Screen Magazine - Index

Screen Magazine - Screen Magazine: Vol. 29, Issue 12 - Index

You need a quick establishing shot of an airplane soaring into
takeoff. You need a video clip of a flower opening up with
the speed and beauty that only time-lapse videography
can offer. You need archival footage of soldiers in combat
during Vietnam.
Problem is, your budget doesn’t allow for the rental of a
giant commercial airplane, time-lapse videography is too
time-consuming to figure out, and you don’t personally
know anyone who had a camera in Vietnam.
Your best option? Stock footage. The ‘Net is robust with
online stock footage vendors. For its annual stock footage
reference guide, SCREEN chatted briefly with stock footage
experts at several big-name providers about the state of
the stock footage industry and how that particular industry
is faring with regard to new media, copyright laws and past
and potential industry strikes.
The BBC Motion Gallery offers a vast selection of rightsmanaged
and royalty-free video clips from some of the
world’s leading broadcasters: BBC, CBS News, NHK Japan,
CCTV China and ABC Australia. BBC Motion Gallery offers
clips ranging from “Family Life” clips (choose from a father
playing football with his kids or a grandmother reading to
her granddaughter) to aerial footage (establishing shots of
glitzy Times Square to genteel mountains of Maui). Many
clips are currently listed on the website as priced around
£99 (about $194). Its thorough search engine allows a user
to search footage under ample criteria from Category
(animals, business, nature, etc.) to Shot Dimension (fisheye
shot, wide shot, very long shot, etc.), Film Stock (film, SD, HD,
16mm, 35mm), and even Relative Location (interior, exterior,
aerial, underwater) and Time of Day (sunrise, afternoon,
evening, etc.).
SCREEN: What is the general “health” of the stock footage
market? How is it faring in general?
Jan Ross, SVP: I don’t think any single company can
answer for the stock footage market in general. That being
said, BBC Motion Gallery is healthy with only a few minor
symptoms, if you will. There is some tendency in the business
to commoditize what has been, up until now, growing
in value. Motion imagery is becoming less expensive to
create, the cost of HD equipment has come down and
technology has allowed us to share imagery very quickly
with viewers around the globe. BBC Motion Gallery offers
footage that can’t be found anywhere else – footage that
camera people risk their lives to capture – and it doesn’t fit
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Taking Stock
A Guide To The Best Online Stock Footage Vendors
By CJ Arellano and Amy Wilschke
the trend to make it commodity. As a result, we are seeing
the bottom end of the market go for the micro-priced
imagery and the high-end are continuing to come to us to
add value to their productions.
How is the year panning out for the stock footage market
with regard to the writers’ strike and potential SAG strike?
JR: The strike didn’t help with the
creation of new scripted programs,
which in turn has its effect on footage
licensing. We are also seeing the
growth of more reality programming
as a result of the strike, which also
impacts the need for stock imagery.
We do license across a range of
markets, including corporate,
advertising, TV, feature films, digital
signage, IPTV, etc., so the impact on
us has been mostly temporary.
What copyright issues go along with creative uses of stock
imagery, especially with regard to Internet and “new
media” use?
JR: In some cases, we have to assist our clients in getting
further clearances for new media use as these rights were
not always contemplated for some of our older productions.
It’s one more step in some cases, but in no way is it an
obstacle in completing licenses for our customers.
How is the Internet shift affecting the stock footage business,
if at all?
JR: The Internet is helping our business, creating new market
sectors that are in need of quality imagery. It’s also creating
more demand for short-form programs, which BBC Motion
Gallery licenses for these emerging markets.
//www.bbcmotiongallery.com
Global Image Works (GIW) offers thousands of clips arranged
in stock footage collections such as “Lifestyles / People /
Cultures,” “Music / Entertainment” and “Re-Enactments,”
as well as the requisite “Aerials,” “Nature / Wildlife” and
“U.S. Cities” categories. GIW also has special categories
for historic events such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.
GIW footage has been licensed by Martin Scorcese’s “No