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MillimeterStock Up: Stock Footage Companies Have an Eye on 2000
Apr 1, 1997 12:00 PM, Cynthia Wisehart
Nothing sells stock footage like the turn of a century. Ours is the first-and probably the last-full century to be steeped in film. The ones that follow will be documented in "media"-not quite the same thing. But for now, film is the abundant legacy of the 20th century and the tangible asset of film archives, collections, and libraries. New postproduction tools make archival footage more usable than ever; contemporary collections slip easily into feature films, commercials, and television movies. With the millennium approaching, stock-it seems-is in style.
"We encourage people to come to us either with concepts or very specific requests," says Richard Cunningham, research department manager at Archive Films, New York. "When advertising people talk concept-which is their language-our challenge is to meet them halfway, to evoke their ideas based on our knowledge of the archive. On the other hand, documentary filmmakers often know exactly what they want, and they want it fast. But when someone requests Louisiana turn of the century, I ask 'is Louisiana crucial? Can it be Mississippi? Is turn of the century important, or could it be 1910?' A big part of the process is to establish boundaries-the clearer the better."
Fifteen-year-old Archive Films is a 20,000-hour supermarket of film and video that spans 1890 to the present. In addition to newsreels, silent films, Hollywood features, industrials, and documentaries, Archive has some 27 special collections, including the Rick Prelinger/Ephemeral Films collection and a collection of Bob Hope films. Among Archive's 15 researchers are specialists in music, sports, and history. "Our researchers are 20th century culturalists," Cunningham says. "They understand this century geographically, politically, and culturally." Visit them at: www. archivefilms.com.
The Image Bank has introduced a new CD-ROM-based search and retrieve system which replaces the old laser disk system. It contains hundreds of thousands of records detailing the Image Bank's vast collection of archival and contemporary footage and images. President Rick Wysocki says the new system will initially be an internal tool, eventually available via the Image Bank's new Web site. The Image Bank's Film Division is headquartered in New York, with 70 offices in over 35 countries. The collection grows through the efforts of the Creative Services production arm, and through aggressive acquisition of everything from the Petrified Films library to modern abstract images. A combination of old and new footage is more important to clients than ever, Wysocki says, as is the availability of both moving and still images. "It suits the way people are thinking and working with the visual vocabulary," Wysocki says. Image Bank also puts out a brochure with a step-by-step walkthrough of the rules and terminology of stock usage and a list of questions to help even first-time licensees learn how to shop for stock.
After 23 years of making and collecting quality contemporary images, Energy Film Library has become, in its own way archival. Of course, Energy clips from the 1970s would seem more historical if the 1970s were not back in style. Energy is best known for modern imagery that integrates smoothly into feature films including Jerry Maguire, and television movies including Volcano, which licensed 19 shots of L.A. lifestyle for the main title sequence. Energy's production division shot 50 hours in 1996; recent acquisitions include wildlife, lifestyle, and industrials, and the USA Today corporate library. Energy's mostly 35mm film-based collection includes "wonderful 16mm," as well, says president Jan Ross. With sales offices in Burbank and New York, Energy is also linked via Sprint Drums to several big clients. "We're excited about broadening our Drums client base with the new Mac and PC versions," Ross says, and adds that Energy is doing a brisk business at: www.energy-digital.com.
Hot Shots/Cool Cuts, New York, has added new representation libraries to its diverse collection of archival and contemporary footage. The newly acquired Gordon Films collection represents one of the larger copyrighted libraries of B films from the 1950s-1970s available. "I stress copyrighted," says Andy Conti, director of sales for the New York-based archive, noting a few tempting titles including The Fiend with No Face and Boris Karloff's Corridors of Blood. Another new acquisition, Northeast Historical Films, includes footage from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts, including one of the largest collections of home movies in the world, dating "to the beginning of film," Conti says. Clients in reality-based programming should appreciate the new American Medical Association video collection.
Hot Shots' sister company, Action Sports Adventure, New York, offers not only footage but production and other services, says president Rob Pavlin. "A good example is a recent series of commercials we produced for ABC. We used contemporary footage we shot, game footage that we represent, and additional footage that we own," Pavlin explains. "We try to distinguish ourselves by focusing on filming world class athletes in 35mm," Pavlin continues, referring to ASA's extensive library. ASA also provides talent-cleared sports footage ranging from tennis to rock climbing, and has bolstered its collection of winter Olympic athletes participating in world-class non-Olympic events.
"Database and Internet tools are great, but they don't replace a researcher that has film and images in his brain," says Joe Lauro, president of the eight-year-old Historic Films, explaining his preference for a more hands-on, boutique-style approach to the stock business. "We only have 10 people working here, and we like to match the researcher to the project. One specializes in off-the-wall stuff, one is a history nut," he says. "I'm a music person. We have absolutely no competition in entertainment footage, we have over 30,000 film performances of rock and roll, pop, and comedy. A new collection from concert promoter John Scher contributes concert films from 1974-1990 of artists including Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, and The Grateful Dead.
The East Hampton, New York, company recently made a reciprocal agreement with Associated Press that will give the archive international offices through the AP bureaus and will bring AP footage into the library. More turn-of-the-century goodies include 25 hours of 100-year-old footage including hand-colored scenes of New York City, the Spanish-American War, and Havana pre-preCastro, when it was just a tropical island. Check it out on the Web at: historicfilms.com.
"We've just spent four years restoring every foot of film and transferring it to D-2," says Matt White, president of WPA, Chicago, adding that this often meant starting from original nitrate negative. WPA has a wide range of images from archival to contemporary. "We are one of the few sources for color material from the '40s, '50s, and '60s," White says. The WPA collection also includes Cuba in the high-living days before Castro, 16mm wildlife from around the world, and cultural geographic images ranging from Digital Betacam footage from the Discovery Channel series Mystic Lands to a pan-and-scan D-2 master of the 70mm Imax film Baraka. WPA's music collection is strong on 1960s performances, and the amateur collections include "tons of footage from people who claim to have been abducted by UFOs," White points out. Just when it seemed there was nothing more to be gleaned from the most infamous day in Dallas history, WPA now offers 4 1/2 hours of never-before-seen footage of the day Kennedy was shot from KTVT-Fort Worth newsman Roy Cooper.
WPA maintains an elaborate Web site at: www.mpimedia.com/wpa, which offers numerous interactive tools for searching and brainstorming. "We've eliminated our rate card as an obstacle to negotiation," White adds. "There are so many new markets, we have to create our contracts more individually."
"One day I'm going to have somebody killed by a stack of film," says Ken Powell, president of Imageways, New York. He's referring to the literal overflow of material Imageways has collected over the past 11 years. Imageways is first and foremost a film collection, with an emphasis on knowledgeable, no-frills service. "Someday I will get around to building a client screening facility," Powell says, "but at the moment we are primarily occupied with collecting film." Imageways' Web site (www.iways.com) reflects the to-the-point service philosophy; it is a fast and useful text-only tool for online searches. A filmmaker himself, with a small staff of similarly educated researchers, Powell says the library has a reputation for oddities and comedy, but ranges from turn of the century archival to contemporary. Imageways footage was integral to the launch of MTV and Nickelodeon, for example. Imageways also shoots 16mm and 35mm and represents a small group of filmmakers.
Streamline Film Archives, New York, has embraced the inevitable and produced a 12-hour reel of "highlights of the century," says president Mark Trost. "We're known for offbeat stuff-'50s films on how to brush your teeth, boxing a kangaroo-goofy stuff that Letterman and Conan O'Brien like," he says of the eclectic collection, which includes archival and contemporary images. "We're also called upon all the time to do very fast turnarounds. It's not unusual to geta call an hour or so before air," he explains, as when Regis and Kathie Lee needed open ocean footage for an 11 a.m. taping. "They called at 10."
Streamline's contemporary footage consists of 35mm work from 24 cinematographers around the world and includes stylized food, time-lapse, wildlife, and Americana among other subjects, as well as 16mm whales and medical video. Streamline is on the Web at: www.streamfilms.com.
ABC News Video Source is celebrating its second anniversary this month. President David Seevers says the facility was built with a focus on client comfort and convenience, with in-house dubbing, film to tape, and screening equipment. In addition to the ever-growing stock of ABC News footage, the library also includes archival news footage from multiple sources, with a particular strength in world leaders of this century. Catalogs are available on CD-ROM with images or text only, and ABC News Video Source can be found on the Web through Footage.net or at: www.abcnewssource.com.
"With things like the re-release of the Star Wars films, we're seeing a lot of demand for old Siskel and Ebert," says Christine Callozzo, manager of stock footage operations of the Windows of the World Archive, Chicago. The brand-new archive was a natural outgrowth of the documentary work of WTTW Chicago, the station that gave the grumpy old film critics their broadcast start. WTTW's most renowned documentaries include the music performance programs Soundstage (1970s and 1980s) and Center Stage (1990s) which feature artists randing from Michael Bolton to k.d. lang, says Ron Nigro, director of new ventures. Soundtracks from Soundstage are also available via the WTTW music library.
Cinenet, Simi Valley, is perhaps best known for 35mm time-altered photography including time-lapse and slo-mo. The nine-year-old collection represents "a tight group of cinematographers throughout the U.S., Europe, Scandinavia, Canada, and Mexico," says library manager Richard Spruiell. Cinenet also maintains an extensive video-mastered collection of 8mm and Super 8 home movies from the 1930s, '40s and '50s. Reach them on the Web at: www.cinenet.com.
The Source Stock Footage Library, Tucson, Arizona, was founded 10 years ago on the work of cinematographer Bill Briggs, who has been making corporate and educational video for 25 years. The Source also represents filmmakers on four continents who shoot 16mm and 35mm destination and time-lapse footage, as well as events including extreme sports. Two researchers work with a database that is organized around concept words says Rob Soler, marketing director. "We find that most of our clients are coming from concept-like 'red' or 'big' or' in-your-face'-so we've built those kind of search tools into our database."
"We're seeing more and more CD-ROM customers," says Diane Davis, stock footage administrator for IVN Communications, a contemporary archive based in San Ramon, California. IVN has award-winning 16mm and video footage of wildlife and natural history, destination images from 80 countries, including famous landmarks, castles, and temples, as well as nature beauty shots. Because IVN also produces documentary programming, "we have long segments on many subjects-enough footage to build a CD-ROM, not just snippets of things," Davis says. Underwater and sports collections are expanding through rep agreements, she adds.
"We don't have Niagara Falls, we don't have earthquakes, we don't have fires; we have severe weather." Martin Liscious is president, producer, director, and photographer at Prairie Pictures, Texas, the largest producer of severe weather documentaries in the world. He and his fellow stormchasers document storms, tornadoes, and lightning on 35mm; hurricanes are shot on video. In 1993, Liscious launched a formal stock footage archive-StormStock-to meet ongoing requests for storm footage. His clients include Honda and Michael Jackson (for his Earth Song video). Producers for the film-shot series Millennium found to their surprise that StormStock's hurricane video footage integrated perfectly into the show, Liscious says. Check out: www.prairiepiectures.com.
Caribbean Images is another stock source built on the unusual work of a cinematographer. Based in the British Virgin Islands, the archive includes 14 years of underwater and nature photography by filmmaker David Mansfield, who has documented everything from the Galapagos Island lizards to seasnakes for clients including Disney, National Geographic, Smithsonian, and the Discovery Channel. Recently Mansfield put together a collection of his Caribbean underwater and topside footage on buy-out CD-ROMs to meet a demand, especially from multimedia clients. He has also released the first in a series of buy-out discs on the Pacific. "It's oriented toward nature, conservation, and ecology issues, not cultural images," Mansfield says of his work, which often captures vanishing splendors-he finished 25 hours of Cozumel reefs the night before Hurricane Hugo decimated the area. "I try to get things that are time-consuming, difficult, and expensive to shoot," Mansfield says, citing as an example the eight hours he spent in the water waiting for squid to mate. "Producers just don't want to send a crew out to wait a week for a gibbon ape to show itself."
"If you were doing a program on the cultural history of the 20th century, you would want to call us," says Stephan Chodorov, manager of the three-year-old archive at Creative Arts Television, Kent, Connecticut. Chodorov says the archive features performances that are "classical and important" rather than current or flashy. "No point in coming to us for Madonna," he says. But if you want Anais Nin reading from her diaries on TV, Creative Arts can help. Other documentaries feature filmmakers Ken Russell, Richard Lester, Alfred Hitchcock, and Orson Welles, as well as programs about more experimental filmmakers including Stan Van der Beek, Alexander Alexeieff, and Oskar Fischinger. The dance collection includes artists from Maurice Bejart to flamenco artist Carmen de Lavallade. There are programs on the history of film and cartooning, profiles of photographers, writers, and painters, and hundreds of hours of dance, theater, architecture, and ethnic arts, all organized on a detailed database.
If it all seems a bit overwhelming, here are at least two places to turn for help. Shari Chertok, president of Re:Search, New York, is just the kind of ally producers need when they have to delegate stock footage research, clearing, and acquisition. Chertok has stock in her blood-her father was president of the Sherman Grindberg Library for years when it was the only game in stock. "Today, with more and more stock resources, it's becoming more confusing for some buyers," she says. "Finding the shot is just one part of the puzzle there are so many clearance issues. Especially because there are a lot of places to find stock now that are not libraries, and that footage may be more complicated to clear." The seven-year-old Re:Search will find, deliver, negotiate, license, and clear footage. "We're project managers," Chertok says, noting that she has performed that service for agencies Messner Vetere, Ammirati Puris Lintas, and Young & Rubicam among others. They performed similar duties for RSA Portfolio/Black Dog on the Janet Jackson video Escapade, for the HBO movie If These Walls Could Talk, and for a documentary on abortion rights called The Roots of Roe.
Second Line Search, New York, is a full-service research and licensing company for jobs large and small, including agency work and research and licensing for two online encyclopedias for World Book and Colliers-both massive undertakings, says president Rick Gell. "Ten years ago there was Greenberg. Now the industry has changed so dramatically, our experience can be a tremendous benefit in negotiating the complexities of stock research and licensing." Second Line has just completed an update of the stock footage bible, Footage 89/91. Footage 97/98 includes 2,000 domestic sources and 1,000 international sources for stock footage. An expanded related services section includes listing for services from legal to archival management to supplies. A new "digital age" section focuses on digitization, compression, digital storage, Internet services, and online delivery, with new sources for digital moving images. An Almanac section features writings from prominent voices including Henry Hampton and Andrea Kalas who will debate issues of the industry. A CD-ROM version is also available. For more information visit www.footagesources.com.
Creative Support Services, Los Angeles : Buyout library with 16 libraries/148 discs including Super Themes, Digital Ditties, and various time-honored music icons from the 1812 Overture (with cannon) to pop and holiday. Catalog provides access to the Tele-trax telephone preview system, says creative director Mike Fuller.
Gene Michael Productions, Buchanan, Michigan: Buyout selection of 53 CDs, with new volumes every quarter including alternative rock, classic piano solos, and other music style specific collections. A few variety discs. "Very energetic corporate/industrial adult jazz and rock is one strength," says marketing representative Becky Feldbush. Preview option allows clients to receive actual discs for preview-"It's a big line of trust between us and our customers, which they appreciate," Feldbush says.
Aircraft Production Libraries, Boston: Eighty-one CD library and growing. Titles include the American Music Series, Ads Up!, and Rock Sweepers and IDs. Annual fee or needle drop. Each CD includes an "instant audition" with 30-second clips from each of the CD selections. The "co-pilot" features splits tracks for assembly and "connecting flights" links to stylistically similar pieces, reports OPS director Lisa Leigh.
Signature Music Library, northwest Indiana: Flexible licensing, including buyout, annual, and needle drop. Practical, 35-CD collection of "well-orchestrated, live played selections geared to everyday media needs. Not too much niche stuff," says president Bill Mullin. After a year and a half of encoding edit points, all selections are ready to be used with Tune Builder software, to create custom length arrangements.
OGM, Los Angeles : Thirty years composing, producing, recording, and publishing music. "You work with the actual creators of the music," says president Ole Georg. Archive collection reflects 30-year history of library. Current library includes 100 themed CDs, all composed in house. Debuting at NAB was OGM's Tune Finder system-some 4,000 10-second soundbites available on CD-ROM or on OGM's12-page Web site at: www.ogmmusic.com.
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