Stock Footage – Adding Realism To Your Work

By Author: Erik Jonason
Total Articles: 34
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Stock footage is getting popular because of the realism that it adds to a story. The article will tell you more about the stock footage, its benefits, and the things that should be kept in mind before purchasing one.

Stock footage is a short video or clip of moving images that is used by directors in movies, documentaries, and video productions. It is a real-time video or image capture of rarest natural events and happenings such as an earthquake, war, animals, or a live event. The impact that a real clip can provide to a story, cannot be provided by anything else.

You must have seen many news channels showing the real footage of some natural disasters or major accidents or videos related to strikes or fights. These videos are known as stock footage.

Let’s take an example to understand what a stock footage is:

While making a documentary on a subject related to natural calamity like volcanic eruption, it is difficult to shoot a scene where it is showing that a volcano is erupting lava from it. This can be done only by adding special effects, which will not provide a real look to the scene. A stock ...
... footage of real volcanic eruption will add more realism to the documentary.

The benefits/advantages of Stock video footage are:
* Stock footage helps in reducing the cost as shooting all the scenes will be quite expensive. But you can easily get the real footage without spending too much.

* It will take days or even weeks to shoot a particular scene in order to show realism in it. But a stock footage will save your precious time.

* Stock footage can also help the directors who do not have any experience in shooting. Students who want to show their projects in schools and colleges can use stock footage, even if they do not know shooting.

The things you should take into consideration while purchasing a stock footage:

* Resolution: Nowadays, there are a countless number of delivery resolutions and formats for stock footage clips like 1080i, 1080p, HD, 720p, SD, and PAL, etc. Always check the resolution of the video you want to purchase and go for the one that you can incorporate in your film.

* Authentic: Authenticity of the video is very important. Always check whether the video is real and authentic. In some cases, a video can be authentic but it doesn't look so due to some disturbances like improper lighting, resolution, and focal length, etc.

* Lighting: Lighting is a major aspect that plays a great role in enhancing the overall look of a stock footage clipping.

* Focal Length: A short focal length will give the image a wider field of view. On the other hand, a longer focal length will compress the image. So, focal length also plays an important role while selecting stock footage.

* Motion: See if the camera movement as well as the motion of the subject is fine or not and select the video accordingly.

There are a few more things that you should not neglect, which include composition, performance, art direction, location, compression and delivery. All these things play a very important role in selecting the stock footage. Besides this, you should also pay attention to the online distributor's credibility and reputation in the market.

The author of this article is associated with MrFootage, a leading online distributor of stock footage.