Anybody shoot stock footage? Its becoming more difficult.

Vultch

Vultch

Well-known member
Sometimes if I see an item of interest, or perhaps when out on a corporate shoot (in my own time) I may shoot 15 min of stock footage in a public area.

The conditions for stock footage see mto be tightening, for example a city centre scene, if a bus drives by in the background with a company name that you can just about read, the clip is rejected. I recently did a shoot on a large specialized building site, great shots of big cranes but because the crane owners had their logos on the cranes everything is rejected.

reading some of the conditions, if you shoot the exterior of a distinctive building in a public area (i.e members of the public can see this with their Mk I eyeballs), you now require clearance from the owners of the building.

Is it just me, it seems hardly worth the effort now.
 
Ouch. I guess this makes sense but it does make it very hard. The recognizable building issue I know has been there for at least 5 years as I had clips rejected for that.

I’ve repurposed shots for stock footage but never shot specifically for stock.

One thing I would do if I had a shot that almost works would be to digitally edit it and take out a brand logo or something to that effect, if the shot was otherwise good.
 
I shot thousands of clips in a 5 year period and uploaded them to stock sites. Some sold a few clips a year, one sold lots and made me a couple hundred a month. One by one the sites went out of business or were resold, putting me out of the stock business. I have backups of the clips but with the time it takes to log and upload each clip, it's not worth it. My solution to faces is shallow focus or shoot from the back, for logos, blur out or shoot around them.
 
Same here. Not really worth the effort. I used to think that I put these clips up and it will continue to make me money over time. Reality is with so many new clips added each day, unless you can scale up your submissions, you will continue to get a smaller share of the profits over time. It doesn't help that some company shut down or change their policies which you have no control over.
 
I'm averaging about $2700 per month from stock footage sales and that is rising every month, so there is definitely money to be made. I'm mostly uploading to Shutterstock and Adobe.

 
I haven't updated my portfolio in a while, but I make $50-75 / month on average. Not much, but since 2013, the effort to income ratio has definitely been good.

Pond5 is pretty good with editorial stuff, so you can sometimes sell things with logos, etc.

85% of my income has been slow mo shots of my dog, shot with the ancient HMC150. They still sell to this day. It's a funny business, discovering what works and what doesn't. I plan on doing it alot more once I get my GH5.
 
At least you don't need a release for your dog!

Yeah, the money earned vs. the time I put into it makes stock footage the most lucrative thing that I can do with my time. The way I figure it, I'm making over $270 per hour.
BTW, Shutterstock also allows editorial clips and those have been some of my best moneymakers.
 
I have a shot of a full moon surrounded with fast moving clouds in 720p that has sold over 35 times. Other superior 4k shots have never sold. I just play around with stock video to pay for new gear. Doug seems to be doing pretty good at it.
 
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Doug Jensen said:
At least you don't need a release for your dog!

Yeah, the money earned vs. the time I put into it makes stock footage the most lucrative thing that I can do with my time. The way I figure it, I'm making over $270 per hour.
BTW, Shutterstock also allows editorial clips and those have been some of my best moneymakers.
Click to expand...

Exactly! And she never minds going outside for some running and playtime.

Hats off to you, Doug. That's a solid amount of income, especially on a per hour basis.

There's something about selling stock footage that feels so......pure, for lack of a better word. No schmoozing clients. No revisions, no creative disagreements. You simply upload clips, people know EXACTLY what they're getting and either buy it or not. I love that simplicity. I love that many of my best selling clips were simple shots I grabbed on the way home from a shoot, because I happened to have my camera with me.
 
For decades I have been saying, "This would be a great business if it wasn't for clients." Well now I have uncovered that business. All the pleasure of shooting . . . but without clients and the financial limitations of working by the hour or by the day. The sky is the limit on earnings because I own my footage.

Sounds like you are a cinema verite' shooter like me. No real planning, just keep a camera handy and be ready when opportunity presents itself. Often that is the kind of footage that sells simply because a producer/editor cannot go out and shoot it when then they need it -- so they have to turn to stock.
 
I've released an update video that crunches my own numbers for 2019 so far. Hopefully it will lay some people's skepticism about making money from stock footage to rest. Anyone who has a professional camera and isn't shooting for stock in their spare time is missing out on a great opportunity. Heck, I haven't even had submitted anything new since early July and the business keeps growing.

 
I bought this to view a few months ago... might even get the chance to watch it this week. It'd be nice if Vimeo streamed worth a darn on my iPhone, but it doesn't for whatever reason.

Actually started off (roundabout) doing stock video... in 2009, a 'producer' hired me to get a bunch of b-roll shots of Washington DC, so I spent a full day traipsing around the city with my HVX200. Shipped him a drive, 'David Oneal' disappeared without paying.

Wound up selling it for stock and made about twice as much as my lost day rate over the next few years. I keep seeing one particular shot of the seal of the Dept. of Justice on broadcast news every so often.

For some reason, I didn't get the lesson and never kept up with it. Seeking to change that.
 
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mcbob said:
I bought this to view a few months ago... might even get the chance to watch it this week. It'd be nice if Vimeo streamed worth a darn on my iPhone, but it doesn't for whatever reason. Actually started off (roundabout) doing stock video... in 2009, a 'producer' hired me to get a bunch of b-roll shots of Washington DC, so I spent a full day traipsing around the city with my HVX200. Shipped him a drive, 'David Oneal' disappeared without paying. Wound up selling it for stock and made about twice as much as my lost day rate over the next few years. I keep seeing one particular shot of the seal of the Dept. of Justice on broadcast news every so often. For some reason, I didn't get the lesson and never kept up with it. Seeking to change that.
Click to expand...

EXACTLY!! I have similar stories where b-roll I shot for a shoot has earned me way more than I got for my day rate.
Thanks for signing up for my course and I think you will regret not putting more effort into stock sooner. :-)
 
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