If you ever need footage of a newborn baby walking without the aid of CGI, Paula Lumbard, founder of HD library FootageBank, knows where to find it. "Most people will laugh at this, but because I have a masters degree in psychology, I was able to tell the client that this footage does exist in a 1950s psych research film."

Getty, too, reports its fair share of bizarre demands. "We recently received a rather unusual request from a producer of VH1's I Love the '80s," says VP of marketing Jennifer Burak. "She urgently needed a shot of a body bag for a segment in which a woman - thought to be dead - is actually found alive at the morgue." Getty's creative researchers eventually found - in its deep file - a shot of a hand coming out of a plastic bag. Then there are times when you simply have to wonder which planet the client is on. "We once had a request for 'real' and not 'dramatized' [live] footage of the Civil War," says Burak. Apparently, Getty was unable to supply it. AE