Re: Selling Stock Video Footage.
 

Well if you will sell tutorials and encourage others to send clips. Then, of course, Shutterstock will have more clips to review which all takes time.

Re: Selling Stock Video Footage.
 

That would be cool to think I could have that much influence, but I am not that stupid to think so.

Re: Selling Stock Video Footage.
 

Hey Doug, still happily loading clips to Shutterstock. Now it is all second nature. They were reviewed and accepted in 3 days. I recently upgraded to the Canon XF-705 (I know, your a Sony man) so now I will be uploading in 4K. Heading up to Cades Cove, Tennessee next week. Hopefully I will get some good clips of Black bears.

Re: Selling Stock Video Footage.
 

Hey Bob, I'm sure the XF-705 will prove to be a very capable camera for stock. Good luck with the bears and try to come home with all your fingers.

Re: Selling Stock Video Footage.
 

Hey Bob, be prepared for the traffic thru the park. There are certain days and times when traffic is better https://www.facebook.com/groups/6069...2340455951863/

Re: Selling Stock Video Footage.
 

Doug, thanks, I really think I will enjoy this camcorder, operationally it is similar to the XF300. Mark, that looks like a bear-jam at Yellowstone. I hope it isn't that bad. Ill be there during the week. It is one of my favorite places to go. Last year I got some great bear clips. I'll let ya'll know. I leave Monday morning.

Re: Selling Stock Video Footage.
 

Right after Doug released his course I bought it. Smart move, great course with tons of good info.

I also got super busy busy at that time and had "stock' on hold until now. I am digging into it this week.

As Doug suggests I looked at a lot of video from contributors to learn more about what is going on. Here is something I don't understand. I must be missing something:

As I understand it Shutterstock is very clear you must be the rights holder of all clips you submit. I believe you are supposed to be the sole rights holder? There are contributors with tens of thousands of clips in their portfolio they could not possibly have shot or even have the rights to. To me it looks like they are culling the internet for public domain shots or possibly just stealing clips. Look up a contributor named Rick Ray to see an example of this. Tens of thousands of clips in his portfolio. If a historical event took place from 1930 until present day he has a shot of it. News footage, celebrity footage, TV and movie footage, aerial and underwater footage, military footage etc. Its all there and almost all of it is listed as HD. I don't know if this guy has ever shot a frame, but I am sure he was not recording Hitler's speeches in B&W with a HD video cam or riding on the exterior of the space shuttle during launch ;-)

So what am I missing? If it is public domain why is shutterstock licensing it and selling it through a contributor? Maybe these guys have a small stock agency of their own and have curated these massive collections, I don't know? And then to look at some collections you know the same guy could not possibly have shot half the footage they have posted?

The Shutterstock rules are pretty simple and supposed to be stringent. I'm sure they are. But it looks like they could be creating a massive market for piracy. From the outside it looks like someone could become a major contributor and never shoot a frame or leave an office.

I am not accusing anyone of doing anything unethical. I suspect there is a valid answer for how this happens. I would like to know how. I am curious.

For me, I am going to work hard and have fun with this. Last weekend I spent three days in the desert shooting the first of my new stock images. I am using the stock thing as a way to get my passion for shooting back. I have been shooting for so many years I started to loose the MoJo. Shooting stock makes the game fun again in many ways. I am going to have a blast!

Kind Regards,

Steve

Re: Selling Stock Video Footage.
 

Quoted for emphasis.

Hmm... I sure would like to get a clarification about this from ShutterStock.

Re: Selling Stock Video Footage.
 

Steve, thanks for signing up for the course. I appreciate your support and I hope you sell a ton of clips.

If you could find some examples of any contributor portfolios that have "modern", non-public domain footage in them, that the person clearly could not have shot themselves, then I'd be a little concerned about piracy of my own clips but I don't think you're going to find any examples of modern pirated footage being sold at Shutterstock. In my opinion you are concerned about a non-issue. Even if we assume, just for the sake of argument, that all that old B&W footage of Hitler and space shuttle launches DOES violate Shutterstock's rules. So what? That is between Shutterstock and the contributor. What difference does it make to the rest of us one way or the other? A non-issue and not even worthy of a second of my attention.

Where would they get copies my footage, or your footage, to pirate anyway? I watermark just about everything I put on Vimeo and Youtube so they couldn't really grab it from those places. So they'd have to buy the clips first at Shutterstock and then re-submit them with no assurances of making a single sale. That would be financial suicide.

I earned $3751 in October just from Shutterstock, which is an 88% increase from October 2018. What am I going to do, stop contributing and make $0 next month just because someone got hold of some old Nazi footage and decided to upload it? That would be crazy. :-)

My advice is to focus on building your portfolio and don't worry about what other people are doing, especially when their subject matter has no overlap on your own.

And don't be so sure that I wasn't at D-Day with a 4K camera! I'm a lot older than I look.

https://www.shutterstock.com/video/c...n-paratroopers

https://www.shutterstock.com/video/c...to-battlefield

Re: Selling Stock Video Footage.
 

Hey Doug,

I'm sure you know I always have been and still am a big supporter of you, your work, and your programs. Mostly because of all the time and effort you put into participating in this community by sharing your knowledge and expertise. I am not knocking Shutterstock or it's contributors. My post was about my observations as I begin to dive into the world of stock footage. It is not up to me to try and identify piracy, nor do I care about what other contributors do. However, I do think my post was was valid because it raises a lot of questions. Not the least of which is, if it is all being done legally and ethically than I will maintain that people are making a lot of money without shooting a frame. So, I asked, "how is this happening?" For me, I really don't care much. I will never be the guy sitting in front of a computer culling footage I might be able to sell. It sure does "appear" there is a lot of that going on. No big deal.

As I have just begun to get my feet my feet wet in stock I am having a blast. Two weeks ago I gave myself my first assignment. I had a few days to go camping by myself. Researching Shutterstock I had noticed there was not a lot of footage of the new Trump Border wall being built. For such a hot news topic I wondered why. I headed to Yuma and San Luis Arizona to shoot stock of the new wall. Now I know why the stock agencies are not flooded with it!

Don't worry Chris, I will not make a political statement here. I am not an activist of anytype. I will stick to what I did and saw. I went after the subject matter purly for stock video reasons.

When I approached the wall for the first time (there is many miles of it) I saw an active construction site. Perfect, exactly what I wanted to find. As I approached the site I was met by two guys in an unmarked desert tan chevy blazer. It was unmarked until they blocked me and lit me up with red and blue grill lights. These guys were in full dress battle uniforms from their helmet to their boots. The driver front slung his AR-15 and came to my widow. He had 5 spare P-Mags on his chest over his armor and of course a side arm as well as the long gun. The passenger stayed at the truck 20 feet away holding his rifle. They didn't even have name tags or insignias other than a shoulder marking that said Alliance Security Services or something like that. On a long sleeved yellow shirt that looked funny under all of BDU and gear. These guys were not messing around. What I ran into is a private security force hired ether by the US government or the contractor to protect the workers and work being done down there. These guys are not Border Patrol. I have to say, as much as I wanted a shot of them I am NOT the idiot you see on YouTube that pushes a video camera into the face of an armed authority and and says "I am recording this in case you shoot me and I know my rights!" I have never owned a camera that will stop a bullet and that is a stupid way to deal with the situation. They were not nice but they were professional. I'm sure they were both former US Military, they were not mall cops. They had a job to do and that was to get me out of there. I wasn't going to argue. The guy at my door informed me I was on land restricted and controlled by the government and that I must immediately leave the area. I tried to chat him up for some access information and of course he would have none of that. All he would say is the entire wall area is a restricted construction zone and that I needed to leave immediately. I left.

I'm not going incriminate myself on a public forum and tell the whole story but I can say I went back to the wall and got a few shots that have been accepted by Shutterstock. I got back to the wall by going far out to the middle of nowhere and 4WD in on soft sandy two track trails where I thought I would be the only one around for miles. Wrong again. At one point on my way back in to wall the trail became lined with signs every 20 feet on both sides for 2 miles. Photo below. That part was not fun.

When I did get back to the base of the wall I hastily began to shoot. What an amazing opportunity. There I was all alone in the middle of nowhere, so many angles I could work! This was going to be great! My glee and my opportunity lasted less than 10 minutes. When I saw the trail of dust coming my way I hoped it wasn't the guys from the security force. It wasn't. It was the US Border Patrol. He was not happy finding a guy out there with a video camera. My camera was on sticks and pointed at the wall. Again, I am not stupid enough to swing it around and immediately be confrontational with a guy that is about to decide if he is going to arrest me or let me go. In fact the very first thing he said to me was "Turn that thing off!" He ran my plates and drivers licence. Then told me he was escorting me out of the restricted area by following me out on the proper dirt road I had intentionally avoided to get in.

As for the footage I only got a couple of angles in the short minutes I had. I have admitted mistakes here several times on this board to remind others not to do it. The biggest crime I committed was a rookie shooting mistake and I am no rookie. In my haste I did not notice steady shot was turned on! Of course that ruined my pans as I could not pan and hold! Kicking myself for that dumb mistake. Shutterstock accepted 9 clips and rejected 11. The rejections were for "similar content". I should have been shooting and moving instead of shooting multiple takes. But hey, I did not expect to get busted so fast. It turns out I was undersurvailance the whole time. But if I go there I would have to move this thread to Area 51.

So yes, for me this stock thing is about having fun and challenging myself to be a better shooter. Eleven clips is a long way from Doug's thousands, but maybe I will get there someday.

Here is one of the clips:

https://www.shutterstock.com/video/c...9-construction

Here is the frendly road signs I passed: Sorry .jpg would not attach.

Re: Selling Stock Video Footage.
 

Send me your .jpg Steve, I will get it attached to your post.

chris at dvinfo dot net

Edit: Done.

Re: Selling Stock Video Footage.
 

Steve, that is a great story and I really enjoyed it. Man, I wish I had been there!! Everyone has their own tolerance for confrontations when out shooting, but I gotta say I love it when someone challenges me. I can't say for sure what I'd have done in your situation, but I like to think that I'd given them a lot of shit. Done it before and never regretted it. I would have been ready to record the whole thing on my phone. In fact, just last week I was shooting in a sensitive place where I thought I might get questioned, even though I was clearly on a public road. In anticipation of that I already had my phone strapped to my camera and set to discreatly record audio should I get hassled. A Suburban came up and stopped about 100 yards away and watched me, but never approached. Good for them. That is exactly what they should have done.

Just like you did, I checked out what was already available on Shutterstock and I saw there was a gap in coverage of this subject that I could fill with something better. I'm not going to say what it was because I haven't even processed the footage yet, but it is amazingly close to the same subject matter as your fence.

Anyway, at least you took the initiative to go out and look for some footage that other contributors won't have of a subject that is in the news. That is exactly the right way to do it and I hope you make some money from it.

Why did you submit your clip as editorial? I see no reason that it wouldn't be approved as commercial, which would open it up to a much bigger market.

Your metadata looks pretty good, but you might want to add . . . border fence, trump, immigrants, crossing, illegal entry, DACA, drug runner, mexican border . Just thinking out loud.

My only critical comment is that there is no real motion in the shot. No pan or no tilt or any action within the frame. Just a straight-in mechanical zoom with no other camera movement. It looks a lot like a still photograph with a keyframed zoom. So a video buyer might just choose to buy a still photo at a lower price. We are selling motion pictures and the footage needs action. A straight-in servo zoom is not desirable in 2019. Just something to keep in mind next time when you don't have armed guards coming down on you!

Re: Selling Stock Video Footage.
 

All true, Doug, but at least Steve was able to get what he got, considering the circumstances.

None of us want to find ourselves on the evening news... not in *that* way, at least.

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Yeah, that's why I said everyone has their own tolerance for confrontations and nobody knows what the situation was really like except someone who was there. I hope the clips do well!

Re: Selling Stock Video Footage.
 

Reading the posts above. I think Doug has a good play of words for the metadata which in turn will bring viewers (buyers) to the video. Even less quality videos (unlike Doug's) will get viewed with the right wording.