As employers and government grew gradually but increasingly conscious of responsibilities towards the wellbeing of staff at work, so grew the role of film in the workplace. The moving image, with its emotional power and its ability to stick in the memory (especially when resorting to graphic imagery), was well placed to help get key health and safety messaging across both to employees, exhorted to follow safe practices, and to employers and managers encouraged to make conditions as safe as possible (or at least, as safe as the law requires of them). And when things go wrong, the filmmaker may be there to help pick up the pieces, documenting or dramatising the consequences. In the era of videotape cameras and videotape viewing, late in the 20th century, the role of film in ‘Elf’n’Safety’ only grew bigger. This collection explores how it did it