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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

4K Stock Libraries

Mark Thorpe

Mark Thorpe

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Bali, Indonesia.
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www.liquidmocean.com
Hi Guys,
Just thought I'd chime in. Now I know we are all gonna be looking after and cuddling our footage, as and when the cams start rolling. That said my main intention will be to shoot for stock. Didn't wanna get jumped at the gun so I have now registered the domain: www.4koceanstock.com which will be the name attributed to the commercial library I am hoping to establish.

Initially I want to look at setting this up and finding the correct way to deliver the potential for clients to view, massively downrezzed, online footage clips prior to purchasing, similar to www.oceanfootage.com. Again this will initially be a representation of my work but in the future once I have established the site and service I would like to invite representation of other shooters of the Ocean environment in the service.

To expand on the theme I have also registered:

www.4knaturestock.com - For all things natural history
www.4kactionstock.com - For all things action sports / adrenalin related

Just thought I'd share it with you all to let you know that I plan to develop the potential of 4k Stock Libraries at the outset. The initial ocean site will be starting at a very, very basic level and there should be some web presence on that soon.

Hope all is well.

Cheers,
Mark.
 
It's gonna get crowed with RED users running around the world!
We are already established with a stock house and they are already setting up more servers to handle the influx of 4K footage....but I doubt they will put a lot of 4k footage on-line. They have already been selling footage to Nat Geo Channel and a bunch of the news stations that have been going HD.
My plan is to continue stock shooting and set-up for B-unit feature film shooting with the RED.....
 
I plan to shoot stock as well. I haven't decided yet all the various ways I may try to sell/distribute what I shoot, but I will be looking into this more over the next few months. I will no doubt attempt to sell much directly through my own sites, but will probably have to link up with some of the larger more established stock houses in order to move a lot of footage.
 
I think it sounds like a good idea.

I think I'm going to shoot 4k stock footage of other shooters shooting 4k with their RED cameras. :)
 
Very cool CamDiver…and a good business move.

The most valuable asset of any production company, big or small, is it's accumulated footage library, assuming that they hold copyright to the footage. If it's marketed correctly, it is a renewing resource - "The gift that keeps right on giving". I call it "mailbox money", because once you have it rolling for you, you get nice surprises regularly when you visit the mailbox - licensing checks.

For those who haven't made the move to license out their footage, here are the basics:

Representation
You can try to license out your own footage, using your web site, but be prepared for a ton of screening, logging, coordination, dubbing, re-sizing, storage, promoting, contracting (contracts need to airtight), and collection payments. To do it right and maximize the revenue potential of your library, it is a full time job. Remember this analogy: "If it’s fruit you’re after, a slice of watermelon is a lot more fruit than a whole grape!” The point being you may keep 100% of the revenue from your stock footage licensing if you do all the work by yourself, but that can be a lot less money for you than if you have a stock footage house represent you, let them do all the tasks I listed, and you simply get your “mailbox money”. That’s how I market my stock footage. It frees me up to go shoot more stock footage, and to do the many other production jobs I do. Think about it…you can easily lose money trying to save money.

Types of representation
Some stock houses insist on exclusive representation of your footage. If you agree to that, it better be with an established stock house who you know will push your footage – and I’d suggest no long contracts, but rather short renewable contracts. That way, if they don’t perform, you can bail out. Other stock houses are fine with non-exclusive representation, leaving you free to also have your footage marketed by other companies. That’s the path I have taken. I like the latitude to be represented by multiple companies if I choose. Read the fine print on contracts and make sure you understand everything on them. If you’re not experienced with contracts, having it read by an attorney is a good choice.

Representation rates/percentages
If you do some checking you’ll find a wide variety of percentages, ranging from 20% (you) 80% (them), to 50% (you) 50% (them). Usually the smaller companies will give you a better percentage – but they may also license less of your footage out.

Copyright
I can’t emphasis this enough – you want to retain copyright of your stock footage no matter what. Read the fine print of contracts! Your footage should be licensing out, not being sold.

Licensing fees
Licensees pay a fee for use of your footage that is based on the length of the clip, it’s format/resolution, it’s use, and the duration of the license. RED 4k and to a lesser extent 2k footage should command real good licensing rates. It will be super high resolution, and usually be used in high profile projects.

Royalty checks
Most stock footage agencies pay licensing fee checks within 30 days of shipping the footage to the licensee. Some pay within 2 weeks – even better for you.

Promotions
Stock footage houses, whether big or small need to promote themselves, your footage collections, and new collections coming online. Make sure you select a stock house that will seriously promote your footage. There are ones who just list it on web sites, and basically forget about it. Others aggressively advertise, distribute press releases, etc. You should ask your footage reps what subject matter and resolution of footage they feel will license the best – then shoot that. Everything licenses, but some genres license way more than others.

Summary
If you do it right, pay attention to contracts, choose good stock footage representatives, and shoot footage that licenses easily, then stock footage licensing can be a great revenue stream for any motion media shooter. I love shooting stock footage because I get to work alone…just me and my camera. I’m really happy with the stock house that represents my footage. They are establishing a specific footage bank of RED One collections, and the first footage will be promoted and marketed immediately after RED One starts to ship. They represent me on a non-exclusive basis, so I’ll also be looking for additional licensing avenues for my RED One footage – maybe CamDiver, Ralph Oshiro, Omen, and others!


-------------------------------


I hope this short primer helps some of you as you approach licensing out your RED One footage. If you do it right it may be one of the best business moves you’ll ever make, or have ever made. I’ll be happy to answer any further questions anyone has – just PM or email me.

Cheers!
 
Sure thing Mike, I'll PM or email you some thoughts on that later today. Its 1:30am and time for me to get some sleep...

Cheers!
 
Good points Gibby

Good points Gibby

Got all that covered Gibby and thanks for publishing these points for those who have yet to set up footage licensing options.

At the very outset I will be setting the site up to reflect my work. However depending on workload of both myself and any other shooters who could be interested in representation via my sites I will approach the topic of expansion at that time. What I can say though is that I will not be looking to take any ludicrous commissions from shooters, I've lived from stock footage for a while and understand that some companies really do take the piss when it comes to commission levels for stock licensing. I will be fair.

Forward thinking: Representation on my site will entail online biographies, images and an extensive listing of stock. Due to the nature of the imagery I will possibly be allowing each shooter to have a portfolio of say their ten best clips in varying themes, Macro, Wide, Ambient, etc etc. Thats my plan for the outset for my clips but this depending on initial market response will dictate as to whether I change that approach. I will then act as middle man for any discussions between relevant parties.

I've been researching contract guidelines for representation and will continue to do so until I feel I have a fair and straightforward contract which will offer people the confidence and peace of mind to be represented by the future service. These will become available for download via my sites as and when I am ready for expansion.

I may just be thinking out loud but this way at least you can see where I am coming from. Initially the 4koceanstock site will be very much oriented to my work but the whole appearance will change as and when things start moving.

Cheers,
Mark.
 
It begins.

It begins.

CamDiver's great move is a start.
This community will be able to produce huge amount of quality footage.

Gibby made a good point (as always), however, there are some other factors one needs to consider.
Redcode's 27MB/s will take 540 MB for a 20 second clip.
This means that terabytes of dedicated servers with very high bandwiths are needed to be able to have one large database.
The cost of such would affect the price of the service, which would affect interest.

For a while now I'm working on a solution which would enable us to connect all the future stock libraries, without the need for "competition". People interested in creating one, or the ones who already have - you can PM me for details.
 
I'm no longer in the stock business, but had some fun back in the '90's.

I'd been shooting 35mm time-lapse cloud footage for a decade, and though others might be interested in it. I put together a CD filled with .jpg sequences and sold directly a volume called "Colorado Altitudes". Sold quite a few to After Effects folks, even though they had to jump through some hoops to use .jpg sequences back then. Took out an ad or two in DV, but word of mouth on the forums/mailing lists worked better. Had a credit card machine before I even had a personal credit card.

Got the attention of Adobe, who was starting a royalty free line of footage, sold it outright to them for good $$$. Since then, I've seen my clouds from that collection on many national spots like The Outback, Oil of Olay, the Grammys, the Country Music Awards, promos for shows on Fox, TNT, and NBC. Ironically, every shot in there was from the top of one hill east of town over the years. Covered in a sub-division now.

Adobe Image Club Graphics passed to Eyewire, which passed to Getty. I've got a storm footage collection with them that brings in monthly revenues for going on seven years. Also did two complete buy-out collections for London based Digital Vision of clouds and city time-lapse and did all the dust-busting for another 8 collections for their initial roll-out.

Last footage gathering I went on was to NY for four days of time-lapse in May of 2001. Didn't shoot ONE shot of the two towers, focused on the subways and Grand Central Station. Figured those amazing buildings would be around forever. If I don't have better instincts than that, I figured I should get out of the business.

It was a fun ride. Truly was a dream to reality project for me. More competition now I'd imagine, as everyone has a DSLR or an HDV camera. Seen tons of crappy collections from Artbeats shot on DV, not just their quality flagship film to HD products.
 
Jim,
Nice to hear a success story, well done. I agree that if done correctly the income from licensing footage can be very welcome at times. With the competition increasing almost daily with new potential shooters joining the fray the ability to survive from licensing alone is not too much of a possibility these days. There are many other product arenas too which are only limited by one's imagination.

Cheers,
Mark.
 
CamDiver said:
Jim,
Nice to hear a success story, well done. I agree that if done correctly the income from licensing footage can be very welcome at times. With the competition increasing almost daily with new potential shooters joining the fray the ability to survive from licensing alone is not too much of a possibility these days. There are many other product arenas too which are only limited by one's imagination.

Cheers,
Mark.
Click to expand...

IPTV boom will dramatically increase the need for larger amounts of footage.
My standpoint is that licesing footage should not be primary type of profit and I see it just as additional benefit, but it definitely has a bright future.

If you think of all the variations, types of shots, themes, compostions, geographic locations, interpretations, subjective feelings, and many other factors which define a video you might see that there is no competition.
Just options and variety. With quality in mind.
Competing would mean that everyone would be doing the same thing, for what I think won't be the case.
You will make a shot that no one could do exactly the same way and someone could choose yours over any others, because that is what he/she is looking for.
 
Well Guys,
Here is the tentative first few pages of the planned site for my future underwater library. Very basic yet as I've only thrown about $200 at the site plus hosting for a year.

http://www.divejobs.net/4koceanstock/index.html

Could potentially be space for other wet shooters to develop a collaborative 4K stock service in the future if all goes well.

Cheers,
Mark.
P.S I obviously haven't published the site yet as it is just undergoing some minor adjustments, hence the reason for it being hidden within the confines of a friends existing site.
 
I'll be doing my own stock archive via the web as well, at http://www.RedMade.com, or at least that's the plan at this moment (chinka chinka chinka... Red piggy bank you sound a little empty!) The site doesn't have any content yet though, because I'm still deciding on who I'll be hosting it through.

I'll admit that the idea of becoming the central site for Red stock footage has crossed my mind (and apparently everyone else's). Anyone who gets a central Red stock footage site going will be making bank with almost no effort, even if they only take a "small" fee from each of the sales. That doesn't sit well with me though, money for nothing by taking a small percentage of other people's work. It's really good for one person but it's a little bad for everyone else. And why make things a little bad for everyone else... that's kind of selfish.

So if a group stock site was needed (and I'm not sure if it is needed at this point), I would rather it be just a very simple page that links to each stock site that's out there. Those links would jump to each person's own page, and then each person would handle the transaction with their own websites' credit card system (or whatever they want to do for payment methods). Each person would be responsible for their own website development and hosting costs that way, and it gets rid of any litigious associations to the other stock footage providers. Maybe there could be a common look and feel that would be developed, but in a way maybe that would be detrimental since part of the sales process is the presentation of the store front and standing out as being unique.

Hmmhmmhmm, I gotta think about that. Maybe I might end up building that link system myself... maybe. I hate doing a halfway job, so it'd take a bunch of my time to build it right. But I have been meaning to get back into web development, and I have to develop my website anyway... hmm... I'm definitely going to be pondering this one for the next couple of weeks.
 
omen said:
If you think of all the variations, types of shots, themes, compostions, geographic locations, interpretations, subjective feelings, and many other factors which define a video you might see that there is no competition.
Just options and variety. With quality in mind.
Competing would mean that everyone would be doing the same thing, for what I think won't be the case.
You will make a shot that no one could do exactly the same way and someone could choose yours over any others, because that is what he/she is looking for.
Click to expand...

I'd like to agree with you, and I do agree for certain subjects there's an almost limitless variety of footage to capture, but when it comes to landscapes I've seen way too many repetitive stock photos... there's a finite amount of geographic beauty in a given region, and if that's what the stockers are shooting then it's not going to be long until the footage gets really redundant. Even worse, most of that geographic beauty is getting trashed by housing developments and the only nice areas left are a paltry couple of national forests (which are also getting overcrowded with tourists as a result). Several other Red buyers have indicated that they'll be driving out of their state and into the state I live in so that they can capture footage of everything in my area. They didn't say it, but I suspect it's because their own states have been trashed and they don't have much to shoot anymore (I've driven through those states... bleak and boring!). Perhaps this is starting to get more into a rant about how disappointed I am in the city-planners that have messed up the U.S., or maybe it's my irritation of the over-population that's occurring on the planet. I don't know, but something about this situation bugs me.

One thing is for sure... America is definitely getting uglier.
 
Camdiver/Mark,

Nice job on the web site. A web site should be aesthetically pleasing, navigate easily, and hold visitors on-site for as long as possible. Your blog will help keep people there, but I'm sure you'll also be loading up video clips, frame grabs, and some more digital stills (like that great sunken plane pic!) as eye/mind candy. You may also want to include a more detailed description, on the Equipment page, of the RED One camera and related specific equipment that you will be upgrading to.

I think you're definitely on the right track with your concepts for stock footage and your new web site.

Cheers!
 
Will do Gibby,
I'm actually formulating the Equipment page layout in Word before updating. I will be, as you mentioned, posting video stills / clips etc on the blog section once it gets to running smoothly.

Hey Lowkus, sorry if you are getting upset at the way the world is going but we all gotta face that fact too. Out here in the Pacific it may seem idyllic but there are social issues rising from overcrowding here too. Influences from the 'civilized' world are slowly rendering centuries old cultures and indigenous protocols obsolete. Its sad to see.

With regards to charging footage providers for the representation of their work I believe that to be only fair. If for any debilitating health reason I couldn't continue in my diving work I would then be compelled to work 100% in the development of the RED archives ideas. In order to pay for the administration of such a site / service I believe it only fair that the footage providers be the ones to pay for that and to contribute to financial recompense for the service provider personally. Also don't forget the amount of work that any stock agency does with regards to the marketing and promotion of its services, its a never ending commitment, a commitment that allows the shooters to keep on shooting.

There are some stock agencies out there who charge 40, 50, 60 and even 80% commission. That, I find just way too much of an insult to the shooter. IF I go that route to represent others I would go for a max commission rate of somewhere between 25 and 30%. Please also understand that I will only be representing very specific markets. Initially with 4kOceanStock I will only be looking to push 4K underwater stock. Later as time allows I will further develop the 4KNatureStock and 4KActionStock sites which I also own.

Cheers,
Mark.
 
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