Shooting Stock Footage.

[Ronald Reddick]

Steve
No Doubt, was talking to the wife last night on Skype, said they had some snow on the Cape yesterday. Here in Kabul the mountain tops are already covered and getting colder.
The good thing is that in the winter Al Queda tends to be less active, so somewhat safer in the winter then in the summer here.

But as to being a long way from home I agree, the main upside is the company, I am in country for 5 to 6 weeks at a time, then back on the Cape for 4 weeks. Plus video calls on Skype help a lot. So gives you some time to decompress between stints. It is odd how you get used to blackhawks flying over your house about 100 feet up, rattles the windows, etc and I barley notice it. Your mind starts to accept the things we would normally think as odd or disconcerting as normal.

Thanks for the concern
Ron

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Sounds like an interesting situation you're involved in. When you receive the Red and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. I'm a fairly local call from the Cape.

For sure, winter has started to descend upon us here in New England.

 

[Phil Bates]

Phil,

I have a bunch of tornado / storm footage in hd 1080 it was shot on a (dare I say it here) hvx 200.

Is that stuff in high demand on your site? How much does it sell for? A company called thought equity motion contacted me through some discovery channel connections and requsted a demo reel but I have not yet sent them anything.

I'd like to know more about it. Feel free to pm me anytime.

Chip

Hi Chip,

I'm definitely interested. I PM'd you.

Phil
http://www.artbeats.com

 

[Phil Bates]

HI Phil
Checked out your site, very nice. Do you know, or do you guys look for footage from war torn countries such as Afghanistan? My latest stuff has been shot over here as I am managing a TV Network here and in the spare time (Weekends, downtime) out shooting my stuff, working on a Doc, but have some good stuff in HD (XDCAM 4/4/4) of the area, military action, etc that I will not be using in the Doc.

My Red does not arrive for another few weeks, hope in time for when I am on the Cape for Christmas, then you can expect some nice 4K Raw coming from the edge, if I keep my head down.http://reduser.net/forum/images/redsmilies/blink.gif

Regards
Ron

Hi Ron,

Yes, I am definitely interested, and we like XDCAM. I'll send you some info.

Phil

 

[Clark Dunbar]

In response to the initial question on is there a viable income from stock footage.... Yes, as noted from all the responses... both from self representation and thru stock footage agencies. On self repping - it takes a dedicated marketing approach - relating to your specialty market (which takes a lot of time to build) But like any professional income stream, you have to treat it like any other job with a dedication of the time and resources. For repping thru agencies - it also requires the efforts to build a library.. as noted a lot of material either a 'speciality subject' or as a generalist. We see a lot of expectations that stock footage will generate a large income stream - it can and does, but only thru having built up over time a large bulk of material. It requires both the time to build from the shooting and getting it into the market... this does not happen over nite.

For stock footage to be a significant income stream, it must be treated like a job. The occasional adding of a few few clips to the library can generate sales, but they will be sparse in relationship.

The greatest attribute of stock footage (or stills), is that great material will sell for years.... the better the original and in this case the higher the resolution the longer life.

 

[Ronald Reddick]

Great Phil,
Sent you a PM with my contact info.

Ron

 

[Clark Dunbar]

another thing to think about - no matter what distribution you choose.

A great shot sitting in your files and archives generates NO income, if you've got material suitable for stock - there is a market for it - ranging from a small niche sale/use to major markets.....

 

[Chip G]

Phil,

Thanks for the quick follow up phone call!

Looking forward to it!

Chip

 

[Tom Lowe]

BTW, I sometimes get requests directly from production companies or directors to sell them clips directly for one-time use in their projects. It works out great because I can just encode their clips to any format they want, upload them to my server, then send the link, and they paypal me the moolah.

What I am missing is some kind of generic contract or paperwork. How should I handle this? Up till now I have just been doing this with email correspondence, mostly with people I know, so I haven't been worried about it. But now I want to take this more seriously and cover my bases in terms of at least having some kind of really basic paperwork. How do you guys handle these direct deals?

I was thinking I could have a simple one-page contract, email it to them, they sign and snail-mail it to me, I countersign, copy it, and snail-mail them a copy. Does that sound about right?

 

[Pawel Achtel]

It is not common industry practice to counter-sign licensing agreement, but it obviously won't hurt. Email is fine, but you have to type the conditions over and over again for each client. Some clients require full, written and executed contract, so you just give them what they want on case-by-case basis. For the majority of cases I simply put the Terms and Conditions on my website next to the prices: http://achtel.com/footage/pricing.htm

 

[Tom Lowe]

Dude, Pawel, you're getting $3,000 USD per second for (non-exclusive?) TV ad use license?

I think I need to make you my new business advisor! :greedy:

 

[Pawel Achtel]

Dude, Pawel, you're getting $3,000 USD per second for (non-exclusive?) TV ad use license?

I think I need to make you my new business advisor! :greedy:

Some TVCs costs millions to produce. You can charge more than that for TVCs if you have "the right shot". Usually TVCs are not price sensitive.

Having said that, I have to hose down your hopes a bit:

Firstly, TVC requests are rare.

Secondly, you usually license a few seconds only.

Thirdly, the cost of getting high end TVC quality footage, specially underwater, usually outweights income from licensing, not to mention being able to put food on the table.

However, time lapse may be an exception as it is usually far cheaper to shoot than filming fish porn, for example. I'm just in the wrong industry... :biggrin:

 

[Tom Lowe]

hehe.