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Stock Footage Eases Pressure on Your Production BudgetHow much does it cost to put a crew plus equipment on a plane to anywhere? Lots. How frustrating are ‘travel days’ when everyone gets paid but productivity is zero? Very.
Nothing puts more strain on a tight production budget than having multiple filming locations on the schedule. I’m not a producer (thank the Lord) but I know lots of them, and they all say the same thing. The costs involved with filming can very quickly eat into your profit margin, and as each location is added the pressure mounts.
Crew, kit, travel, insurance, visas, permits, overtime, per diems, accomodation, communication blackouts, diva-like behaviour, traffic, bad weather delays…all are costly. You can budget for much of it up front, but the unexpected so often happens in this business - and the unexpected usually ends up costing a lot of money. Volcanic ash anyone?
If you can avoid a long car journey, a flight, or a trek from the city to the mountains with full crew, it will be well worth it. In many instances you have no alternative and you have to go and film, but it is definitely worth seeing what footage is out there before finalizing your schedule.
Whether you need landscapes, landmarks, wildlife, sports, facial expressions or weather conditions, you can track down full HD clips for around $50, and HDV clips for much less. You can also buy large batches or collections of clips that offer even greater savings, ie for a certain country or a specific subject matter.
A good editor will be able to manipulate the purchased shots (to a degree), enabling you to match it stylistically to the rest of the shots in the production. Any budget you can save by doing this instead of sending out the crew can then be allocated elsewhere.
In terms of having full control, there’s obviously
no substitute for filming everything yourself - and you have no alternative if
the footage you need isn’t available to buy. But any time you spend checking
the stock marketplace, and the cost of the clips you buy versus even a half day
of filming could make a huge impact on your profit margin. And because of the high
quality of material available Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} Carl Suede is a stock footage and photo connoisseur and regular contributor to www.shotspy.com. To contact Carl please email: carl.suede1@yahoo.com Article Tags: Stock Footage, False False Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com
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