Stock Footage for Free

By Internet Video Gal on Nov 19, 2008 in Video Editing, Video Production Basics

Wow! Am I excited!

I just discovered one of the greatest resources for video producers I could ever imagine.

FREE stock footage. Yup, FREE.

As an independent video producer, having access to quality footage is essential. I can not edit together a great video without great raw materials. I love to shoot video myself but simply do not have the time or resources to go shoot everything I need all by my lonesome.

So, I often rely on stock footage. Problem is, that gets expensive and most stock footage agencies have limited licensing. That means I can not turn around and sell whatever video I have edited. Bummer.

What to do?

Well, at first I thought working 36 hours a day was the answer. I'll get out there and shoot all that footage myself even if it kills me! No doubt it would have too.

A much better answer appeared to me this morning.

StockFootageForFree.com offers lots of great footage. The price is unbeatable and the licensing is looser so I can sell what I edit. The only restriction is that I can not turn around and sell it as stock footage, which I would never do anyway. I use the stock footage within a larger video production.

I could NOT believe what I was seeing so I picked up the phone and called their toll free number.

"OK, what's the catch?" Ms. Skeptic here asked.

"No catch," the gentleman said. Turns out, stock footage for free dot com is a spin off effort for a much larger stock footage company, Footage Firm. Footage Firm has been around for about seven years and they sell stock footage to the big boys, TV networks and the like.

With the rise of online video creating more and more independent video producers, Footage Firm saw that a need. Most independent video producers don't have the budget of a TV network. (Wow, is that ever an understatement!)

So they decided to offer a sizeable amount of stock for free; not just to be magnanimous but in order to build a base of customers who just might eventually be able to purchase some stock.

The gamble paid off and the website they started in March, stock footage for free.com now has 35,000 registered users. Footage Firm has seen both increased traffic to their main site and more sales.

So this is a win-win-win.

The library at stockfootageforfree.com is not humongous, but it is sizable. And the quality of the video is fantastic!

All you have to do is register, download, and go edit!

You can order larger quantities of footage on DVD; all you have to pay is shipping and handling. Is that great, or what? Thousands of dollars worth of stock footage for the price of mailing.

I don't know about you, but I see lots of editing in my future using the free footage off stockfootageforfree.com

Go check it out!

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Lorraine Grula

Internet Video Gal

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