Making a feature film or documentary can take months. Depending on the plot and concept or subject, it requires several elements for effective storytelling. Unless they want to present a mediocre output by the end of production, filmmakers want to make sure every second of the film or documentary is worth the viewers’ time. It’s all about the narrative, and the film is the vehicle for the story. The movement, the scenes, and visual effects must be cohesive and create a continuous flow of clear storytelling.
Some parts of the production may call for stock footage. It’s important to spend time shooting additional footage during principal photography. Most people might not immediately find value on having short clips of water dripping, birds flying, or people passing by, but at some point these elements will find its use during the editing of the video.
Focusing on Difficult Scenes
Stock footage may serve as fill-ins for shots filmmakers can’t do on their own due to budget and time constraints. Buying stock footage from providers like MotionElements will give them high quality clips for the film. Take for instance they want to show that a character in the story flew to another country. The production team don’t actually have to shoot a minute’s worth of footage at the airport of planes landing and departing. They may simply get stock footage from a top provider and inject the material into their production.
Another major example of when stock footage comes in handy is for establishing shots. Let’s assume the scene is set in another country, but most of the action takes place indoors. Why take production to another country when it’s so much easier to imply the shift in setting by showing a clear establishing shot? With stock footage, it’s easy to shoot the film in its entirety in one country, and make it look as if some scenes took place in another.
A library of stock footage will come in handy during post-production. Serious filmmakers and video editors should build a library for future projects even before principal photography. First thing to do is to iron out the locations and start searching for stock footage that will reduce the cost of the production.
MotionElements has a gallery of stock clips filmmakers and video editors may check out to start building their own video library.