Historical improvised Footage
So, you have an excellent idea for a work. But you come across a problem: How do you create a historical background for your work? You don't have the resources to shoot a scene set in the past and doing a large Intro Dump can feel awkward, besides going against the principles of Show, Don't Tell.Stock Footage could work, but maybe what is available sticks to the historical fact and doesn't quite work with the story...
Well, unless you coul, say, edit it.
Maybe a fictional character is edited into a Team Shot of important Real Life personalties or military unit, to establish his past without having to create it wholecloth. Maybe the author reworks footage of a well known event to give a character a Been There, Shaped History background.
Regardless, of how it's used, the main point of the trope is to use Real Life footage and images in order to create an historical (or allohistorical background to a work to aid in storytelling.
Examples
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier has an image during Zola's Holding the Floor speech pretty much states that the Winter Soldier who is Bucky shot JFK at Dallas, and before that there is footage of Cap edited into a propanda reel escorting German soldiers and a image of Zola among German scientists recruited as part of Operation Paperclip
- Film/Salt
- Iron Harvest intro has footage from WW1 edited with the mechs of the game
- The ending of Call of Duty: Black Ops shows an edited picture of the day of JFK assassination with protagonist Alex Mason edited into.
- Ring of Red does the same thing with WW2 footage.
