Often the only footage from historical events are recorded by designated film crews for news media outlets, and in a time predating the ubiquity of handheld recording devices, this places responsibility and emphasis on the camera operator on the ground to be able to capture the entirety of the event.

Frame By Frame dissects a single uncut shot taken from the battle of Orgreave during the miners' strike in 1984. The news footage depicts the unfolding scene of one of the biggest political battles in British trade union history. With the camera placed behind police lines, the camera operator attempts to capture both the overall geography of the scene and the individual actions of violence unfolding, and decisions are made by the camera operator in the moment as to what should be recorded. The film highlights the camera techniques that are used within the footage, such as extensive zoom-ins and pans, and recreates the shot using the frames overlayed together.

The result is a recreation of the shot that stabilizes the background, allowing for the wider landscape to be laid out as the camera moves. Motion is also captured in the camera movements, but the clarity of individual actions and fast movement is lost as the frames are overlaid onto each other. The film explores the dichotomy of trying to capture the different scales of the individual and the crowd in the battle that has no specific focal point by displaying a frame by frame moving image alongside the end stills. In the end, we are only left with traces and smears of movement against the mass of the crowd, unable to see both the geography and the detail at the same time.