · Data Story
Built-in styles
Visual Investigation
The real pages on a dark desk, one accent that points, a clock.
Collage
Cut-out photos, paper and highlights, like a news explainer.
Data Story
Charts that grow from the real numbers, one point at a time.
Try it free first
Describe it in a sentence: your agent makes a 10–20 second film with its own music. When you want the full film, the director here picks up the same project.
Questions
Where do the numbers come from?
From the report or the record you give it. The News Director puts a source tag on every number on screen, and nothing is extrapolated beyond the source.
Can it tell history from the original records?
Yes. The Investigation Director puts the real pages on screen, notebooks, reports and scans, and points at the line that answers the question. A record the archive itself doubts is set aside, and the film says so.
Does it work with the sound off?
News shorts do: big captions carry every sentence, for feeds that play muted.