This Online Platform Offers Over 460K Movie and TV Shows Stills

Software News

by Jakub HanJanuary 31^st, 2022

Flim.ai is a smart search engine for movie, music video, advertising, anime, and TV series still images. The Flim catalog currently includes more than 460,000 HD stills and it uses an AI search engine based on neural network technology instead of a tags system. Unlimited access costs €14.90 monthly or €165 per year and there is also limited free access available.

Online movie stills databases can be useful for DPs, directors, scriptwriters, art directors, illustrators, set designers, costume designers, game designers, or any other creatives. It should help with creating decks of still movie images for every stage of a project – pitch, prep, or production. Roughly two years ago, I wrote an article about a collaborative online platform called ShotDeck. This is, however, not the only online database out there. Launched in 2020, the Flim.ai is also an online fully searchable stills database. Recently, the Flim team added TV shows to the constantly growing database. Let’s take a look at the details.

Flim.ai online stills database

Flim.ai, a Paris-based startup, is a smart search engine for movie, music video, advertising, anime, and TV series still images. The Flim catalog currently includes more than 460,000 HD stills and its creators claim that it is the world’s largest stills database. It is useful for all creatives looking for inspiration, references, or visual ideas for their mood boards. Thanks to AI, searching and finding video stills on Flim is quick and easy.

As mentioned above, in 2022, Flim added 22,000 screenshots from 34 TV series and they continue adding new ones constantly. The Flim.ai creators claim they are the first database to add this genre. TV Series became essential in the entertainment industry and in contemporary visual culture.

Different than ShotDeck.com?

Although both Flim.ai and ShotDeck.com platforms seem very similar, there are subtle differences. ShotDeck’s search works with an image tag system whereas Flim relies on an AI search engine based on neural network technology.

According to Flim.ai, the tag search system can be very precise, but also limited because it is time-consuming and lacks detail and subtlety. At the beginning of Flim, its search engine worked with tagging, but this was changed to the AI-based search engine in 2021.

As for Shotdeck, we prefer to say we are complementaries rather than competitors. While Shotdeck is a very technical and precise tool focused mainly on cinema, Flim is inspirational, conceptual, and interested in all areas of visual creation. We have two different visions that result in two different search engines.

Flim.ai / Eglantine Carcedo

Because Flim does not only include movies, with over 460,000 stills, its database is larger than the one on ShotDeck (that currently includes 246,107 stills). Flim plans to pass the 500,000 mark in a few weeks. According to the company, the Flim.ai development team currently works on a new major feature that will be revealed in summer 2022.

Price and Availability

Flim.ai currently runs in beta, but it seems fully functional. You can try searching for up to two images for free and without registration. After free registration, you get extended access. The unlimited access is paid on a subscription basis. It costs either €14.90 per month or €165 per year. For students and teachers, full access remains free.

Do you use any movie stills database for your work? What do you think about Flim.ai? Let us know in the comments section underneath the article.