In the Midst of Phases I and II

See the Electric Tiger Productions YouTube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ElecTigerProductions

Well, well, the maniacal plan is safely underway. I now have significant portfolios in 3 of 4 major stock footage companies. I've just completed a short set of "Dry Ice" effects element videos. These are designed to be a part of another design where smoke, mist, vapor, or fog elements are required. They are all fully HD. The first batch is located here at ClipCanvas. I like posting to this site first as their up-time is short, they accept videos in Apple's ProRes 422 quicktime format (most others require the more generic PhotoJPEG format), they let me set my own price and provide a 60% commission on sales(!!!).

Trials and Tribulations
As I have moved forward, I have definitely seen some favorites and some not-so-favorites. Pond5 has been great: they accept most of what I submit in a short time frame (about 2-3 days), they also let me set my own price, and they are one of the largest footage providers. On the other hand, their CSV system could use some work (it's listed as a test offering) and it would be nice to submit videos as ProRes (processing to PhotoJPEG just adds more work and time).

Shutterstock is good, but they have a detailed approval process. This seems to mirror iStockphoto.com (I'll get to them in a little bit) which has a seemingly endless approval process. I get the distinct impression that Pond5 and ClipCanvas aren't doing as much on the lines of approval whereas other sites like Shutterstock and iStock are doing so much, it takes forever to get footage approved. The strange part is that while these 2 are busy approving all my footage, the other 2 are busy offering it to the public for sale. Both of these sites rely on an approval process which can take upwards of 5-6 weeks! No joke, kids, 5-6 weeks. Many clips will be refused from each batch I send in. I expect it from these 2 now. ClipCanvas and Pond5 will be my favorites. ;)

iStock has been a veritable maverick in the world of royalty free stock photography. Now, Getty bought them a couple years ago. Getty is HUGE. iStock is a small-mid-size company that knows its market. They started offering video footage not too long ago. As it stands, they are literally 5-6 weeks out from submission to approval for what they call non-exclusive contributors. Oddly, iStock doesn't offer very much in the way of commission. They are around 20-30%, they set the pricing, their submission process is clunky to say the least: it's web only and one video at a time which means for a 20 second file at about 200MB, it takes 30 minutes or more to submit one video. Every other firm allows me to upload en masse to the site, then add tags, keywords, descriptions, etc. Needless to say, I'm not likely going to be submitting a whole lot to iStock as they add hours to my workflow.

Now, Getty is a Rights-Managed photo/image/footage firm and they own iStock now. This means they offer you some level of exclusivity on the image within a certain framework. In other words, you are licensing the image or footage from Getty and the artist for a specific time frame and for a specific purpose or ad campaign. RM (rights-managed) are generally a lot more expensive than RF (royalty free) and a lot higher quality, BUT breaking into an RM firm requires years of professional experience and a huge library that one will usually offer exclusively to a place like Getty for either a flat fee (they buy it all from you) or they license it for you (for a considerably higher rate than RF places). Read: you make more money with RM firms and you get your foot in the door with RF sites. After several years of professional photo/video work, you may qualify.

I am using RF sites - this means I need nothing more for credentials than just my work (if you don't like my work, you don't buy it is the philosophy). I like this, it allows an amateur to compete directly with professionals in the field. It means your work must be top notch to really make some $$$. RF also means I can offer my footage through any of the stock video places I want. Simultaneously. Now, I need to market this footage to 4 different places at once. If you have a look at my YouTube page, you can see how I do this: http://www.youtube.com/user/ElecTigerProductions

More
This is a notably tough business work in. I suppose that is true of any field. You need to get a couple lucky breaks ("...luck favors the prepared...") along the way and keep promoting yourself as if you were a market or brand. My next footage goals are to begin working with models. Moving forward, I will be offering actors and models copies of their footage (as a promotional video) in exchange for sitting with me for a couple hours and letting me shoot them in various situations. No, because everyone asks, these will not be adult in nature. I mean, really, do I need to make more porn? There are already countless hours of footage of an adult nature available to seemingly anyone with a web browser. Talk about a saturated market! Now, tasteful nudes? I can do those... (just kidding people, I won't be doing those either).

If you are an actor or actress looking for a good promotional video, I am willing to create one in exchange for your work as a model for stock video! Please send me an email if you are interested: mail me.