Got Stock?

As budgets tighten along with production schedules, stock footage offers the most practical solution for an increasing number of productions. Whether for a feature film, commercial, or a personal documentary, stock can deliver images that could be too difficult or too expensive to acquire. Robert Rodriguez's production team on the original Spy Kids, for example, licensed shots and graphics elements from seven different stock libraries that allowed the team to pull off a complicated effects sequence that would have otherwise involved extensive travel, time, and money. (See “Featuring Stock”at www.millimeter.com.)

Increasing budget pressures now force commercials producers to work more closely with stock suppliers, says Getty Image's Jennifer Burak, vice president of motion. For a number of years, says Burak, stock sales at Getty Images had averaged about one or two images or clips for any one commercial. But over the past 18 months, a growing desire for more cost-cutting measures means that footage buys have moved from single sales to more complex partnering arrangements. Getty Images increasingly involves itself in whole commercials or even campaigns.

“We are doing less of what we call single-image transactions,” says Burak. “We consider this to be a reflection on tighter budgets, producers having to do more with less and their growing need to stretch their production's dollars in innovative ways without sacrificing quality.”

Other factors at work also prompt the increased use of stock footage. “From what we're seeing in the industry and in our data, the stock-footage market is poised to explode in the next two to three years,” says Jim Whittington, partner in Mill Valley, Calif.-based TrendWatch, an industry market research firm.

Whittington cites the accepted use of stock images among traditional creatives as having paved the way for the increased use of stock footage throughout the motion industry. Among the other key factors accelerating stock use, he says, are the growth in desktop and DV production, better compositing software that enables the seamless incorporation of blue- and greenscreen shots within stock backgrounds, and the increasing ease of searching and sampling of stock libraries from an Internet browser.

But always do your research. A good place to start is Footage.net (www.footage.net). The site features a clickable listing of stock-footage houses and posts the latest news from the stock-footage world as well.

Footage.net also aggregates databases from a number of the leading stock libraries, enabling a single search to turn up multiple possibilities. If that search proves too time consuming, consider using its Zap form. To have the libraries do the searching for you, fill out the online form with specific detail about the desired shots. Footage.net then sends the form to some 40 libraries, which will respond back directly.

Besides Footage.net, another good resource is Footage.info (www.footage.info), a British-based site run by the stock industry maven John Flewin. The site also includes up-to-date news on library acquisitions and links to even more sites with searchable databases. Footage.info also contains a thorough list of stock-footage libraries with brief descriptions and clickable links. Additionally, Flewin administers the stock-footage section of the nonprofit Open Directory Project (www.footage.info/info/opendirectory.htm). Search engines from Google, AOL, and others in turn use this database.

While searching for that one right image can seem overwhelming, at least starting with the right resources can help bring that search quickly into focus.

Use search sites like Footage.net and Footage.info for a quick overview of the territory, and then start to drill down. Most stock houses offer search engines on their sites. Although the search functionality varies in usefulness, it's the most direct way to further narrow your selection. Some search engines, such as Getty Images', allow you to specify shots by speed (time lapse, slow motion), original format (film or video), or type (black and white or color).

But a stock library provides detailed info only on what the stock house has already indexed, and within that index, only with the metadata it deems important. Stock houses with quickly changing inventory, such as news footage, or with huge back libraries might not be able to offer enough data. That's just one reason why it's a good idea to consider hiring a researcher.

“You can get so much more for your money if you hire a good film researcher,” says Rick Prelinger, principal at the Prelinger Archives (www.prelinger.com). “It might scare a user to see $300 to $400 a day [for a researcher], but compare that to the cost of having a relatively clueless PA who's just starting out, making calls, and just not knowing what's going on.” Calling researchers “creative collaborators,” Prelinger notes their ability to “grease the skids” and work closely with stock libraries, which like dealing with “a known quantity.” A good resource on the ins and outs of stock footage is Prelinger's article Archival Survival: The Fundamentals of Using Film Archives and Stock Footage Libraries. Look for it on the Footage.net site at www.footage.net/info/archival_survival.html.

Researching by Sekani's (www.sekani.com) Second Line Search goes beyond the libraries of Corbis Motion (the Sekani name will be phased out as it's incorporated into Corbis Motion). Second Line Search will conduct film and still research in still- and stock-footage libraries worldwide. The searches also include material held by individual cinematographers, sports organizations, film studios, networks, music publishers, photographers, and museums.

The print guide Footage: The Worldwide Moving Image Sourcebook remains the only book that goes into any depth on locating and licensing stock footage. Features include a listing and description of some 3,000 moving image sources, a cross index of subjects and personalities, and contact info on more than 700 experts, researchers, legal services, and other groups. Visit www.footagesources.com to find out how to order a copy.

By far the two largest stock providers, Corbis and Getty Images have been on a roll the past few years. Each wants to position itself as the world's leading agency via a continuing strategy that basically consists of buying up the top available still and motion stock libraries.

Corbis (owned by Bill Gates himself, not by Microsoft) launched the Corbis Motion division (www.corbismotion.com) in September. Created from the earlier purchase of Sekani (which combined the Film Bank, Hot Shots, Cool Cuts, and Action Sports Adventure libraries), Corbis Motion also represents the Para-mount Pictures Stock Footage Library, MGM Studios, CNN, ESPN, and Hearst Entertainment.

Access to unique material that hasn't yet been overused is one reason to try a big stock house. With the considerable resources available to Corbis Motion, the company's launch represents an aggressive content development strategy, says VP for moving images Rick Wysocki. “We are now constantly updating all of our offerings. We're planning to be the big gorilla in the stock-footage business.”

Corbis wants to have a global presence in all kinds of imagery, Wysocki says. Target clients for the company include the advertising and corporate markets as well as the long-form television, feature film, and documentary ones.

Here's one unusual aspect of the company's repping of the stock-footage library of Paramount Pictures: users can not only search through the programs, but also riffle through trims and outtakes created for a film or TV series. Users are free to choose images from a library that goes back to 1927 and includes military and other action footage, period re-enactments, such as 17th and 18th century sailing ships, and film and TV classics ranging from Roman Holiday to The Untouchables.

Getty Images (www.gettyimages.com) also grew by acquisition. Headed by Getty Oil scion Mark Getty, the company began in 1993 and bought 13 stock collections including Kodak's Image Bank in 1999, which effectively doubled its holdings. Besides the Image Bank (commercial), the other major collections include Archive Films (historical), and EyeWire Motion (graphics and design).

Image Bank Film regularly generates new footage, since styles and image needs constantly change for its target market of commercial advertising and entertainment. Directors and cameramen on-hire work in 35mm, Super 16mm, and HD, but only after Image Bank staff has first completed research to analyze current needs and market trends. The company goes so far as to suggest whom to cast, where to shoot, and what shots are most saleable.

The Archive Films collection holds a diverse array of some 15,000 hours of historical footage. Resources include newsreels, documentaries, contemporary news, features, home movies, and cartoons. One nice touch: Although it's still a small portion of the total, users can view both compilation reels and specific clips online via QuickTime play out. Finally, its advanced motion search allows you to find clips via shot speed (normal, time lapse, slow motion) and whether the original is film or video, color or black and white.

EyeWire Motion creates its collection of royalty-free images from 16mm and 35mm content, computer-generated imagery, and digital video tweaked for compositing. The EyeWire site (www.eyewire.com) also offers useful tips for Photoshop users and others. For example, short step-by-step how-to instruction explains what steps to take in order to preserve fine hair details when cropping images and how to use Photoshop to enhance Adobe Premiere movies. Meanwhile, an online-type viewer enables a user to type in text to see it displayed in a wide variety of fonts from nine major suppliers.

The resources of larger stock houses mean they can offer a one-stop approach to busy creators. Getty Images, for example, provides a personality and property clearance service for anyone using its images and motion clips.

Getty's Media Management Services places your media files online in a secure, searchable, password-protected environment. Users can index, store, retrieve, and share a range of files, including video, audio, photos, graphics, text, or HTML. The company works with Pathfire to handle both media management as well as high-speed transmission of larger, broadcast-quality digitized files.

High-speed delivery via the Internet and other transmission could become a trend. “We are now seeing increased comfort levels in using our website to view material,” says Getty Image's Jennifer Burak, “[We] have even seen a significant increase in the last six months of producers asking for digital files and delivery for our final elements. The most common request is for us to post digital files via FTP.”

Specialist stock-footage libraries include a range of subjects you won't find at the big collections. Many of the libraries will shoot what you need if they don't already have it. If the client is willing to let the company add the footage to their library, the price charged can drop considerably.

It's often the specialist providers themselves who create the library. Tom Sanders, founder and president of Aerial Focus (www.aerialfocus.com), built a unique helmet rig to shoot his own 35mm footage of skydiving, hang gliding, and BASE jumping. BASE jumping? For the un-initiated, the acronym stands for freefall jumps from Buildings, Antennas, Spans (bridges) and Earth (cliffs). Exploits on file include a jump from a 52 story building in Los Angeles (the footage includes shots of the crew sneaking into the building as well as the get-away) and jumps from the tallest waterfall in the world, Angel Falls in Venezuela.

Specialist libraries bring top tech credits to craft even narrower topics, such as storm footage. “We shoot the best quality storm footage,” says Martin Lisius, president of Prairie Pictures (www.prairiepictures.com). The company made a commitment, says Lisius, to shoot almost all of the material on its site StormStock (www.stormstock.com) in 35mm. For delivery, StormStock supplies interpositives, D5, or DLT. As an estimated 75% of its film clients plan to composite the material, the company will soon offer 2K transfers. The company is also considering 4K transfers.

Rick Prelinger became a legend in the stock industry for his early efforts at collecting Americana, ephemeral films that were once overlooked, but became indelible markers of the way we were. Prelinger's films come from diverse sources. The library goes back to 1927, and it includes advertising, educational, industrial, amateur, and documentary material. Getty Images' Archive Films handles the licensing.

At the same time, Prelinger has made many of the key films freely available to anyone who wants to download the MPEG files. The Internet Archive (www.archive.org/movies) holds some 1,500 digitized films from the collection as well as other free film and video-originated material.

This year Prelinger donated his entire collection of 48,000 films to the Library of Congress, which will house and make them available in perpetuity. Rick Prelinger still needs to make money, of course: He does that by selling the higher-quality film elements.

When you need it, stock footage is indispensable. But its use is highly specific; only a limited number of shows require it.

But outside of the human voice, stock music and effects can turn up anywhere in a movie, TV show, or commercial. To feed that need, the supply of stock music and effects offerings has mushroomed over the past few years beyond veteran suppliers like Valentino and Sopersound.

But to begin, scope out the territory first. For starters, click on the Sound Library link on the opening page of the worldwide music industry database found at www.1212.com. The site also contains links to voiceover specialists, session musicians, and more. There are more than 90 links to libraries and other sources available from the music library section of DMOZ, the Internet directory project (http://dmoz.org/Arts/Music/Sound_Files/Samples_and_Loops/Production_Music_Libraries/). The directory at Chris Stone Audio (www.stockmusicconsultants.com/) helpfully offers subcategories of links that include children, early music, musicals, and more.

To zero in further, try Dittybase (www.dittybase.com), a music search and licensing database. The search engine will pull up specific cuts from production music libraries and composers worldwide, with the added capability to audition, download, and license music “without ever leaving your desk or picking up a compact disc.”

Another approach from Sonomic operates like a prepaid telephone card. The Sonomic Library Card (www.sonomic.com), which is available in many retail music stores, enables users to audition and select only the tracks they want from a collection of sound providers that includes Zero G, Sound Ideas, Sampleheads, Q Up Arts, Valentino, and Universal Sound Bank. Users search for, preview, and download their choice of 50 samples or 20 sound effects for a flat $39.95 fee.