New Stock Footage Ideas?

[Stephen Brock]

Hello everyone!

We just secured our first Scarlet and also have partnered with another company securing a RED One MX. We operate a small production company here in Kansas City but now we are getting ready to launch a new R3D 4k stock footage site. Our partner is located in Kona, Hawaii.

I know we have a few REDusers here that are also in the stock footage business and I want to thank you for your inspiration and contribution to this great new market. I am not a cut-throat kind of guy and want to be totally honest and respectful to all of our wonderful competitors out there. You guys push us to excellence and we hope to one day push you to further your success as well. :-)

All of that being said, does anyone here have any complaints with the current options? Wish-lists for new content? We currently operate of course in the midwest and have access to some pretty diverse scenery, environments, and talent. But at the same time we also dont...heh. Lucky for us, our partner is also located in Hawaii! So we'll also have access to content there to supplement our access here in the heartland. What do you think the R3D stock footage market needs more of? What is valuable to you as filmmakers in the artistic and corporate worlds? What about file delivery models? Pricing models? Customer support? And format options?

Let this be an opportunity to speak up and voice your needs and wants. :-) I'd love to hear your thoughts...

Thanks so much!

[Craig McNicoll]

Hi Stephen,
Most of the work I do is on a client by client basis. So I would be nice to be able to pay for each clip I use individually (sites like istock, and shutterstock have weirdo pricing systems that make this harder).

My ideal workflow would be this 1. I find some clips -->I edit using low quality watermarked comps of the clips--> If the client likes the clips i use, download the high quality cilps and pay for only those.

The work I do is mostly corporate but here is some of the most common clips I look for:
-Corporate meeting setting (people in business suits shaking hands etc)
- people talking on phones
- medical footage (like a doctors checkup, clips like these are REALLY hard to find)
- cars!
-non de-script crowded areas.
-senior citizens


I hope that helps. I look forward to visiting your stock footage site when you have it launched.

[Stephen Brock]

Thanks for your input Craig!

I was thinking of have an actual downloadable h.264 SD watermarked clips for editors to use as placeholders for client review. It wouldn't bog down bandwidth too much, methinks. If you don't mind me asking, who do you primarily shop with now for footage?

[Austin Glass]

FWIW, the iStock pricing model is as annoying as heck. Whatever you do, please don't create your own currency and have a tiered value. That only confuses things. Just charge actual, tangible USD for things (or foreign currency options for those not in the US).

Since you asked, that's just my opinion on the matter.

[Stephen Brock]

FWIW, the iStock pricing model is as annoying as heck. Whatever you do, please don't create your own currency and have a tiered value. That only confuses things. Just charge actual, tangible USD for things (or foreign currency options for those not in the US).

Since you asked, that's just my opinion on the matter.

Oh gosh, you are absolutely right! That's been on my top ten 'not to do' list ever since I wanted to start this site. Thanks for the reassurance that I'm not the only one out there who feels this way. :-)

[Jay Birch]

My advice, as someone who owned a successful stock video business in the early years of the industry (pre istock video) and sold up once istock crushed the industry....

Be very careful stepping into it... bandwidth costs alone will be in the $1000s, if you want to run a good service (you will need cloud hosting). Creating a good system, with UI for both uploaders and downloaders, is something that really needs alot of thinking and planning. Payment, lightboxes, invoices, receipts, user area, uploads, metadata, search, copyright, server side content creation, ftp, APIs, etc... It is a pretty big undertaking. Quality control is really important too... So you will need staff or a good community to check the .R3Ds, thumbs, demos etc.

There is probably a market for R3D, so you are looking at a niche... on one hand, that is good, as istock/pond5 haven't currently saturated it (they will, so think of this as a short term company... that is the harsh reality)... on the other hand, you will have to charge a premium to meet your overheads.... Are you sure your potential customers will pay?

istock and pond5 pretty much killed every bit of competition out there, for stock HD... They will jump all over any new format too, once it becomes popular.

Sorry to sound pessimistic, but I know 1st hand how tough the industry is.

Feel free to PM me if you want any further advice.

[Stephen Brock]

My advice, as someone who owned a successful stock video business in the early years of the industry (pre istock video) and sold up once istock crushed the industry....

Be very careful stepping into it... bandwidth costs alone will be in the $1000s, if you want to run a good service (you will need cloud hosting). Creating a good system, with UI for both uploaders and downloaders, is something that really needs alot of thinking and planning. Payment, lightboxes, invoices, receipts, user area, uploads, metadata, search, copyright, server side content creation, ftp, APIs, etc... It is a pretty big undertaking. Quality control is really important too... So you will need staff or a good community to check the .R3Ds, thumbs, demos etc.

There is probably a market for R3D, so you are looking at a niche... on one hand, that is good, as istock/pond5 haven't currently saturated it (they will, so think of this as a short term company... that is the harsh reality)... on the other hand, you will have to charge a premium to meet your overheads.... Are you sure your potential customers will pay?

istock and pond5 pretty much killed every bit of competition out there, for stock HD... They will jump all over any new format too, once it becomes popular.

Sorry to sound pessimistic, but I know 1st hand how tough the industry is.

Feel free to PM me if you want any further advice.

Great thoughts! Thanks for all the great insight. Pm'd. :-)