Michael Gough's request for footage of Swansea (in another thread) made me think again about stock footage. A quick hunt on the net turns up many commercial sources of material at pretty high prices. There are more modestly priced companies like http://www.pond5.com and a couple that offer free material like http://stockfootageforfree.com
If you just need a hint of a place, time or setting then a few seconds of material off-the-shelf can save hours or days of work and a lot of expense.
Sometimes you can find clever abstract animated backgrounds for text.
I like it for chroma (green screen) fx ... putting an actor in front of a moving image looks much better than putting them in front of a still.
I wondered if you guys might consider it a challenge to shoot some material suitable for such stock footage websites ...
they should include something moving (water/grass/flags/cars)
the camera usually should not move
you should not show people's faces in any mid or close shot where they might be identified
if you have matching sound that is a bonus (e.g. fireworks shows)
You could send them to one of the websites mentioned above and perhaps find your shot of Poddleton Harbour turning up in movies all round the world!
I wasn't suggesting you use stock footage for competitions, Roy, but if it fits, then why not?
You always need to check competition regulations, but UK ones rarely set down rules on this subject. Some other countries set percentages ... e.g. no more than 10% from ...
In this country usually the only requirement is that copyright is cleared. There was a rash for a while of films with clips of newsreel and other material from the Imperial War Museum ... often used bery effectively in documentaries about disused wartime aerodromes and such like.
For my part I reckon it is like using professional music - whether from a royalty-free supplier or not. What matters is whether it fits the film and does not shout out that it comes from elsewhere. No competition I know of demands that you write and play your own music for a film.
Whilst in the old days of film, people who made films in the amateur movement , knew how to use a camera and shoot their own material, it was obvious to even the dimmest that not many people could write or play music, so other people's music was and always has been allowable. Some one mentioned 15%, I wonder if that 15% of professionally edited and filmed section could outshine the rest of the production. I have recently seen in a competition an entry which consisted entirely of still pictures, ancient paintings which obviously could not be the work of the video maker, accompanied by classical music, which sounded great, and the only contribution, apart from setting up the camcorder, made by the video maker was the commentary, and although he wrote it he had someone else speak it. . I just don't understand how the maker can take credit for the end product. Roy
I need some footage of a steelworks working. The Consett steelworks was shut as soon as Margaret Thatcher's government could turn a thriving and profitable factory town into a ghost town.
If only I could find any locals could have filmed anything of the place when I was a schoolboy! Where were our local film-makers back in 1980? Maybe I could try the BBC or ITV to see if they can give me a minute or so of the steelworks. It employed about 4000 people.
Roy - I have some sympathy with your argument, but the problem is how and where to draw a line. You said:
not many people could write or play music, so other people's music was and always has been allowable.
but on those grounds, since few people can act well, surely we should be allowed to pay for actors?
[Pause while I envision specialised firms:
AKM - Actors
Trackline - Troup
Carlin - Company
Motcombe's Men]
By the same token we don't build our own kit - a few dedicated amateurs used to do so in the earliest day of home cine.
And there are various recognised art forms where the contribution of the "artist" is only in what they select and how they assemble it: mash-ups, collages and so on.
The only thing I am sure of is that we should not devise rules which are too restrictive. Baby-on-the-lawn, my-trip-to-Majorca and badgers-at-the-bottom-of-my-garden are fine but there is more to our hobby than those kinds of movie.
I'm currently working on a short film about the QE2 based around the ships return to the Clyde in 2007 on the 40th anniversary of its launch. I filmed the ship arriving at Greenock (involved getting up at 4.30 in the morning to make the one hour drive to be there in time!) plus the days celebrations. The shipyard where the vessel was built is long gone but I was able to film the site plus one of the cranes that has been preserved. I have some 8mm film that I took myself in 1979 of the area round the old Glasgow docks to illustrate the decline of shipping on the Clyde but what I don't have is footage of the QE2 being built or launched. Research has revealed that the Scottish Screen Archive has a short film which would illustrate the building which I'm considering purchasing to incorporate into my film. Personally I think this is legitimate to do, even for competition purposes. It is material that I cannot possibly replicate for myself and I feel that as long as the provenance of the material is made clear and that permission to use it has been obtained there shouldn't be any problem. I think how archive material is incorporated into a movie forms part of the artistic decisions you make when producing a film. By the way does anyone remember years ago in the standard 8 days you used to be able to buy short clips of stock footage? I remember having a shot of a lion jumping over the camera - very useful!
