Multimedia
Blogs
Forum
Affordable HD
Whitepapers
Newsletters
Events
Advertisers
Blogcast
MillimeterBroadcast and film professionals discuss HD stock footage.
 Getty Images provides HD stock footage in AVI and QuickTime and MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MJPEG compression. |
Wendy Carter, head librarian for 20
“The associate producers let me know what they want and what format they're ultimately going to be needing, and we kind of go from there,” says Carter. According to Carter, the small number of houses now offering HD limits the network's choices of footage, and sometimes she has to offer the producers choices in film, or ask the stock footage house to commission a shot.
“There's this kind of communal stock deal that goes on,” she says. “So there's no problem with calling people back and saying, ‘Is it possible that maybe you could go shoot this for us in 24p if I hooked you up with the producer and you can talk?’”
Meanwhile, availability of footage in HD is increasing, if slowly. For example, FootageBank (Venice, Calif.) began offering HD in May 2002, Getty Images (Seattle) began converting reels to HD in 1999 and recently updated its website to include access to digitized formats, and FilmDisc (Vista, Calif.) offers 15 HD titles. All three houses are working toward increasing their offerings in HD and look forward to the day when even more productions are shot in HD.
“All of television is moving to HD,” says Paula Lumbard, president of Footage Bank. “The corporate market is exploding in HD, as well as the digital computer market.” FootageBank specializes in high-definition images and employs more than 30 cinematographers to provide HD material, which makes up 80% of its reels.
 Jim Burnworth, president of FilmDisc, asks the obvious question: "Why buy standard def when you can have HD? With HD, you’re building convertible tools." FilmDisc’s offerings— uncompressed 35mm transferred to HD via Spirit Telecine—come on DVD or as QuickTime files. |
Jessica Haberman, producer with PBS creative services would agree about the availability of HD stock footage. She uses the shots to create promos for PBS shows. About 20% of her requests from the stock footage houses are for HD reels. It makes her job much easier if she can match the stock format to the show's originating format, but sometimes it's not possible. “There are certain things they just don't have in HD yet,” Haberman says. “And some people say that you can tell when something's been converted to 35 from 24p. That it just doesn't look right.”
In addition, some directors are reluctant to give up film. “We're seeing much more HD these days, but you're still going to have producers who shoot in 35, or even 16,” Haberman says. “It depends on the affordability of HD and where it's going in the future.”
According to Jennifer Burak, VP, Product Marketing, Film, at Getty Images, the future of HD is bright. There was a 10% increase in demand for HD footage from her company last year and a decrease in requests for film originals. To keep up, Getty is in the process of changing submission requirements for its shooters. She says that filmmakers want to shoot in HD, so in the future more footage will be available in HD formats.
Not everyone is as concerned about matching stocks, and for some who are shooting HD, a film shot can still be the right choice. For Bunim/Murray Productions postproduction supervisor Steve Barnett, the debate between HD and film is moot. When he needed a stock shot of a jellyfish for New Line Cinema's reality movie The Real Cancun, shot in 24p, his first concern was the quality of the shoot. He looked at shots in both negative and 24p.
“We decide on the shot we'll use by the quality of the shot,” says Barnett. “It's content specific. If it's the shot you want, you'll go with whatever form it comes in. It [24p] was a new experience for me as originating medium. Typically, what would happen would be if I found this material, in 35mm originated piece, and the director preferred it to any shot in 24p, they [the stock footage company] would say ‘Well, we have this on IP or we can get you an internegative of it.’ I would then buy that, do a telecine of it, and put it on 24p. So that extra step is a little annoying and certainly adds to the cost.”
Fortunately, Footage Bank had the shot Barnett wanted, and in 24p. “The jellyfish that we ended up buying from her company had been filmed with an HDCAM,” says Barnett. “So for the purpose of this picture, it dropped right in instantly without a problem.”