Stock Footage Organization

For more information on shooting/selling stock footage check out my other posts:
GETTING STARTED
KEYWORDING
WHAT SELLS?

In this post I want to offer some stock footage organization tips. I can only share what has worked best in my experience, there are probably other ways to do things and ultimately you have to do what works best for you. Even if you start off with a small library of stock footage you will want to have some way of keeping it organized, accessible, and safe.

Organization
A simple database will do wonders for your organization, I use a Google doc spreadsheet because it is free, and I can access it anywhere there is internet. Here is what my doc looks like.

Clip ID - The clip ID# contains the category code followed by 4 numbers to signify which clip number it is. AML-0036 is the 36th clip in my Animals category.

File Name - This is the actual file name I use for the clip that is stored on a hard drive. It is the Clip ID followed by a more descriptive clip name.

Description - This field contains a description of the clip. Whenever I upload a new stock footage clip I copy the description and paste it into this field for each clip. When I decide to upload that same clip to another stock footage site I don't have to re-write the description each time. It is best to keep the description fairly short because some stock footage sites limit the length of the description to 200 characters.

Keywords - I copy keywords into this field. It is best to separate your keywords/phrases by commas. Although it is best to have as many legitimate keywords as you can think of, many sites limit keywords to 50.

The above database fields are the MOST useful for organizing and reusing your stock footage library. I decided to keep a few additional columns of information that I have found useful.

Formats - I keep the video format to describe whether the highest quality clip I have is Standard or High Definition video, and whether it is HD 1080, 720 or if the clip is available in 2K or 4K resolution. I could probably include the codec/compression as well, but I have chose not to so far.

Rating - I give my clips a quick rating on a scale from 1-10. Not every clip you sell has to be AMAZING, if I only posted my 30 most amazing clips I would probably have 1/10th the monthly income from my stock footage library. To be frank, some of my footage embarrasses me as an artist; As a business man, if the clip produces some income then it ads value to the business and has a place in my stock footage library. I still find it useful to keep track of the best clips. I will spend more time keywording/describing those clips, I will use those clips for advertising purposes, or if someone needs a quick sample of my library I will be sure to put my best foot forward.

Storage Location - This will become very important as your library expands. Basically it describes what drive a clip is located on.

Accessibility - You want to have easy access to your footage. I end up using a lot of my own footage for different projects, or sometimes a friend or business acquaintance will ask if I have a specific clip they can purchase. I could just tell them to go on line to iStockphoto/hdcineman and check out my portfolio. But I would rather have 100% of the purchase price, and I certainly don't want to buy my own clip for personal use.

If you can afford a high-end redundant raid drive system... more power to you. That is probably the safest way to store your stock footage library. I try to keep very low overhead with my stock footage business to maximize my profits. I have found that using an ICY Dock and plain ol' sata harddrives is a fantastic, inexpensive system.

Harddrives are cheap and the Icy Dock allows easy access to drives. I buy 2 drives each year a primary drive and a back up. All the footage I shoot/process in a year I put on a drive organized into separate folders based on media type (VIDEO, AUDIO, ILLUSTRATION) and then by category code (AML = Animal, BUS = Business, TRN = Transportation, etc.) I can easily search for clips by opening a category folder and scanning through, or I can use spotlight on my Mac (or search function on PC) to find a specific clip.

An additional tool I have found useful is Adobe Bridge, this was developed more for photography, but it works well for video as well. I don't like the way it keeps keywords, but if you have access to it you may find it useful. I use it when I am up loading footage to a new stock footage site to help manage which clips I have uploaded to which site. If you are uploading via FTP you can drag clips directly from the Bridge window into the FTP program.

Safety - It is important copy all your footage to a second back-up drive incase the primary drive fails. Also, if you're using the yearly drive system, you should plug the primary and back-up drives in periodically and check the media. Then every few years you should move old footage to new drives. The value of your footage will outlast any harddrive.

I know organization isn't as exciting as getting out there and shooting new footage, but when you start to see the earning power of your footage increase tenfold because you are organized you will be glad you took this information to heart.

Happy Shooting!
HDCineman