Pond5.com – Buy or Sell Stock Video Footage and Animated Special Effects
Sometimes a budding filmmaker just doesn’t have access to certain video footage that he really needs and he has no way of getting it easily. If this sounds like you, then browse through the stock video footage available at Pond5.com. You can either do a keyword search for exactly what you are looking for or you can browse by category. Among the categories Pond5.com offers: backgrounds and textures, church and ministry, scenery, sports, and even effects.
If your opus calls for time-lapse photography of clouds moving overhead, but you just aren’t sophisticated enough with your video editing software to know how to do it, then Pond5.com offers a multitude of selections. Another interesting bit of stock video footage is one featuring a meteor rolling through space with a green screen behind it, allowing you to key in any background behind the meteor you want. These examples are merely the tip of a very large iceberg of stock video footage available.
Clearly Pond5.com isn’t just a place that buys footage of people who’ve gone outside and shot some trees. There are many highly sophisticated animated renderings to be found here that inventive and creative filmmakers could find many uses for. Do you need a walking stegosaurus set against a blue screen? Here it is, though be aware that purchasing this particular segment will set you back $200. Still, that’s pretty small potatoes if you don’t have the talent to create an image such as this yourself.
Most of the stock video footage don’t carry such a high price. The minimum price that can be set is $10 for broadcast quality and $5 for multimedia quality. Now for the news of those who want to make money by submitting stock video footage or animated effects. Video footage providers need only submit their footage along following the guidelines. These guidelines include such rules as the clip must be between five and thirty seconds and not bigger than 250mb. If of broadcast quality, the footage has to be submitted as a QuickTime .mov file, but you can convert it from any other kind. For multimedia quality, if the clip has a resolution of 640×480 or lower, you can submit it as an mpeg or mp4 file. If you happen to have a big backload of footage to submit, but don’t have broadband, you may even be able to send your footage in by mail.
As for copyright, anyone who submits stock video footage retains all rights. You will be sharing the royalties in a 50/50 split with Pond5.com. You must also get a signed released form from anyone whose face is shown in the video, unless the footage is to be used strictly for editorial use. You cannot have any copyright music or audio on the clip.
Pond5.com is potentially an exciting way to make a little extra money if you have quality video footage or are a computer graphics artist. Stock video footage is in high demand already and that demand will only continue to grow as the ability to make high quality film gets easier and easier to do at home. People who live far away from certain geographical locations will be looking to stock video footage on the internet to enhance the realism of their videos. In addition, adding special animated effects will become available even to people with no artistic ability whatever. Whether you are looking to become a buyer or seller of stock video footage, Pond5.com looks to be one place to start.
