Just two decades ago, life scientists studied biological structure, developmental anatomy and intracellular processes by describing individual snapshots of kinetic events. Today, with so much bioscience research focusing on dynamic processes that occur on the molecular, cellular and whole organ level, it is important to record events as they happen, over seconds, minutes or hours, in living cells. Photographs and camera lucida drawings of fixed, stained cells have given way to live cell imaging using fluorescent probes, warming trays to promote cell viability and cinemicrography as a method of recording events.