Stock Footage Agencies

If you are trying to produce videos for the web, you need a good source of raw footage.   It is difficult, if not impossible, to create all the raw materials for your video production yourself, so people usually turn to stock photo agencies.

A stock agency will sell you video clips or still images which you can then edit into your own video production.   You pay a one-time fee and then you can use the clip as much as you want.  Not all uses are permitted though.  Generally, you can only use the clips in videos you make for educational or self-promotional use.  You can not turn the clips into a video product and then sell that product.

iStock photo is one of the largest sources of stock images, but there are many more.  Some of them have big advantages over iStock.

I ran across anistock.com the other day and was very impressed with it.  Anistock.com specializes in animated clips and they have thousands to choose from.

The animations were all very nicely done and most of them ran about 10 to 15 seconds.  You can download them in several different file formats depending on how you are going to use them.  Since I wanted to edit them into a longer video production using Final Cut editing software, I downloaded them in QuickTime format.  (That's indicated by a .mov extension.)

Other formats offered are used for mobile devices or if you are going to keep the clip as a singular entity.   They also have HD format.

One of the biggest advantages Anistock has over a larger service like iStock is price.  Depending on which package you choose, you can get a clip off anistock for one or two bucks instead of the twenty or thirty dollars it will cost on iStock.   That's a HUGE cost difference and the quality is essentially the same.   Anistock animations tend to be a little more cartoonish, but I think they look great.

With every animated clip I downloaded, I got a free matching jpeg.

The selection at Anistock is huge and they are continually adding hundreds of new images.

For the price, you can not beat anistock. Before computers became so common, animations like this would have cost you about $1,000.  Seriously.  The standard fee back in the 80's was $100 a finished second.  The fact that you can get them today for just a few bucks is unbelievable.

Too bad the price of bread and clothes haven't done the same thing!

So if you are in need of quality raw footage for your video productions, check out anistock.com. You will find cute, professional animated clips of all kinds.

Thanks for being a subscriber,

Lorraine Grula

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