b-roll humour aside, the good people here at farm fresh films recently conducted a bit of research on the vast array of video stock footage options.
here are the collective results of that research:
farm fresh films looked for the same kind of scene across a wide variety of services, with the same quality of image resolution and the same licensing requirements. we chose a short, royalty-free HD clip to use for web-broadcast as our example.
the list is organized from cheapest to most expensive, but, in terms of aesthetic and narrative, it should also be noted that there is a correlation between low-cost and low-quality (surprise!). also, the prices below are based on current a la carte services.
shutterstock (average price $50.00)
pond5 (average price $55.00)
istock photo (average price $97.50)
getty images – lower end (average price $149.00)
art beats (average price $199.00)
thought equity – lower end (average price $229.00)
getty images – higher end (average price $329.00)
art beats (average price $349.00)
thought equity – higher end (average price $399.00)
national geographic digital motion (average price $700.00)
as a few people have noted, if you have the budget, it can be very helpful to use in-house researchers at the various libraries.
we concluded that thought equity, national geographic, and getty all have really deep libraries and probably present the best options.
thanks for tuning in.
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