The images in "Ultimate," a regional Daimler Chrysler campaign out of BBDO Detroit, Troy, Mich., for use in California, Texas, and the Southeastern U.S. markets, are strikingly beautiful: a brown bear on its hind legs, towering redwood trees, cascading Yosemite Falls, rousing cattle stampedes and rugged cowboys.
Surprise: It’s stock footage, supplied by Getty Images, Seattle. According to Jennifer Burak, VP of product marketing/film at Getty Images, BBDO licensed just over 1,000 images during 2002, with the average price per image being $1,086.35.
As recently as 15 years ago, there was a stigma attached to stock footage in commercials. Besides the fact that it was considered of lesser quality, many agency creatives were turned off by the idea of reusing someone else’s material. How original was that? What a difference a decade—and a recession—makes. "We are finding an increase in the use of stock in commercials," reports Phil Bates, president of Myrtle Creek, Ore.-based Artbeats, a provider of royalty-free footage and stills for broadcast, desktop video, multimedia, Internet and 3-D texture mapping.
The Artbeats Digital Film Library includes special effects, scenics, aerials, lifestyles and backgrounds. "More and more ad agencies are accepting royalty-free footage as an option," says Bates. "The technical quality is superior or just as good as original material, and the perception is disappearing that stock is inferior."
Indeed, with tightening budgets, there is an increased demand for top-notch stock footage as a way to save money. "We are definitely seeing an increase in stock usage in commercials across the board," says Burak. "As every customer is asked to deliver more for less, certainly stock footage, if high-quality, is adding production value while saving money. It can be a great solution in tough economic times."
Burak reports that for the Ford "Start Me Up" campaign, out of J. Walter Thompson, Detroit, 22 shots were licensed for Ford, including six product versions. "The overall feeling was to have a ‘forward movement,’ " she explains. "I licensed high-intensity imagery such as runners taking off from starting blocks, time-lapsed footage of traffic, car points-of view [POVs], and clocks. A very hip sky surfer also appears, in addition to a no-nonsense female boxer, [who is] facing the camera. Unlike the usual formula, one of the licensed car POVs (with green streaking lights) is shown repeatedly throughout the spot as an exciting visual reference—it’s used behind the price details."
Many stock suppliers are reporting an explosion in the need for stock, pointing to new venues that must be fed: film, Web design, DVD authoring, interactive TV and game development. "There is a much greater need for first-rate motion footage," says Jacqueline Osland, director of PR and strategic alliances at Veer Visual Elements, Calgary, Canada. "There are background elements in DVD authoring, for instance, such as time lapse clouds going across a sky. Rather than shoot that, they can purchase it. Filmmakers and digital designers can save time and money to work on original content creation [by using] our products as background."
Use of stock also helps level the playing field. "Our largest company base is freelancers, boutique shops and smaller post shops that cannot afford to shoot lifestyle footage," says Bates. "We appeal to them because of our pricing structure and user-licensing program that is royalty free."
"The client base is growing," agrees Paula Lumbard, president of Footage Bank, Venice, Calif. "As everything becomes more visual and motion-oriented—and there are more channels on the airwaves, more kiosks in retail spaces—people have a need for footage. It’s ultimately easier and less expensive to buy a Paris night shot from us than to go to Paris yourself and shoot it. People are less willing to travel because of the costs—budgets are tighter—and the [potential] risks [given world events]."
The ease with which producers and creatives can find stock has also fed its popularity. The Internet in general, and broadband in particular, have made searching for imagery much less time consuming. "Because broadband use is greater, that’s made quite a difference," Osland says. "More people have access to the libraries."
To capitalize on that, most stock companies have significantly improved their Web sites, which allows for better footage access by producers. For instance, Getty Images has reconfigured its Web site, www.gettyimages.com, to make clips more easily accessible and usable. The company has made its film clips on the Web 50 percent larger, and added downloading capabilities with a variety of resolutions. For some of the Getty collections, customers can download final elements in broadcast quality.
The company has also made a significant financial investment in making its film collection accessible by converting more than 68,000 rights-managed clips to digital format, which is in addition to the thousands of clips of royalty-free footage that can be directly downloaded.
Since fast turnaround is essential, such access to catalogs and libraries makes stock more attractive. "All our material is available for immediate download," Bates says. "That’s quite an important thing these days, and we are upgrading [our] collection every month."
Originality
Last month, Artbeats announced the availability of 20 new collections, eight of which are in high definition (HD), including waterfalls, spring flowers, skydiving and cityscapes. Demand has led more and more companies to upgrade and expand their libraries with original material shot specifically for stock purposes. Many operations hire feature and episodic TV DPs to direct footage for stock imagery. While on location for other work, they will also shoot original stock material. For instance, Artbeats has employed award-winning digital effects artist Richard "Doc" Baily, production pilot Ivor Shier, and renowned skydiving cinematographer Norman Kent for several new collections, which are scheduled for release at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) confab, being held in Las Vegas this month.
"Dreamlight" and "Light Waves," two of Artbeats’ latest CG collections, were created by Baily, who used SPORE, proprietary software that features an ultra-high density particle renderer that can construct images containing over one billion particles. The "Freefall!" collection, shot by Kent, features champion skydivers in action.
A great deal of such material is shot in high definition, or at least 16:9 ratio, with an eye to future requirements. The Artbeats library, for instance, includes over 165 titles, 33 of which are high definition. In the last six months, Corbis Motion, New York, has been adding a number of high definition sources, according to Rick Wysocki, VP of Corbis Motion Brands. "All our material is available on high definition," he notes, "and we expect the demand will grow."
Footage Bank, which opened last year, specializes in high-definition footage. "We predominantly shoot in HD," relates Footage Bank’s Lumbard. "My anticipation and experience is that demand is growing. In the past few years, TV has been shifting to 16:9 HD format, so I decided to create stock to fill that need. I saw a big jump from the 2001-2002 season to 2003. Over forty-five shows are shooting in HD; the Discovery Channel started an HD network. A lot of production companies and entities are moving in that direction."
Many footage providers have also begun to convert existing images to HD, and the increase in HD usage and demand can only help stock companies, argue its proponents, since HD is more easily translated across international borders and formats. According to its suppliers, the future of stock has never looked brighter. "We see usage in more applications," says Osland. "With HDTV coming down the pike, there is a need for creating content for use in that medium. It’s expensive to shoot high definition, so the client can defray costs by using stock."
"It used to be that stock footage was archival footage," adds Lumbard. "I think that’s really changed. The term now means material created to cut into a product. Many companies create footage especially for this marketplace. It’s not just a leftovers business anymore."
