Stock footage
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Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures, and file footage is
History
Stock footage companies began to emerge in the mid-1980s, offering clips mastered on
Films and television
Stock footage can be used to integrate news footage or notable figures into a film. For instance, the Academy Award-winning film Forrest Gump used stock footage extensively, modified with computer-generated imagery to portray the lead character meeting such historic figures such as John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and John Lennon.
News programs use film footage from their libraries when more recent images are not available. Such usage is often labeled on-screen with an indication that the footage being shown is file footage.
Television and movies series also often recycle footage taken from previous installments. For instance, the Star Trek franchise kept a large collection of starships, planets, backgrounds, and explosions, which would appear on a regular basis throughout Star Trek's five series and ten films, being used with minimal alteration. That kept production costs down as models, mattes, and explosions were expensive to create. The advances in computer graphics in the late 1990s and early 2000s helped to significantly reduce the cost of Star Trek's production and allowed for a much wider variety of shots than previous model and painting-based visuals. Other films that re-used film footage from previous productions include Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Blade Runner, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, Hitman, Jaws: The Revenge, Halloween II, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 & 2 and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.[2]
Some series, particularly those made for children, such as Power Rangers or Teletubbies, reuse footage that is shown in many episodes.[citation needed] Meant for a young audience, the approach increases viewers' familiarity between shows. This introduces problems such as the requirement to, for example, wear the same clothing and inconsistency can sometimes become a problem. When cleverly filmed it is possible to avoid many of these problems.
Many broadcast shows use stock-footage clips as
Stock footage is often used in commercials when there is not enough money or time for production. More often than not these commercials are political or issue-oriented in nature.[4] Sometimes it can be used to composite moving images that create the illusion of having on-camera performers appear to be on location. The term B-roll may refer to stock footage or newly shot scenes.[5]
Stock footage that appears on television screens or monitors shown in movies or television shows is referred to as "playback". In
Stock footage also appears many a time in animated series which is mostly a transition to live-action stock footage.
One of the most common uses of stock footage is in documentaries. Use of stock footage allows the filmmaker to tell the story of historical events such as World War II Why We Fight series, to document modern underwater archaeology activities, or to supplement content in natural history documentaries. Budgets may not be sufficient to keep a production crew on site for long-term projects, and stock footage allows the producer to pick the moments in time that are most important to the story or to give context to historical events.[7]
Several films that would otherwise be completely lost have surviving footage due to the film being used as a stock footage. For example, The Cat Creeps has some scenes preserved in the movie Boo, and scenes from Queen of the Night Clubs are preserved as stock footage in Winner Take All. If not for its use as stock footage, these films would be lost entirely.[8]
Stock footage is also used in live reality TV shows such as I'm a Celebrity.[9]
In the early 2020s, stock footage of studio audience applause and reactions was used in television shows in place of a live studio audience due to the then-current COVID-19 pandemic.
Corporate usage
Companies throughout the world use stock footage in their video productions for in-house meetings, annual conventions, seminars, and other events. It has become popular to videotape interviews of CEOs and other VIPs using a
Public domain
One of the largest producers of
Format
Evolution
With each introduction of
Container
Popular
Libraries
Notable stock footage libraries and archives include:
- 123RF
- Adobe Stock
- Al Jazeera Creative Commons
- Alamy
- Associated Press
- BBC: BBC Motion Gallery (1961–) and backstage.bbc.co.uk (2005–2010)
- Can Stock Photo
- CNN Collection (fmr. CNN ImageSource, from the CNN cable news broadcaster)
- Corbis Motion(now through Getty Images and Visual China Group)
- Dailymotion
- Depositphotos
- Film Archives, Inc.
- Flickr
- Footagevault
- Fotosearch
- Framepool
- Getty Images
- Internet Archive
- iStock
- ITN Source
- NASA Images
- Nautilus Productions
- NBCUniversal Archives
- NHNZ
- Nimia
- Oddball Films
- Pexels
- Pixabay
- Pond5
- Producers Library Service
- Reuters
- Science Photo Library
- Shutterstock
- Stocksy United
- Vimeo
- Visual China Group
See also
References
- ISBN 978-0690012040
- ^ Dyce, Andrew (November 2, 2015). "Movies That Stole Footage From Other Films". Screen Rant. Archived from the original on 17 July 2016. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
- ^ "6 Reasons You Might Want to Start Using Stock Footage in Your Films". No Film School. April 23, 2015. Archived from the original on 4 February 2016. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
- ^ Eliza Collins, Daniel Strauss (September 15, 2015). "Jeb Bush super PAC video about America uses stock footage from overseas". Politico. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
- ^ "STOCK FOOTAGE PRIMER – TV Writer Podcast". www.tvwriterpodcast.com. Archived from the original on 2015-03-28. Retrieved 2015-03-25.
- ^ "New & Unique Videos". Productionhub.com. Archived from the original on 2017-11-13. Retrieved 2017-11-12.
- ^ RELTH Relth, Kj (August 14, 2013). "6 Essential Tips for Using Archival Footage". International Documentary Association. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015.
- ^ Obius, Rudie (March 28, 2014). "10 Movies That Recycled Footage From Other Movies". Mental Floss. Archived from the original on 24 February 2016. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
- ^ Bultitude, Nick. "I'm a Celebrity Cutscene Spider Web Catch". YouTube. Archived from the original on 31 March 2019. Retrieved 17 November 2018.
- ^ Careless, James (2010-01-06). "Does standard-def stock footage still play in a high-def game?". Digital Video magazine. Archived from the original on 2010-02-10. Retrieved 2014-11-07.
- ^ "Stock Footage Searches Reveal Shifting Media Trends - Studio Daily". Studio Daily. 2017-01-25. Archived from the original on 2017-09-26. Retrieved 2017-09-26.
- ^ "Video File Format Overview". dpbestflow.org. American Society of Media Photographers. Archived from the original on 11 July 2016. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
Further reading
- Bernard, S.C. and Rabin, K. Archival Storytelling: A Filmmaker's Guide to Finding, Using, and Licensing Third-Party Visuals and Music. Focal Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-240-80973-1