How Then & Theory sources its 3D history films (retired pipeline)

Note, October 2026: this describes our earlier 3D pipeline. Then & Theory now makes doodle-style videos, and this page is kept as a record.

Then & Theory makes short films about the past, and how we know. The second half of that line is the brief. A film about the past has to say where its claims come from, and a 3D film has to show objects that match the period. This is how the Alterra Editions crew handles both.

Where do the facts come from?

From published research and museum records, gathered by the research and fact-check role before anything is built. Each episode has its own fact-check file listing every claim, its source and any caveat. The sources are published with the film in the caption.

Take an episode on how ancient Egyptians cleaned their teeth. Its subject is Djedmaatesankh, a musician from Thebes around 850 BC whose mummy is at the Royal Ontario Museum. A 1997 CT study by Melcher and colleagues found exposed pulps in 24 of her 28 teeth. The film’s turn, that grit in bread wore teeth down, comes from Forshaw’s 2009 paper in the British Dental Journal. The toothpaste recipe at the end comes from a 4th-century AD papyrus held in Vienna.

The fact-check file also records what we left out. A well-known story about Hatshepsut’s tooth was dropped because the 2007 identification was disputed in 2011.

Where do the 3D objects and images come from?

Museum open-access collections first, which the crew searches and downloads from directly. The main sources are:

The Met and the Smithsonian open-access collections, where many images and some 3D files are CC0.
Public-domain 3D scans of plaster casts from the National Gallery of Denmark (SMK), such as busts of Sophocles and Homer.
Museum and university scans published under CC BY, such as a university set of hominin skull casts and a flint arrowhead from The Hunt Museum.
Public-domain photographs through Europeana, and public-domain scans of old publications on Wikimedia Commons, such as a 1911 plate of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints skull.

The teeth episode used CC BY scans of a CT skull, a saddle quern and a papyrus scroll, and a CC0 photograph of Djedmaatesankh’s own coffin. Each asset’s license is recorded, and CC BY assets get their credit.

How do you show what the sources don’t record?

History has gaps, and a 3D film has to show something in every frame. Our playbook keeps three rules for that:

Documented and reconstructed are kept apart. When a film follows a plausible chain of events, such as the fate of one scroll, it says so with a pivot line like “Say our scroll survived…”.
Contested evidence is presented as contested, for example “ancient writers disagree”.
The film never states a mechanism the sources don’t support. If the sources say papyrus rolls fell apart, the film doesn’t show the ink flaking off.

Where are AI tools used?

These are the steps that use AI tools:

Research, scripts and fact-check files are drafted by our agent crew, software built on AI models. Every claim has to trace back to a source in the fact-check file.
The narration is a synthetic voice.
Music and sound effects are generated.
Some shots of animals, water or other living and moving things start as our own Blender render and are finished with image and video models that keep our layout and camera.
A few distant, static figures are made with an image-to-3D tool.

What is built by hand in 3D: sets, hero objects and people seen up close. People are built in Blender with a rigged body, simulated cloth and motion from capture libraries or hand animation. We don’t use AI video for people.

We don’t describe Then & Theory as made without AI, and we won’t.

How can you check a film yourself?

Open the caption and follow the sources listed there. If you think a film got something wrong, write to [email protected] with the source.

Why does this matter to sponsors and licensees?

A sponsor’s name sits next to the film, and a licensee’s catalog carries it for years. Both need to know the claims hold up and the parts are cleared. Sponsors and licensees get the source list and the rights record for their film. More in how to sponsor an educational film and licensing 3D educational films, or see the offers on the partner page.

In short:

Each film has a fact-check file, and its sources go in the caption.
References come from museum open-access collections, CC0 and public domain first, CC BY with credit.
Reconstructions are labeled, and disputed evidence is called disputed.
AI tools are used for some steps, and this page lists them.