Photo credit: Pedro Nogueira
Until now, producing good quality opening titles, station
breaks and incidental footage for your online video channel has
required lots of time consuming work. More often than not, you will
have had to purchase expensive DVD catalogues of stock video footage.
Well now there are an increasing number of online resources
for helping
you find free stock video footage for helping you produce online videos
and channels. Here we will look at 9 of the best.
Watch this new video for example:
Outside of the interest for such a new innovative way of using
the
world blogosphere collaboratively, I am sure you have noticed the nice,
high-quality, video stock footage utilized to create this clip with a
low-budget but with professional results.
Just
like you have seen it happen with digital photos and photo-sharing
sites
there is now an explosion of publicly available video footage that has
no precedents.
Within it, we are starting to see some interesting
new free video stock footage archives that open up a universe of
opportunities for anyone wanting to produce more professionally-looking
video online.
Here is the first hand-picked selection of readily-available
100%
copyright-free online video footage sources online that you can start
using immediately.
Public Domain Video For All Of Your mash up Needs – 9 Legal
Sources
by Michael Pick
“Public Domain Video is out there in
plentiful
supply if you’re willing to have a poke around, which is a
godsend for
those looking to source moving image content free of copyright
restrictions.The emerging medium of the video mash up – remixes
that
re contextualize and re purpose video content – can be a powerful way to
communicate your message. Here is a list of archives jam-packed with
weird and wonderful content you can snip away at and mash together as
you see fit.”
1. iMovies
A blog that features extensive search and syndication options,
along
with a healthy catalogue of free-to-download public domain movies
across a range of genres, featuring classics, cartoons and shorts. You
can download or stream the videos.
2. Openflv
Openflv features a good selection of b-movie trashola fare
which you
can stream or download for the most part via the services it aggregates
(such as Google video). This is a great place to get hold of such
timeless classics as Reefer
Madness and the 1968 delight Voyage to the Planet of
Prehistoric Women.
http://openflv.com/tag?t=Public+Domain
3. Internet Archive
Internet Archive is the lodestone of public domain video, and
there
is a huge selection of video to download or stream in multiple formats
across a range of genres, from advertising and ephemera to features and
old TV shows. This is a treasure trove for the would-be mash-up-meister.
http://www.archive.org/details/movies
4. Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons features plentiful public domain video
content, a
lot of it from amateur sources. You’ll need to be patient
though, the
organization of the content leaves something to be desired.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Video
5. NARA National Archives
The national archive, hosted at Google, have a nice collection
of
historical movies, including lots of great NASA footage for all of
those wonder-space scenes you might want to create.
http://video.google.com/nara.html
6. PDComedy
If you’re looking for comedy footage in the public
domain – think
everything from unintentionally humorous kitsch to cartoons and I Love
Lucy – this should definitely be on your list.
7. Stage6
Stage6, the video sharing platform for high-quality DivX
recordings,
has a nice selection of public domain videos to explore. The quality is
among the best you’ll find, although you may need to install
DivX on
your PC first to watch the movies.
Buster Keaton, Betty Boop and Charlie Chaplin prevail.
http://stage6.divx.com/videos/tag:public+domain/order:length
8. Public Domain Torrent
If you’re familiar with BitTorrent technology, this
site has nearly
a thousand movies in various formats for you to download without
wondering if the MPAA are going to come to your house and flog you with
a law suit. Well worth a look.
http://www.publicdomaintorrents.com/
9. EMOL
EMOL has great selection of public domain video free to
download across a vast range of genres. The highlight for me has to be
David
Hasselhoff’s delightful music video “Jump
in my car” (yes, featuring the inimitable KITT).
http://emol.org/movies/freemovielist.html
Conclusions
There are a lot more sources out there, especially if you are
willing
to stray into Creative Commons waters – but bear in mind that the
popular Non-Commercial license won’t won’t allow
you to use the footage
in any commercial work.
If you want to promote your business, sell
your video, or even run it along web-based advertising, you are
stepping into murky waters.
If you know of any more public domain sources I would love to
hear
about them in the comments – especially those featuring public service
announcements and vintage computing.
Originally written by Michael Pick for Master New Media and published as “Free Video Stock Footage Resources Online“. on August 28th 2007. Some Rights Reserved
