Make Videos – Use Royalty-Free Stock Video Clips

In my experience using stock footage clips is helpful in many ways. First of all, it serves to cut your production time simply because it is so much quicker to get hold of some decent royalty free video clips and use these, than making them yourself. Secondly, it serves to reduce your carbon footprint, which is probably not on your mind every day, but still a rather good excuse to use stock videos. Thirdly, it is helpful because you can usually download stock video previews and do the test editing before you decide to make the purchase – which is good both for the creative process and the story-boarding, as well as for communicating with your client. And finally, it is a lot, lot cheaper to buy stock videos for certain segments of your production rather than shooting everything yourself.

In many cases you have to use stock footage, such as when you need historical content or highly unique shots that are ‘one of a kind’ (like the moon landing, the Kennedy assassination or specific natural disasters), or you could have someone animate it, but it would probably not look good in many cases. Apart from using stock footage for historical or unique flair, good uses of stock video clips include use for commercials on TV, information videos, for making transitions from one scene to another – like using an opening stock video shot of Istanbul to place the current scene “somewhere in Istanbul,” to use videos as backgrounds for screens on events, to create videos for the web, to fill gaps in your video where you need a breather – like using a time-lapse of clouds drifting by to create the effect of time passing, or to be able to present actions, content and locations without having to make all the preparations and shots yourself.

Some videographers videos rely solely on buying video footage to make their productions, simply adding graphics and sound, while others rely on stock shots for a specific section. Documentaries and TV-series often rely on the use of stock video, while film productions to a lesser extent use stock footage. In any case, using stock videos makes good sense, and its use will be even more widespread in the years to come.

If you are unfamiliar with the use of stock footage, you should definitely give it a go. You could sign up with a service offering HD stock video clips and download a preview video to do a test edit – this way you get a good feel of the opportunities that are out there, and you can familiarize yourself with the process. Also, by using stock footage you not only save time and money, you also help save the environment, so use stock footage to make videos.