Sell HD Stock Video

The kind of camera you buy will make or break your ability to start selling Stock Video Footage. On the low end the Canon HV20 is a good HDV Camera to start out with. Be careful... don't get the HV30 or HV40 unless they save to tape. If they save to a Hard Drive or removable media the video quality will be compress too much and stock sites will reject it. If you can afford it... get a Prosumer camera or a professional camera...if you want to be taken seriously in your task of selling HQ Video Footage. Something else to keep in mind is what are you going to shoot. We will discuss this a little later too.

When choosing a video camera at the consumer level find out how it saves the video footage. If it saves the digital footage to removable media using a codec that compresses the footage (ie. H.264, Mpeg) the chances of it being accepted are really slim. The footage really needs to be uncompressed. Which brings us to the Prosumer level. You will have more control over you footage using the exposure, frame rate, shutter speed, Iris and other expert controls available to you on higher end video cameras. White Balance is important too. If you don't white balance your shots... you run the risk of color cast in all your footage and that can be tough to fix in post. Another feature you might want to research is how low can the light be before the camera produces noise. When shooting dark scenes, noise (compression) will show it's ugly head. The more the camera cost, the better it will deal with dark footage scenes. If you can't afford a camera that shoots in low level light... you're better off avoiding shooting dark scenes.

People doing things... in the office, at home, talking on the phone, eating, texting, shopping, surfing, golfing, playing cards.... the list goes on and on. Most stock sites have a resource area for their members that list what is being searched for or what their top selling videos are for that week, month or 3 month period.

Now with that said... it has to be something that people can use. Just because you think it's cool... doesn't mean other people will think so. Obviously don't shoot something Obscene or Graphic. You know what I mean here. Try to think of a way to convey a point or procedure that is unique. The classical business transaction is shown with two business men shaking hands. This shows success and power. It's also been over done and don't bother shooting it your way... because you won't sell very many. Spend more time thinking about what will sell and how to go about making that shot more interesting for buyers. Be unique with your ideas... if you just copy other peoples ideas... you won't get very far.

A good tripod... one with a fluid head, an excellent understanding of all the features on your camera (in other words know your camera inside and out). Read the manual cover to cover. Go out and buy extra supplies like additional camera batteries, a charger, lenses, gaffer tape (like duct tape but without the sticky residue), lights, light stand, reflector kit and a gear bag to carry all this.

Compose each shot on paper before going to your video shoot location, plan out your camera moves with purpose, figure out where you subject will sit/stand/lay and what you want to have happening in the background as well. Check for quality lighting.... is their harsh shadows, hot spots of sun light, reflection in glass windows and painted surfaces, Check the weather forecast for that day. Make sure you look at all aspects of the shot before you even turn on your camera.... you will save yourself a lot of time during the video shoot and during post production of the shoot.

There are several markets out there to sell you video clips on. They pay you a royalty based of several things. How much the video is sold for (Different video format sizes pay different amounts), how much the customer paid for their credits and are you exclusive or non-exclusive to their site. You can make anywhere from $2 up to $60 on some site. Some sites are more popular than other and will get more traffic that others. It a tough choice out there because if you go exclusive, you put all you eggs in one basket. If you go non-exclusive you get a smaller percentage of the sales and have fewer sales. Here are a couple of Stock sites that I am on.

RevoStock.com
Pond5.com
AlwaysHD.com
istockVideo.com
Fotolia.com
Clipcanvas.com
Shutterstock.com

Read you Terms and Conditions carefully and
make sure you are OK with all the inforamtion they are asking for.

Most clips have to be anywhere from 5 seconds to 30 seconds long. Each Stock site will have slightly different requirements so make sure you read those before you sign-up. If your clip is shot well and compressed with the correct codec... then it will be accepted. The wait time for a video to get accepted and on-line vary from one day to 3 months. Once your clip has been uploaded you will have to enter all the wonderful information that describes the video. Let's say you have an awesome clip of a young couple walking in the park. You upload it, enter a title, description, some keywords, up to three categories, format, frame rate, codec used, does it loop, and a price. Again, each Stock web site will have slightly different requirements

Here's what it might look like:

Title: Young couple walking in the park.
Description: A young couple walk hand in hand at central park during a sunset. Camera zooms out as they walk into the forrest.
Keywords: walking, couple, young, sunset, central park, park, evening, camera zoom, zoom out, people, walk, forrest
Category1: people 2: lifestyle 3: outside
Format: HD
Codec: Mpeg
Frame Rate: 29.97 fps
Looping: no
Price: $29.95

After all this has been enter... all you can do is wait to hear back from the web site. Either it gets accepted or rejected. Either way ... the Stock sites will send you an e-mail letting you know the acceptance of the file or the problems that you have to fix before you can re-upload it again.