Dynamic Forces

Stock Footage TrendsBeta SP or high definition? CD-ROM delivery or download capability? Big screen, small screen, or computer screen? When it comes to stock footage today, these options have a widely varied effect on individual companies.

For example, some vendors say requests for high-definition footage are on the rise, while others say they've received no requests for HD. Some companies have for months been offering their customers the ability to search for and purchase broadcast-quality clips online, while others are only beginning to gear up for this capability or are not addressing it at all. Some vendors continue to count film and television as their primary applications, while an increasing number are licensing footage for use on the Web.

All these differences can make the stock-footage market difficult to track. However, the differences are also creating a market that is more dynamic than ever before.

Gearing Up for HD?Most vendors cite lack of interest from clients and poor return on investment as the primary reasons for their wait-and-see attitude toward HD.

"We sold some footage to Spin City on videotape even though it was shot on film," states Mark Heller, president of New York-based Streamline Stock Footage and vice president of Los Angeles-based eFootage. "They asked that the film backup be cut into the negative because possibly one day they'll transfer the whole show to HD. But apart from that, we've gotten zilch in terms of requests for HD."

Scott Dittrich of Malibu-based Action Sports/Scott Dittrich Films has not seen too much demand for HD either. "People generally ask us for 4:3 on DigiBeta and Beta, but we did have a request from a Japanese client who wanted to use our footage to advertise a new 16:9 TV set. So we retransferred the footage from the 35mm negative to D5 using a Philips Spirit Datacine. But that's the only request we've received."

"Right now, Beta SP is still the main format people ask for, and we get an occasional request for DigiBeta," adds Mark Heidemann, sales director for East Hampton, New York-based Historic Films. "But we haven't been asked for HD yet."

However, some footage vendors are getting requests for HD and are preparing themselves to meet the slowly increasing demand. Stock-footage librarian Eric Anderson says his company, MacGillivray Freeman Films of Laguna Beach, California, receives most of its requests from TV documentaries. At press time, the company was researching how best to meet those requests.

"I know HD isn't widely needed yet," adds Julie Hill, sales and advertising manager of Artbeats, Myrtle Creek, Oregon. "But we feel it will happen. To prepare for that, we've begun to scan anything that was shot at 35mm into a Philips Datacine so that it's now at 2K. Also, we're [asking that new submissions be shot] at 35mm so that we can scan them at 2K as well."

Energy Film Library, Los Angeles, and The Image Bank, Dallas, also are preparing for HD, according to Rick Wysocki, senior vice president of Gettyone Motion Brands and Products, which owns the two footage vendors. "The company has already begun transferring its core library to the 1080@24p HD format. "In the transfer, we're doing full Academy frame [4:3] using a Cintel C-Reality telecine and a da Vinci 2K color corrector," explains Phil Spiegel, film operations manager. "We're centering the Academy frame within the 16:9 HD frame, with black on the left and right sides. That becomes our `archived' HD master. From that, via an aspect ratio converter, we'll make a full-frame 16:9 HD master. Virtually all of our original elements are on film, so we're in a position to be able to do that."

Internet TrendsToday, few companies offer the ability to search, preview, and download footage for purchase. Instead, most - including eFootage, F.I.L.M. Archives, The WPA Film Library, and Historic Films - offer a searchable database of their libraries.

"Our site [fastimages.com] is purposely set up so that people can't download for final use," comments Mark Trost, president of New York-based F.I.L.M. Archives. "All they can download is footage that's suitable for offline editing. We feel the quality isn't there for broadcast or cable use, which is the vast majority of our business."

"I think that for the foreseeable future, there will be a need for the non-online way, the old-fashioned way of delivery requests," says Heller of Steamline's and eFootage's sites - efootage.com and streamlinefilms.com, the latter under construction at press time. "We know how to work our database best, and we know off the top of our heads where certain things are."

However, Wysocki sees Web delivery for Energy Film Library and The Image Bank as a reality. "We're getting more activity on our Web sites [digital-energy.com and imagebank.com] and we think people are increasingly depending on the Web for poking around," he says. "So, we're working on some things along the lines of Web-based delivery that we'll announce publicly at the beginning of 2001."

Meanwhile, Los Angeles-based Busybox's new BusyboxPro site (busyboxpro.com), which offers a large collection of broadcast and multimedia-size, royalty-free QuickTime clips for purchase and download, has been quite successful since its launch in July. "When projecting what would happen in 2000, we thought about 25 percent of our business would be direct downloads compared to next-day delivery of footage," comments Rob Sherman, president and COO of Busybox. "But instead, we're seeing 50 percent downloads, even at broadcast size. And we're getting traffic from all over the world, which I also didn't expect quickly. I thought the trend would take 24 to 30 months to develop, but it's happening much more quickly, which is good news."

FootageNow, recently renamed Sekani, has designed a Website that will enable customers to search for, view, and order footage online. (FootageNow is a broadband technology spin-off of iXL and a strategic partner of Corbis, a leading provider of footage and fine art on the Internet. In April, FootageNow merged with the Second Line Search family of companies, which includes the footage archives Hot Shots Cool Cuts, Action Sports Adventure, Film Bank, and Film Bank Deutschland. On October 15, the former Footage Now/Second Line Search group will launch under the Sekani name and debut sekaniimages.com.)

At sekaniimages.com, users can create as many clip bins as they want, attach notes to them, email them to clients and colleagues for approval, and play the clips in reel form. "Also, customers will be able to work online with a Sekani editor, who will help them find the best footage for their needs and then create a QuickTime file of the customer's choices," says Michael Pixley, director of creative services.

The site's storyboard controls will offer infinite granularity control, which will enable users to break down a clip into parts and view the portions they're interested in. "Say you wanted to see only six keyframes of a storyboard; coarse granularity would let you do that," says Peter Kleinman, senior vice president, marketing communications. "If you wanted to see 30 frames, a finer granularity would let you do that. The granularity gives you control over precisely which area of a sequence you're interested in utilizing."

According to Kleinman, until now, the company Web sites under the Second Line umbrella offered only the ability to search via keyword and view static thumbnails. "This is the first time for all of our archives that we're putting up a full, moving-image site that's got hundreds of hours of full-motion, digital stock cinematography and is functional on a lot of high levels," he remarks.

Shifting Content, Shifting ApplicationsAs for how stock is being used, vendors say most requests are still for film and TV applications. But that doesn't mean the footage itself is "traditional."

"Recently, someone asked for footage of floating cows," says Stephen Parr, director of San Francisco-based Oddball Film+Video, adding that Oddball was able to oblige. "We're getting more requests for more cutting-edge footage, both archival and contemporary, from up-and-coming ad agencies and Internet Web site producers. In the past, clients were less likely to use unusual footage in commercials. But due to the `wilder' Yahoo and other dot-com commercials, traditional companies are more interested in appealing to new Web-savvy audiences."

Requests at Streamline and eFootage are increasingly for shorter clips. "It used to be we'd sell 10 seconds at a time," says Heller. "But we're finding that half-second or two-second portions of our clips are being used."

Meanwhile, requests for conceptual clips at Energy Film Library and The Image Bank are on the rise. "We've been getting lots of calls for that," says Wysocki. "`Send me footage that shows the speed at which business is moving. Send me footage that shows how individuals communicate on the Internet and how one-to-one communication is possible in a complex, technological world.' More and more, we can fill such requests because as our stock libraries have grown, we've gotten more material that's been shot in a conceptual vein. Instead of shooting literal scenes, people are shooting ideas."

And while the big and small screens have been the conventional venues for stock footage, some vendors also are getting requests from customers who want to use imagery on the Web, in Internet ads or just to dress up a Web site.

According to Dana Tower, vice president/director of marketing in emerging market development at Gettyone, Seattle, ad dollars will increasingly be spent on Internet advertising as broadband technology gives Internet sites TV-like quality. "In addition," he says, "companies that are presenting their products and services on their Web sites are competitive, and they'll want more than Flash animations and animated GIFs to make their sites stand out. This desire to get more motion into this boring trip to the library is being intensified by the fact that technology is improving. A Web site is more compelling if it's moving, and people are falling over each other to add motion but not complicate the user's experience." To meet this need, Gettyone is digitizing its core footage libraries.

In addition, The Image Bank has begun preparing a series of off-the-shelf, 5-, 10-, and 15-second bits of imagery - including worldwide scenics, business settings, and home environments - that can be used in Internet advertising applications. "Internet ads will rarely be able to afford big-name directors and full-blown productions, so this will let our clients - the ad agencies and even the advertisers themselves - direct their own Internet ads by using our creative resources," Wysocki says. Although at press time the company was still determining a pricing structure for the Internet imagery, scheduled to become available Q1 2001, Wysocki says that such footage will cost less than stock targeted at its broadcast and film customers.

Other vendors, such as Historic Films and WPA, are also charging less for Internet-bound footage. "We're willing to work with these clients at a lower rate on certain kinds of material than we would with more traditional clients," says Heidemann. "We realize that even though computers are everywhere, in reality their use is not as saturated as that of TV, so the viewing audience is still not what you'd get with a TV commercial."

"It's one thing when you're dealing with a major cable network, or with NBC, CBS, or a major documentarian, and you license footage to them at fixed rates," says Waleed B. Ali, CEO of the MPI Media Group, which represents footage from the WPA Film Library. "But it's another thing when some institution or college, or even a company, is running a Web site and they just need some footage to flavor it. We don't believe they should be penalized just because they happen to be on the Web. We'll be more than happy to license the footage at rates that will be reasonable and in tandem with the kind of revenues or monies they have." The company plans to have an official Internet licensing department early next year, where customers will be able to purchase footage for use on Web sites.

The multimedia-size clips at the BusyboxPro Web site are quarter-screen at 15-frames per second and cost $29.95. (They are also available in groups of 15 to 23, for as little as $15 per clip.) "The price is based on resolution, not on length," says Sherman. "You're purchasing camera start to camera stop."

Like the other vendors, Busybox charges less for Internet applications because the Internet market dictates that a lower price is more realistic for Web customers. "Film and broadcast customers don't have much in common with Web customers in terms of application," Sherman states. "And although the Web sees a tremendous amount of investment dollars, it's still an emerging market. So, if we were to try and get the most out of the footage we target to those customers, we'd be sitting with no activity."