Notlith · York
Video production company in York for heritage, archaeology and reconstruction
Beneath York lie Roman Eboracum, Viking Jorvik and the medieval city, and much of what visitors learn about them comes through interpretation: panels, guides and, increasingly, film. Notlith is a remote video production company. We build films from photographs, plans, drawings and archive material, with creative direction, AI-assisted imagery, editing, colour, music and sound. In heritage work, the question that matters most is how a reconstruction stays faithful to the evidence.
Remote production · From your photos
Reconstruct only what the evidence supports
Picture a museum wanting to show a Roman street near the Minster, or a trust explaining what a Coppergate workshop looked like. Every building height, roof material, garment and tool in that film is a claim. We work from the archaeologist's or curator's brief, the excavation drawings and comparable finds, and list the decisions each image has to make before any frame is generated.
Where the evidence is thin, the picture itself says so: a softer, less detailed area, a drawn style instead of photographic realism, or a caption marking what is conjecture. The curator reviews each reconstruction against the brief, and anything that cannot be defended is simplified or removed rather than kept because it looks convincing.
Telling visitors which images are found and which are made
Visitors deserve to know what they are looking at. We keep a visual distinction between photographs of real objects, such as a comb, a coin or a timber, and the reconstructed scenes built around them. A consistent on-screen device, agreed at the start, marks each reconstruction, and the credits name the evidence it rests on.
This matters more when AI is involved. A generated face or interior can pass for a document, so we avoid realistic portraits of named historical people and never present a reconstruction as an excavation photograph. Where figures appear, they read as people in a scene, not as likenesses of individuals whose appearance nobody knows.
Collections, archives and permissions
Heritage films draw on material held by different owners: collection photography, archive drawings, aerial survey, images from earlier excavations. Each carries its own licence, and some allow exhibition use but not online promotion. We log every source in the edit with its permitted uses, so your collections or rights officer can check the list before anything is published.
Listed buildings and scheduled monuments raise a separate question: whether new photography is needed and who may take it. Where your team or a photographer you trust can capture a doorway, a wall or a gallery, we send a shot list so the images match the film's light and angles. We do not fly drones or arrange access ourselves.
A gallery screen, a website and a school visit
Interpretation films rarely live in one place. A looping version on a gallery wall plays without sound to people who may stay only briefly, so it needs captions and an image that makes sense at any moment. A narrated version on your website can take its time. We plan both together, so the reconstruction work is done once and serves each setting.
Schools are often a third audience. A classroom version may need a slower pace, a glossary on screen and links to the history topics your learning team already teaches. Subtitles, audio description or a British Sign Language version are scoped in the quote, together with ownership and permitted use of the finished films.
Fictional concept created with AI
In pictures
Catalog demonstration
See the production approach
English, adaptable to your language
Plan the details
Can you reconstruct a building that no longer stands?
Yes, from drawings, excavation records and your specialist's brief. The film marks it as a reconstruction, and your curator approves every frame before release.
Do you photograph our site?
No. We work remotely. Your team or a photographer you choose captures any new images, and we provide a shot list so they fit the film.
Can you use objects from our collection?
Yes, from photographs you hold or license. We record each image's permitted uses so the published film stays within them.
Do you have an office in York?
No. Notlith has no office or crew in Yorkshire. Reviews happen through shared links and video calls with your curators and learning team.
Start with your images
Send us the brief your curator would give a visitor, the drawings and photographs you hold and where the film will be shown, and we will outline the reconstruction work.