GETTING STARTED
KEYWORDING
WHAT SELLS?
My production friends are often skeptical about selling stock footage. When the topic comes up, I usually perk up, I love everything about shooting stock footage and I always love an opportunity to share some of my enthusiasm with friends. My best selling point for getting friends to give stock footage a shot is showing them a few of my top selling clips from iStockphoto.com.
After work one day in the parking lot I sat down in my Audi TT, took 30 seconds to frame up a shot of my shift knob and fired off a stock footage shot of me shifting gears.
On iStockphoto alone this shot has made me $744. (Keep in mind, that I also sell this same clip from 6 other stock footage sites, I'm just too lazy to do the math)
Not a bad supplement to my day's work with minimal effort. Every month that clip still averages 2 downloads or about $30/month, so the amount of money I got paid to shoot that clip goes up as time goes on.
Hypothetically, let's say that clip keeps pace for the next 5 years, at $30/month that would total $2544, for about 5 minutes of work.
People are amazed at how much money a simple shot can make over time. That is the key when you decide whether or not to take a few minutes to shoot some stock footage; look at the sales potential over time.
Shortly after shooting this clip, someone with a narrow view may see that after 3 months I hadn't made a penny and come to the conclusion that shooting stock footage just isn't worth the effort. Don't get discouraged, not every clip you shoot will turn into $744, or an extra $30/month, but some of them will, and over the long run, any time spent working on your stock footage library will pay off big.
Keep shooting, uploading and keywording. It pays off in the end, then it keeps paying, and pays some more.
If you haven't signed up for a stock footage account yet (whether you are a buyer or a seller) get started today and make sure to do it through one of my reference links. I highly recommend starting with Pond5.com
then when you expand, check out shutterstock.com and iStockphoto.com
Happy Shooting!
HDCineman
