Video/Motion
Stock footage provider
Dissolve has announced that it will add royalty-free photography to its creative offering on October 1 of this year. The move comes after two years of steady revenue growth and a burgeoning reputation in the footage-licensing market.
For new readers, or those who may have missed some of what I have written over the last few months, the following are a list of stories worth looking at to get a sense of where the industry is headed.
Today,
Shutterstock reported $104.4 million in revenue for Q2 2015, a 30% increase over Q2 2014. However, they missed their projected revenue estimate by $960,000. Investors were disappointed and the stock that had been trading at $50.75 per share the day before dropped 32.20% to $34.41 before the market closed. The average price per download during the quarter was $2.85 down from $2.87 in the previous quarter, and compared to $2.52 in Q2 2014. There were 35.9 million downloads in the quarter and they paid out about 28% of gross revenue in royalties to contributors.
If you’re a videographer and have been discouraged by low prices and low royalties for your work it’s time to check out
Videoblocks. In April at the National Association of Broadcasters conference the company added a new feature when they launched the Marketplace section of their site. Customers must have an annual subscription in order to access Marketplace. When they choose any of the Marketplace clips they pay an additional $49 if it is HD or $199 for 4K.
If you’re trying to decide whether to get into video, or what to shoot, you may want to take a look at the
Corbis Motion Trends Study. This information should be of great value to anyone producing stock video regardless of whether they license their work through Corbis, or not.
The
Associated Press and British Movietone, one of the world's most comprehensive newsreel archives, are together bringing more than
1 million minutes of digitized film footage to YouTube. Showcasing the moments, people and events that have shaped the world, it will be the largest upload of historical news content on the video-sharing platform to date.
Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of questions from investors trying to assess the stock photo industry growth potential and figure out where Shutterstock, Adobe and Getty Images are headed. In general here is what I’ve been telling them.
Newzulu Limited (ASX: NWZ) is pleased to announce that it has entered a strategic partnership and content syndication agreement (Agreement) with
Alamy. Newzulu’s crowd-sourced news archive will be featured among Alamy’s collection of over 50 million images from which the platform has generated over US$154 million for its contributors in the last 15 years. Newzulu and Alamy will work together to generate revenue through the sale and licensing of Newzulu’s crowd-sourced content to Alamy’s editorial, creative and commercial clients worldwide.
Pond5 has re-launched its free Pond5 plugin for Adobe® Premiere® Pro CC which gives editors instant access to nearly 5 million royalty-free video and audio clips.
Shutterstock, Inc. and
Penske Media Corporation (PMC) have agreed to form an alliance that will create and license entertainment and fashion images and videos to the world’s top media, publishing and creative companies. (Check out PMC
brands and
events.)
Pond5 has announced a partnership with the 48 Hour Film Project, the largest and most dynamic timed film competition in the world.
As the official stock media sponsor for all 135 cities participating in the competition, Pond5 is offering 100 hand-picked audio tracks to contestants for free. All participants will also receive $25 in Pond5 credit.
Pond5, has unveiled auto-tagging technology that they claim is the first of its kind in the stock media industry. Built with artificial intelligence, this pioneering feature automatically generates keywords for each photo and video uploaded to the Pond5 platform.
If you’re interested in stock footage you may want to attend the
ACSIL Footage Expo 2015 in Manhattan next week. The event will take place on Wednesday, April 29, 2015 between 10:30am and 5:15pm at the Midtown Loft & Terrace, 267 Fifth Avenue, (29th Street), New York. NY. Many of the major footage distributors will be exhibiting.
In March we reported that an
ACSIL survey of stock footage distributors concluded that globally $550 million in revenue was generated from the licensing of stock footage in 2014. The 53-question survey was sent to over 400 companies that license stock footage and 90 responded. The following is an executive summary of the results.
Pond5, unveiled two new types of video content today—
Backlots and
Backlots+. Provided by partner
CT Image, these digital backlots allow editors to flawlessly simulate background scenery from 25 of the world’s major cities in their video productions.
Bridgeman Images has acquired
Rue des Archives, the premier French archival photo library, and expanded the company’s range of historic imagery and personalities for licensing. Rue des Archives is an exceptional resource with photography ranging from the cave paintings of Lascaux to 21st century Parisian life.
The third
ACSIL Global Survey of Stock Footage Companies (AGS3) reports a rapidly growing business for companies who have set up dedicated units to market and sell footage. The $550 million global business in 2014 represents a 40% increase in the three years since 2011 when the market was estimated at
$394 million.
Jerry Tavin and Joe Panker launched
Come Alive Images. This site is dedicated to the commercial potential of GIFs—motion graphics, cinemagraphs, animated photography, looping illustrations and animation, 3D stereo photography and photo/video hybrids.
Recently, I asked Geoff Tompkinson to share a little about his 35-year career in stock photography and where he thinks the business is headed. Before reading his story I suggest you take a look at Geoff’s amazing work –
still photography,
timelapse and
hyperlapse -- and then begin reading.
Shutterstock has reported $91.2 million in revenue for Q4 2014, a 34% increase over Q4 2013. There were 33.5 million downloads for the quarter. About 28 percent of revenue for the quarter was paid out to contributors in royalties. The average price per download was $2.68 up from $2.65 in the previous quarter and a 10% increase compared to Q4 2013. There were 46.8 million images in the collection at the end of 2014 plus 2 million video clips. At the end of the quarter the company had 513 employees worldwide.
Image creators always want a higher royalty. How’s
100% of what the customer pays? At Videoblocks Marketplace that’s what contributor will receive when their HD and 4K video clips are used. Too good to be true? Read on.
Pond5 has announced today the launch of the Pond5
Public Domain Project, ( the first library of free public domain content designed specifically for media makers. The initial collection includes 10,000 video clips, 65,000 photos, thousands of sound recordings, and hundreds of 3D models.
Shutterstock has put together a
video tribute to 5 great movie directors -- Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, Alfonso Cuaron and Terrence Malick – using only clips from their collection of stock video footage.
Shutterstock, Inc. has introduced
Sequence, an in-browser editing tool designed to provide an easy way for anyone to create and quickly share videos with colleagues and clients. Sequence allows users to seamlessly integrate their own footage and music with Shutterstock’s collection of more than 2 million high-quality video clips and music tracks to spark inspiration and bring their vision to life.
Footage.net has added a new clipbin sharing capability to its online stock footage search platform. The newly released feature allows users to share clipbins via email, streamlining the review and evaluation of stock footage screening clips and supporting greater collaboration.