A pair of bovine pulmonary artery endothelial cells explores the environment of the imaging chamber by extending narrow filopodia across the culture medium. Broad, fan-shaped lamellipodia, which function primarily in locomotion, can also be observed. The larger of the two cells is binucleated and stretches across almost the entire field of view. Numerous points of contact are formed and released along the margins of the cells, giving the impression that they are greeting each other by repeatedly sharing brief handshakes of microscopic proportions.

The mitosis of the smaller member of the BPAE cell pair retracts most of its surface extensions and forms a roughly spherical body early in the time-lapse sequence. This process is carried out by many vertebrate cells before cell division. During the video, a strand of cytoplasm, known as a retraction fiber, can be seen stretching out behind the cell. The fiber seems to nearly break away from the cell as it undergoes various contortions during the mitotic process, but eventually merges into the cytoplasm of one of the daughter cells as it settles upon the substratum.

Two actively locomoting cells enter the right-hand side of the field of view near the end of the sequence. One of the cells possesses a very long retraction fiber that trails along its posterior end like a cytoplasmic tail. The other cell seems to hold onto fiber as it follows closely behind its predecessor. When the tailed endothelial cell prepares to divide, the narrow strand is not retracted with the rest of cell's surface extensions, closely mirroring the mitotic behavior of the previous dividing cell.